m."

The philosophy symbolized by such graduation exercises as we have
described may best be shown by quoting Mr. Washington's own words in
an article entitled, "Industrial Education and the Public Schools,"
which was published in the _Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science_ for September of the year 1913. In this
article Mr. Washington says: "If I were asked what I believe to be
the greatest advance which Negro education has made since emancipation
I should say that it has been in two directions: first, the change
which has taken place among the masses of the Negro people as to what
education really is; and, second, the change that has taken place
among the masses of the white people in the South toward Negro
education itself.

"I can perhaps make clear what I mean by a little explanation: the
Negro learned in slavery to work but he did not learn to respect
labor. On the contrary, the Negro was constantly taught, directly and
indirectly during slavery times, that labor was a curse. It was the
curse of Canaan, he was told, that condemned the black man to be for
all time the slave and servant of the white man. It was the curse of
Canaan that made him for all time 'a hewer of wood and drawer of
water.' The consequence of this teaching was that, when emancipation
came, the Negro thought freedom must, in some way, mean freedom from
labor.

"The Negro had also gained in slavery some general notions in regard
to education. He observed that the people who had education for the
most part belonged to the aristocracy, to the master class, while the
people who had little or no education were usually of the class known
as 'poor whites.' In this way education became associated in his mind
with leisure, with luxury, and freedom from the drudgery of work with
the hands....

"In order to make it possible to put Negro education on a sound and
rational basis it has been necessary to change the opinion of the
masses of the Negro people in regard to education and labor. It has
been necessary to make them see that education, which did not,
directly or indirectly, connect itself with the practical daily
interests of daily life could hardly be called education. It has been
necessary to make the masses of the Negroes see and realize the
necessity and importance of applying what they learned in school to
the common and ordinary things of life; to see that education, far
from being a means of escaping labor, is a me