ks, or the most of them, were always trying to dispute with
Mr. Washington and quarrel with him, but he just kept his mouth shut
and went ahead. He kept pleasant and he wouldn't dispute with them,
nor argue with them, nor quarrel with them. When the white folks would
come round and tell him he was 'spoiling good niggers by education,'
he would just ask them to wait patiently and give him time to show
them what the right kind of education would do. And when the colored
preachers would come round and tell him he was no Christian, and his
school had no religion, he would ask them to just wait and see if the
boys and girls were any less Christian because of the education they
were getting. But whoever came along and whatever happened Mr.
Washington just kept his mouth shut and went ahead.

"After two years of school I went out and rented some land and planted
cotton, and just about time to harvest my crop Mr. Washington sent for
me one Saturday and said: 'I need you. I want you to come back and
work for the school on the farm. I want you to start in Monday
morning.' When I told him about my cotton crop just ready to be picked
he said: 'Can't help that, we need you. You'll have to arrange with
your neighbors to harvest your crop for you.'"

To the inquiry, "Well, did you come?" the old man replied, "Of course
I did. When Mr. Washington said come I came same as everybody did what
he told them. I got a neighbor to harvest my crop and I lost money on
it, but I came to work that Monday morning more than thirty years ago,
and I've been here ever since."

The idea of not doing what Mr. Washington wanted him to do, or even
arguing the matter, was evidently inconceivable to this old man. He
had always obeyed Mr. Washington just as he had obeyed the laws of
nature by sleeping and eating. That is the kind of control which
Booker Washington always exercised over his fellow-workers. He
accepted their implicit obedience as naturally and simply as they gave
it.

As Mr. Page also points out in the introduction to "Up from Slavery,"
however humble Mr. Washington's origin may have been, what might be
termed his intellectual pedigree was of the highest and finest. He may
be called, in fact, the spiritual grandson of the great Dr. Mark
Hopkins of Williams College. Just as Samuel Armstrong was perhaps the
most receptive of Mark Hopkins' pupils, so Booker Washington became
the most receptive pupil of Samuel Armstrong. As says Mr. Page: "To