Notice I do not say merely that I want your teachers--those who are over you--to find you growing more polite; I want you to find yourselves so.
Booker T. Washington
The Public Record
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.
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I want to emphasize the fact that we want you to grow in the direction of character--to grow stronger each day in the matter of character.
If you are not growing in these respects--that is, if you are not going forward--you are going backward, and are not answering the purpose for which this institution was established, are not answering the purpose for which your parents…
I want you to go forward by thoroughness in your work; by being more conscientious in your work; by loving your work more to-day than you did yesterday.
I hope that you are learning, day by day, that all kinds of labour--whether with the mind or with the hand--are honourable, and that people only disgrace themselves by being and keeping in idleness.
I hope you are learning that labour with the hand, in any form whatever, is not disgraceful.
Then you will find yourselves wanting to grow, I hope; will find yourselves learning the dignity of labour, and that no class of people can get up and stay up, can be strong and useful and respected, until they learn that there is no…
I want you to make up your minds that you are going to be more nearly perfect, are going to put more manly and womanly strength into the preparation of your lessons each day, that you may be more useful.
You can grow stronger, or you can grow weaker; you can grow greater, or smaller; but it will be impossible for you to stand still.
There are but two directions in this life in which you can grow; backward or forward.
Not only for your own sake, but for the sake of those who are near and dear to you, those who have done more for you than anybody else, I want you to make up your minds that this year is going to be the best one of your lives.
Each one of you must have had some thoughts about those who are anxious about you, some thought for those persons whose hearts are very often bowed down in anxiety because they fear your school life here will not be successful.