The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe

by Booker T. Washington; Robert Ezra Park

The Socialists have discovered that the independence of the labouring classes has been undermined as a result of the growth of factories and city life, and believe they have found a remedy.

What the Socialists would actually do in England or elsewhere, provided they should manage to get into power, is difficult to say, because, as my experience in Europe has taught me, there are almost as many kinds of Socialists as there are kinds of people. The real old-fashioned Socialists, those who still look forward to some great social catastrophe which will put an end to the present régime, believe it will then be possible to use the political power of the masses to reorganize society in a way to give every individual an economic opportunity equal to that of every other.

Taking human beings as we find them, I have never been able to see how this was going to be brought about in precisely the way outlined in the Socialist programme. Some individuals will be good for one thing, some for another, and there will always be, I suppose, a certain number who will not be good for anything. As they have different capacities, so they will have different opportunities. Some will want to do one thing and some another, and some individuals and some people, like the Jews for example, will know how to make their disadvantages their opportunities and so get the best of the rest of the world, no matter how things are arranged.

I have referred to the Socialists and the revolution they propose not because I wish to oppose their doctrines, which I confess I do not wholly understand, but because it seemed to me that, as I went through Europe and studied conditions, I could see the evidences of a great, silent revolution already in full progress. And this revolution to which I refer is touching and changing the lives of those who are at the bottom, particularly those in the remote farming communities, from which the lowest class of labourers in the city is constantly recruited.

Let me illustrate what I mean: Under the old system in Europe—the feudal system, or whatever else it may at various times have been called—civilization began at the top. There were a few people who were free. They had all the wealth, the power, and the learning in their hands, or at their command. When anything was done it was because they wished it or because they commanded it. In order to give them this freedom and secure to them this power it was necessary that vast numbers of other people should live in ignorance, without any knowledge of, or share in, any but the petty life of the estate or the community to which they belonged. They were not permitted to move from the spot in which they were born, without the permission of their masters. It was, in their case, almost a crime to think. It was the same system, in a very large degree, as that which existed in the Southern States before the war, with the exception that the serfs in Europe were white, while the slaves in the Southern States were black.

In Europe to-day the great problem to which statesmen are giving their thought and attention is not how to hold the masses of the people down but how to lift them up; to make them more efficient in their labour and give them a more intelligent share and interest in the life of the community and state of which they are a part. Everywhere in Europe the idea is gaining ground and influence that the work of civilization must begin at the bottom instead of at the top.

The great medium for bringing about these changes is the school. In every part of Europe which I visited I was impressed with the multitude of schools of various kinds which are springing up to meet the new demand. The movement began earlier and has gone farther in Denmark than it has elsewhere, and the remarkable development of Danish country life has been the result. What has been accomplished in Denmark, through the medium of the country high schools, and in Germany, through the universities and technical training schools, is being industriously imitated elsewhere.

In England I found that people were saying that the reason why German manufactures had been able to compete so successfully with the English products was because Germany had the advantage of better schools. In Germany I found that the German army, organized in the first instance for the national defence, is now looked upon as a great national school, in which the masses of the people get an education and discipline which, it is claimed, are gradually raising the industrial efficiency of the nation.