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 sent you here.
Washington warns that failing to grow means regressing and not fulfilling the purpose of education.
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More from Booker T. Washington
If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of my people and the bringing about of better relations between your race and mine, I assure you from this day it will mean doubly more.
What is equally important, they are exhibiting a degree of common sense and self-control which is causing better relations to exist between the races, and is causing the Southern white man to learn to believe in the value of educating the…
The more I come into contact with wealthy people, the more I believe that they are growing in the direction of looking upon their money simply as an instrument which God has placed in their hand for doing good with.
In the economy of God there is but one standard by which an individual can succeed—there is but one for a race.