ducational thought. To such an extent is this true that Tuskegee and
Hampton are of quite as great interest to the student of education on
account of the illumination they are giving to educational theory as
they are to those interested practically in the elevation of the Negro
people and in the solution of a serious social problem. May I give
just one illustration of a concrete nature coming under my observation
while at the school, that will indicate the difference between the
work of the school and that which was typical under old conditions, or
is yet typical where the newer ideas, as so well grasped by Mr.
Washington, are not accepted? In a class in English composition two
boys, among others, had placed their written work upon the board, one
having written upon 'Honor' in the most stilted language, with various
historical references which meant nothing to himself or to his
classmates--the whole paragraph evidently being drawn from some
outside source; the other wrote upon 'My Trade--Blacksmithing'--and
told in a simple and direct way of his day's work, the nature of the
general course of training, and the use he expected to make of his
training when completed. No better contrast could be found between the
old ideas of formal language work, dominated by books and cast into
forms not understood or at least not natural to the youth, and the
newer ideas of simplicity, directness, and forcefulness in presenting
the account of one's own experience. Not only was this contrast an
illustration of the ideal of the entire education offered at Tuskegee
in opposition to that of the old, formal, 'literary' education as
imposed upon the colored race, but it gave in a nutshell a concept of
the new education. This one experience drawn from the life of the boy
and related directly to his life's duration and circumstances was
education in the truest sense; the other was not save as Mr.
Washington made it so in its failure...."

Among the delegates was also Mr. A.L. Rafter, the Assistant
Superintendent of Schools of Boston, who in speaking at Tuskegee said:
"What Tuskegee is doing for you we are going to take on home to the
North. You are doing what we are talking about." In general, these
foremost educational experts of the dominant race looked to Booker
Washington and Tuskegee for leadership instead of expecting him or his
school to follow them.

Booker Washington not only practised at Tuskegee this close relation
between school l