nship,
and popular enlightenment in his chosen field of labour in the South
entitles him to rank with our national benefactors. The university which
can claim him on its list of sons, whether in regular course or honoris
causa, may be proud.

It has been mentioned that Mr. Washington is the first of his race
to receive an honorary degree from a New England university. This, in
itself, is a distinction. But the degree was not conferred because Mr.
Washington is a coloured man, or because he was born in slavery, but
because he has shown, by his work for the elevation of the people of the
Black Belt of the South, a genius and a broad humanity which count for
greatness in any man, whether his skin be white or black.

Another Boston paper said:--

It is Harvard which, first among New England colleges, confers an
honorary degree upon a black man. No one who has followed the history of
Tuskegee and its work can fail to admire the courage, persistence, and
splendid common sense of Booker T. Washington.

Well may Harvard honour the ex-slave, the value of whose services, alike
to his race and country, only the future can estimate.

The correspondent of the New York Times wrote:--

All the speeches were enthusiastically received, but the coloured man
carried off the oratorical honours, and the applause which broke out
when he had finished was vociferous and long-continued.

Soon after I began work at Tuskegee I formed a resolution, in the secret
of my heart, that I would try to build up a school that would be of
so much service to the country that the President of the United States
would one day come to see it. This was, I confess, rather a bold
resolution, and for a number of years I kept it hidden in my own
thoughts, not daring to share it with any one.

In November, 1897, I made the first move in this direction, and that was
in securing a visit from a member of President McKinley's Cabinet,
the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. He came to deliver
an address at the formal opening of the Slater-Armstrong Agricultural
Building, our first large building to be used for the purpose of giving
training to our students in agriculture and kindred branches.

In the fall of 1898 I heard that President McKinley was likely to visit
Atlanta, Georgia, for the purpose of taking part in the Peace Jubilee
exercises to be held there to commemorate the successful close of the
Spanish-American war. At this time I had been