Latest / Boys Life of Booker T. Washington / 07 - Boys Life of Booker T. Washington by Walter Clinton Jackson

Transcript

07 - Boys Life of Booker T. Washington by Walter Clinton Jackson · Boys Life of Booker T. Washington

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter six of A Boy's Life of Booker T. Washington.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Paul Bryan Stewart. A
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Boy's Life of Booker T. Washington by W. C. Jackson,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Chapter six, Back at Hampton. There is an old saying
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: that opportunity knocks, but once upon our door. This is
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: not true. Opportunities will certainly continue to come to us.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: The important thing is to be ready for them when
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: they come. We never know what incident may turn out
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to be our greatest opportunity. If we will do our
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: best to meet every situation that confronts us, we may
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: be sure that there will be plenty of opportunities for us.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: It is the boy that does not do his best
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: on all occasions that lose us out. Sir Washington, when
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: invited to speak at Hampton Commencement, worked hard for three
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: months preparing that speech. When the time came, he did
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: his very best. Then he forgot the matter and went home.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Just a few days after he got home, he had
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a great surprise. There came a letter to him from
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: General Armstrong. It said, we need you here at Hampton,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: who wants you to come and help us run the school.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: That was a very happy moment in the life of Washington.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: He thought more of General Armstrong than any other man
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: in the world. To be asked by this man to
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: come and work for him and made Washington an exceedingly
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: happy man. He immediately wrote that he would accept the position.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Some weeks later he reached Hampton ready to enter upon
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: his new duties. His job was a rather peculiar one.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: The Indians in the United States, who had been put
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: upon certain territories out west after being taken from their
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: land in the South and Southwest, had no system of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: education and were entirely without schools of any kind. General
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Armstrong wanted to help them. He said he believed that
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: they could be educated, and he wanted to try it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: The government of the United States gave its consent and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: agreed to cooperate with them. They brought from the West
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: to Hampton about one hundred Indian boys to be educated.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: These boys were very ignorant. Booker Washington says that they
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: were almost wild. Washington's task was to live in the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: same building with these Indian boys and look after them,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to be a sort of house father to them. He
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: had a hard job. The Indians are a very proud people.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: They felt themselves superior to the white race as well
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: as to the black race. They had a special dislike
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: for the Negro because he had been a slave, and
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the Indians would not be slaves. They preferred death to slavery.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: These boys were not only very ignorant, but it was
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: very hard to make them understand as they did not
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: know the English language well. The more everybody expected them
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to fail. We usually do just about what people expect
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: of us. If they think we are going to succeed,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it helps us to succeed. If they think we are
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: going to fail, it makes attainment of success harder for us.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Booker Washington said, I will succeed. I will show these
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: people that these Indians can be educated. So for an
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: entire year he worked with them. He soon won their
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: confidence in respect. That they all liked him was evident,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: for they did everything they could to satisfy him please them.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: He found them ready to work hard and intelligent enough
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to be taught. They learned the different kinds of trades
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: just asbout as well as the Negroes did. At the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: end of the year, everybody was willing to admit that
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Washington had made a success of teaching the Indians. Ever
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: since then, Indians have been going to Hampton, and many
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: of them are students there today. Washington says his hardest
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: task was to get them to get give up some
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of their old habits and customs. They did not want
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to part with their long hair. They did not want
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: to quit wearing blankets or quit smoking. However, since these
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: customs were not customs at Hampton, they all agreed to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: do as the others did. There. Now came another very
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: important work for Washington. After he had worked with the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Indians for a year, General Armstrong said, I have another
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: hard job for you. Show it to me. Washington replied,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: A great many people who did not have any money
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: were trying to end to Hampton. They were as poor
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: as Washington was when he entered. General Armstrong did not
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: want to turn them away. He finally determined that he
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: would arrange it so these people could work all day
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: at some trade or other line of work and thus
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: pay their living expenses and have something left over to
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: go into the Treasurer's office to their account. They had
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: to work ten hours a day to do this, and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: then they went to school two hours at night. After
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: a year or two, they would have enough money he
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: saved up from their work to enable them to enter
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: this day school. This plan proved to be a very
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: fine one, and many of the best students from Hampton
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: began in the night school. It was this night school
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: that General Armstrong wanted Washington to teach. He took charge
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of it and made a great success of it. There
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: were about twelve in the class to begin with. The
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: boys worked in the saw mill in the daytime, and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the girls in the laundry. They were such good workers
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: that he named them the Plucky Class. After a boy
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: or girl had been in this class long enough to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: show that he or she meant business and was going
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to stick to the job, Washington would give a certificate
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that read as follows. This is to certify that James
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Smith is a member of the Plucky Class of the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Hampton Institute and is good and regular standing. The students
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: were very proud of their certificates. It was not long
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: before everybody at Hampton was talking about the Plucky Class.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: In a little while, there were twenty five in the group.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: The number kept on growing the next year, and in
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a few years the class had several hundred members. It
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: is a big part of Hampton and Tuskegee to day,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: for Washington used the same idea at Tuskegee. Washington had
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a way of succeeding in everything he undertook. This was
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: because he determined to succeed and worked so hard him
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: so well that success was certain. End of Chapter six