P-'- Iv T-. 6R ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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AN INTERPRETATIVE AND EVALUATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE DEALING WITH THE PHILOSOPHY, TECHNIQUES, AND APPROACHES EMPLOYED BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, ATLANTA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY EPHRAIM MADISON HENRY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ATLANTA UNIVERSITY AUGUST, 1950 P-'- iv T-. 6R ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements and appreciations are herewith expressed: to Dr. J. Max Bond, Director of the School of Education, Atlanta University, who served as my advisor during the initial stages of this study; to Dr. Laurence E. Boyd, of the Departments of Education of Morris Brown College and Atlanta University, who served as my advisor during the final stages of this study; and to Mr. Benjamin F. Bullock, of the School of Education, Atlanta University, who served as my co-advisor in the final stages of the study. To My Wife Indiana S. Henry iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 Statement of Problem. 1 Introductory Statement 1 Purpose of Study 1 Scope of Study 1 Source of Data 1 Method of Study 2 Method of Procedure 2 Previous Studies 2 Value of Study $ II. PRESENTATION OF DATA 6 A. Background 6 Introductory Statement 6 Economic Factors 6 Social Factors 9 Political Factors 11 Intellectual Factors 12 B. Interpretation and Evaluation 13 Introductory Statement 13 The Search for Curriculum Content llj. Student Selection ; lit Co-operative Construction of Plant 1$ Community Relationships 16 Introduction of Industries at Tuskegee. 17 What Educational Program for Negroes? 20 Booker T. Washington’s Philosophy of Education 21 The Crucial Hour of Test 23 Dramatizing the Educational Program 2b Misdirection of Negro Ambition........... 26 Outside Contacts 26 Socio-Economic Theories 29 Diplomacy in the North 30 Fund Raising 30 Mass Education Techniques 32 Trustee Board Reorganization 33 Resolution of Conflicting Approaches. 33 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUED) Chapter Page Creation of Psychologic Climate at Tuskegee 38 Spirit During Last Hours lj.0 Epilogue J|i Evaluation 1|1 Special Honors. 55 Visible Aspects of Progress Today 59 III. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 52 Summary. 52 Conclusions 55 BIBLIOGRAPHY 56 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Statement of Problem.— This study is concerned with giving an interpretative and evaluative analysis of the literature dealing with the philosophy, techniques, and approaches employed by Booker T. Washington as he grew in stature from the obscurity of an average school teacher to the eminence of an international thinker and educator. Introductory Statement.— The writer, a student and graduate of Tuskegee Institute, has through the years developed an interest in the work of Booker T. Washington. Since education seems to be moving in the direction in which Booker T. Washington pioneered, an interpretation and an evaluation at this stage seem plausible. Purpose of Study.— The purpose of the study is to analyze and de¬ fine the philosophy, techniques, and approaches of Booker T. Washington^ to interpret or explain that philosophy, those techniques, and those approachesj and to evaluate or appraise that philosophy, those techniques, and those approaches in the light of present trends. Scope of Study.— The study includes considerations of the philosophy, techniques, and approaches of Booker T. Washington as revealed in books, school records, press releases, letters, and addresses based upon his life * s work. Source of Data.— The data for this study have been gathered through 1 2 an examination, analysis, and interpretation of books, records, and periodicals based upon the life and work of Booker T. Washington. Method of Study.— This study has been carried out by using the historical method generally; however, the specific techniques of analysis, intepretation, and evaluation have been employed throughout its development to give color and meaning to the story. Method of Procedure.— The data for this study were gathered according to an outline of extensive and intensive readings, for which annotated bibliographical cards were made. These bibliographical cards were prepared and indexed according to the outline of the thesis. The writing-up of the data consisted in giving coherence, unity, and con¬ tinuity to the data revealed by the cards. Previous Studies.— The writer admits his inability to find any publication of the nature of this thesis. However, there have been many publications based upon the life and work of Booker T. Washington. There¬ fore, the writer would like to mention a few. Possibly the most authentic publication about Booker T. Washington up to 1918, was the book titled Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. The book was written by Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe. Scott had served as confidential secretary to Booker T. Washing¬ ton for eighteen years. Stowe was a writer of renown and the grandson of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Booker T. Washington had selected these two men to write the book and the task was really begun before his death. There is emphasis, then upon the fact that the men selected to do the job were well qualified. An account follows: 3 This is not a biography in the ordinary sense. The exhaus¬ tive "Life and Letters of Booker T. Washington" remains still to be compiled. In this most modest work we have simply sought to present and interpret the chief phases of the life of this man who rose from a slave boy to be the leader of ten millions of people and to take his place for all time among America's great men. In fact, we have not touched upon his childhood, early training, and education, because we felt that the story of those early struggles and privations had been ultimately well told in his own words in "Up from Slavery." This autobiography, however, published as it was fifteen years before his death, brings the story of his life only to the threshold of his greatest achieve¬ ments. In this book we seek to give the full fruition of his life's work.... We take no small satisfaction in the fact that we were personally selected by Booker Washington himself for this task. He considered us qualified to produce what he wanted; namely, a record of his struggles and achievements at once accurate and readable, put in permanent form for the information of the public. He believed that such a record could best be furnished by his confidential associate, working in collaboration with a trained and experienced writer, sympathetically interested in the welfare of the Negro race. This, then, is what we have tried to do and the way we have tried to do it.^ Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes, Canon of Washington Cathedral, wrote in 1936 a small volume titled "A Brief Biography of Booker T. Washington," which has some value. An account follows: The purpose of this volume is to supply in brief form a sketch of the life and work of Booker T. Washington based on authentic sources. Studies I made in connection with preparing the historical address at the Fiftieth Anniversary of Tuskegee, published under the title "Tuskegee Institute—The First Fifty Years," and the writing of a sketch of his life for the "Dic¬ tionary of American Biography," led me to ever-increasing appreciation of the significance of his work and teachings for the Nation.... It seems strange that no definitive biography of Booker Washington has ever been published, in spite of the useful volume written shortly after his death by his Secretary, Mr. Emmett J. 1 Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe, Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization (Garden City, 1918), pp. 7-8. 4 Scott, and Mr. Lyman Beecher Stowe. It was too early then, and it is perhaps still too early for an adequate appraisal. A scholarly and adequate "life11 still represents an important gap in the history not only of the American Negro but of educa¬ tion and race relations in the United States.1 The most recent book written about Booker T. Washington was published in 19i+8, having been written by Basil J. Matthews. The author attempted to write a biography and an appraisal of Booker T. Washington, based on the original sources and interviews of people who knew Booker T. Washing¬ ton. An account of Matthews' appraisal followsî Washington's practical intuitive mind did not deal in abstract analysis of forces. As a wise creative reformer, he did not merely denounce evil from without j he deliberately set himself to develop in the new generation of loyalty to new values. Essentially the distinction between an average mediocre teacher and a great educa¬ tor lies just there. The pedestrian pedagogue sees books, class- periods, essays, and examinations as an aparatus shaped for graduating students equipped for success in earning a living in a competitive world: the creative teacher, captured by the love of excellences deliberately shapes the use of the same tools to inspire persons with the quality of life that makes a better society. This is essentially what Booker Washington set out to do, and in face of as formidable a resistence by active hostility on the one hand and of sluggish torpor on the other, as ever con¬ fronted any educator.2 There are a few things on which all biographers of Booker T. Washington have agreed. They have all agreed that the life and work of Booker T. Washington should be set down in permanent form for the benefit of the present and the future generations. They have all agreed that there was really something about which to write with respect to Booker T. Washington. They have all agreed that Booker T. Washington was one of , "^Anson Phelps Stokee, A Brief Biography of Booker Washington (Hampton, 193o), pp, 5-6.