est, and at the
same time make one appreciate the vitalizing, strengthening influence of
the other. How shall we make the mansion on yon Beacon Street feel
and see the need of the spirits in the lowliest cabin in Alabama
cotton-fields or Louisiana sugar-bottoms? This problem Harvard
University is solving, not by bringing itself down, but by bringing the
masses up.

* * * * *

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. In the economy of God
there is but one standard by which an individual can succeed--there is
but one for a race. This country demands that every race shall measure
itself by the American standard. By it a race must rise or fall, succeed
or fail, and in the last analysis mere sentiment counts for little.

During the next half-century and more, my race must continue passing
through the severe American crucible. We are to be tested in our
patience, our forbearance, our perseverance, our power to endure wrong,
to withstand temptations, to economize, to acquire and use skill; in our
ability to compete, to succeed in commerce, to disregard the superficial
for the real, the appearance for the substance, to be great and yet
small, learned and yet simple, high and yet the servant of all.

As this was the first time that a New England university had conferred
an honorary degree upon a Negro, it was the occasion of much newspaper
comment throughout the country. A correspondent of a New York Paper
said:--

When the name of Booker T. Washington was called, and he arose to
acknowledge and accept, there was such an outburst of applause as
greeted no other name except that of the popular soldier patriot,
General Miles. The applause was not studied and stiff, sympathetic and
condoling; it was enthusiasm and admiration. Every part of the audience
from pit to gallery joined in, and a glow covered the cheeks of those
around me, proving sincere appreciation of the rising struggle of an
ex-slave and the work he has accomplished for his race.

A Boston paper said, editorially:--

In conferring the honorary degree of Master of Arts upon the Principal
of Tuskegee Institute, Harvard University has honoured itself as well
as the object of this distinction. The work which Professor Booker T.
Washington has accomplished for the education, good citize