Page:Boys Life of Booker T. Washington.djvu/99

Rh first time in the history of America that a college or university of such high standing had ever conferred an honorary degree upon a negro. Washington says this honor was the greatest surprise of his life. At the time the ceremony of conferring this degree took place, he made a speech that won great applause from the audience.

It is very interesting to read Washington's own account of his experiences. "People often ask me," he says, "if I feel nervous before speaking, or else suggest that, since I speak so o tenoften [sic], they suppose I get used to it. In answer to this question I have to say that I always suffer intensely from nervousness before speaking. More than once, just before I was to make an impor antimportant [sic] address, this nervous strain has been so great that I have resolved never again to speak in public. I not only feel nervous before speaking, but after I have finished I usually feel a sense of regret, because it seems to me as if I had left out of my address the best thing that I had meant to say. . . . Nothing tends to throw me off my balance so quickly, when I am speaking, as to have some one leave the room. To prevent this, I make up my mind, as a rule, that I will try to make my address so interesting, will try to state so many interest nginteresting [sic] facts one after another, that no one will leave."

Washington made it a rule never to say anything to a Northern audience that he would not