We also want you to learn to be absolutely honest in all your dealings with other people's property. We may just as well speak plainly and emphatically. One of our worst sins, one of our weaknesses, is that of not being able to handle other people's property and be honest with it. You should learn to be absolutely honest with the property of your room-mates, school-mates and teachers. Make up your minds that nothing is going to tempt you from the path of absolute honesty. There is no man or woman who begins with meddling with other people's property and affairs, who begins to learn to take that which does not belong to him or her, who is not beginning in a downward path ending in misery, sorrow and disappointment. Make up your minds that you are going to be absolutely honest and truthful in all cases. There is no way to get happiness out of life, there is no way to get satisfaction out of your school career, except by following the lessons that I have here tried to emphasize.
When we speak of honesty, the first thought may be that the word applies only to the taking of property that does not belong to us, but this is not so. It is possible for a person to be dishonest by taking time or energy that belongs to someone else, just as much as tangible property. In going into a class-room, office, store or shop, one man may ask himself the question: "How little can I do to-day and still get through the day?" Another man will have constantly before him the question: "How much can I put into this hour or this day?" Now we expect every student who goes out from Tuskegee to be, not the man who tries to see how little he can do, or the average man who proposes to do merely his duty, but the man above the average, who will do more than his duty. And you will disappoint us unless you are above the average man, unless you go out from here with the determination that you are going to perform more than your duty.
I like to see young men or young women who, if employed in any capacity, no matter how small or unimportant that capacity may be, if the hour is eight o'clock at which they must come to work, I like to see them at work ten or fifteen minutes before that hour. I like to see a man or woman who, if the closing hour is five o'clock or six o'clock, goes to the person in charge and says: "Shall I not stay longer? Is there not something else I ought to do before I go?" Put your whole souls into whatever you attempt to do. That is honesty.
Another thing you should learn this year is to get into touch with the best people there are in the world. You should learn to associate with the best students in the institution. Take them as models, and say that you are going to improve from month to month, and from year to year, until you are as good as they are, or better. You cannot reach these things all at once, but I hope that each one of you will make up his mind or her mind that from to-night, throughout the year and throughout life, there is going to be a hard striving on your part toward reaching the best results. If you do this, when you get ready to leave this institution, you will find that it has been worth your while to have spent your time here.
THE GOSPEL OF SERVICE
The subject on which I am going to speak to you for a few minutes to-night, "The Gospel of Service," may not, when you first hear it, strike a very responsive chord in your hearts and minds, but I assure you I have nothing but the very highest and best interest of the race at heart when I select this subject to talk about.
The word "service" has too often been misunderstood, and on this account it has in too many cases carried with it a meaning which indicates degradation. Every individual serves another in some capacity, or should do so. Christ said that he who would become the greatest of all must become the servant of all; that is, He meant that in proportion as one renders service he becomes great. The President of the United States is a servant of the people, because he serves them; the Governor of Alabama is a servant, because he renders service to the people of the State; the greatest merchant in Montgomery is a servant, because he renders service to his customers; the school teacher is a servant, because it is his duty to serve the best interests of his pupils; the cook is a servant, because it is her duty to serve those for whom she works; the housemaid is a servant, because it is her duty to care for the property intrusted to her in the best manner in which she is able.
In one way or another, every individual who amounts to anything is a servant. The man or the woman who is not a servant is one who accomplishes nothing. It is very often true that a race, like an individual, does not appreciate the opportunities that are spread out before it until those opportunities have disappeared. Before us, as a race in the South to-day, there is a vast field for service and usefulness which is still in our hands, but which I fear will not be ours to the same extent very much longer unless we change our ideas of service, and put new life, put new dignity and intelligence into it.