Page:Boys Life of Booker T. Washington.djvu/134

 CHAPTER XIV

VISITS TO EUROPE

was a great traveler. He was away from his home at least half of each year and often more than that. He traveled principally in the North, making speeches and interviewing people who might help Tuskegee. While on these trips, he did most of his reading and writing. He was very fond of newspapers and magazines. When he started on a long journey, he surrounded himself with a large number of papers and magazines and books, which he thoroughly enjoyed. History was his favorite field of reading outside of newspapers and magazines. He was especially fond of biography—of reading about real men, men of action and thought and great talents. Much of his greatest inspiration as a boy came from reading the lives of great men. Lincoln was his greatest hero. He said that he had read practically every recorded word of Lincoln's.

Washington also did much of his writing on these trips. He kept his stenographer with him all the time, and, when he was not reading, he was usually dictating a speech, or a letter, or an article for a magazine. A large part of his greatest book, "Up from Slavery," was written while he was on