Page:The New Negro.pdf/372

326 rooms. These were the problems they figured out and then he talked of conditions as they had just left them at home. He went out to visit their parents. He went into their homes, into their churches, into their school-houses; having found the better way of life himself he carried his vision to his people, inspiring them to have things better for themselves and for their children and to win those things by their own industry and worth.

These two institutions have thus become vastly more than the conventional schools. They have their class-room work as do others, they study books, they write essays and deliver orations, but there is a character and a quality to it all that is unique. That is to say, that was unique, for the idea has spread abroad, and though Hampton and Tuskegee are unique exemplars of this larger conception and interpretation of education, yet the idea which they have developed has been appropriated by others. Not only those that style themselves industrial schools, but colleges also are grasping the importance of making their instruction touch life beyond the college walls, thus making their institutions centers of inspiration and elevation for that larger clientele which includes the households from which the students come and communities to which they go for service.

The influence of this gospel of larger and better living has not been without its effect upon the Negro race as a whole. These institutions have maintained specific agencies for reaching out into the body of the Negro race-farmers' conferences, educational tours, extension departments in all of their ramifications, are an essential part of the work of Hampton and Tuskegee. While the boys and girls were being taught in the class-rooms, the fathers and mothers were being reached in the field and in the home; education was carried to them in simple direct terms made plain by demonstrations, with witnesses to testify how the plan had worked with them. The effect was as inspiring as a revival.

Booker Washington made a religion out of life for his people and few indeed were those who heard one of his talks who came away without getting this kind of religion. Every-