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FRIDAY
GALLES |
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Booker T. Washington
by Gary
M. Galles [author,
academic] 2/16/07 |
One of the most difficult lessons for parents to teach their children is the need for them to take responsibility for their own lives, if they are to make the most of them. They resist such self-improvement, because, as with every real success, it involves hard work and sacrifice, and they are engulfed in a tide of influences flowing in the opposite direction.
Contributor
Gary M. Galles
Mr.
Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine
University. [go to Galles index] |
If you are engaged in this struggle with your children, you might turn to Booker T. Washington for an inspiration, especially during Black History Month.
Born a slave, Washington was seven when the Emancipation Proclamation was announced. At 11, he got himself his first book and taught himself to read. He thought to “get into a schoolhouse and study...would be about the same as getting into paradise.” At 16, he went 500 miles to Hampton Institute with only $1.50 in his pocket. He attended classes by day and worked nights for room and board. Later, in 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute, which he led for years.
Washington was a tireless advocate of self-improvement. He emphasized individual responsibility, the dignity of work, and the need for moral character as the best means to succeed. He encouraged business, industry and entrepreneurship (as in forming the National Negro Business League), recognizing that those who serve others best will benefit themselves by doing so. And his words are as true, and useful, as when he lived.
“I have never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed. I have always had high regard for the man who could tell me how to succeed.”
“Each one should remember there is a chance for him.”
“...no one can degrade us except ourselves...”
“Slavery presented a problem of destruction; freedom presents one of construction.”
“…we shall make a fatal error if we yield to the temptation of believing that mere opposition to our wrongs…will take the place of progressive, constructive action, which must constitute the bedrock of all true civilization…”
“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”
“Nor shall we permit our grievances overshadow our opportunities.”
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.”
“Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.”
“Character, not circumstances, make the man.”
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.”
“I believe that any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day...”
“Success in life is founded upon attention to...the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.”
“...along with the elements of industry there has got to go one other element, and that is the element of intelligence, the element of education.”
“...it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts.”
“No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is left long without proper reward.”
“The individual who can do something that the world wants will, in the end, make his way...”
Booker T. Washington’s life, character, and actions are all inspirational. His emphasis on self-improvement is an important part of what we still need to pass on to each of our children today, if they are to have the kind of future we hope for them and their children. Of course, we will have to apply that principle to ourselves first, if our actions are not to speak too loudly for them to hear our words. CRO
copyright
2007 Gary M. Galles
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