You have more respect for yourselves, and other people have more respect for you, when you get into the habit of polishing your shoes, no matter where you are, but especially when you are at school.
In this quote, Washington highlights the significance of maintaining a polished appearance, especially in educational settings.
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More from Booker T. Washington
Even the most ignorant members of my race on the remote plantations felt in their hearts, with a certainty that admitted of no doubt, that the freedom of the slaves would be the one great result of the war, if the Northern armies conquered.
When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which…
I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.