"Since then, I have known him intimately and well. He was unselfish and generous to a fault; he was modest yet masterful; he was quiet yet intense; his common sense and sagacity seemed uncanny, such was his knowledge of human nature. His was a great soul in which no bitterness or littleness could even find a lurking place. His was the great heart of Lincoln, with malice toward none and charity for all. He loved all men and all men loved him.
"My humble prayer is that his torch has lighted another among the dark millions of America, to lead the race onward and upward."
Booker Washington's insistence that the classrooms, shops, and farms were for the development of the students rather than the students for their development was well illustrated by a remark he once made to Bishop William Lawrence of Massachusetts when the Bishop was visiting the Institute. In reply to Bishop Lawrence's question as to whether he had chosen the best available land for his agricultural work, he said, "No, sir, I chose pretty nearly the poorest land I could find. I chose land on which men would have to spend all their energies to bring out the life in the land. They work here under the hardest conditions. When they go out to other lands—to their own lands, perhaps—they won't find any worse land to till. If they find any better land the difference will be all gain for them."
Perhaps more remarkable than any or all of his achievements was the fact that Booker Washington was a gentleman. It would be difficult to find a man who better conformed to the exacting yet illusive requirements of that term. He had not only the naturalness and the goodness of heart which are the fundamentals, but he had also the breeding and the polish which distinguish the finished gentleman from the "rough diamond." This fact about Booker Washington has been well described by Hamilton Wright Mabie in an article entitled: "Booker T. Washington: Gentleman," in which he says in part:
"Booker Washington became one of the foremost men in America; he was heard on great occasions by great audiences with profound attention; he was a writer and speaker of National position, the founder of a college, and the organizing leader of a race in ideas and industry. These were notable achievements; but there was another achievement which was in its way more notable. Without any advantages of birth or station or training, a member of an ostracized race, with the doors of social life closed in his face, Dr. Washington was a gentleman. I recall two illustrations of this quality of nature, often lacking in men of great ability and usefulness. The first was in Stafford House, London, the residence of the Duke of Sutherland. The older Duke was the lifelong friend of Queen Victoria; and once, when she was going to Stafford House, she wrote the Duke that she was about to leave her uninteresting house for his beautiful palace. Nothing could be more stately than the great hall of Stafford House, with its two marble stairways ascending to the galleries above; and when the Duchess of Sutherland, standing on the dais from which the stairs ascended, received her guests she reminded more than one of her guests of the splendid picture drawn by Edmund Burke of Marie Antoinette moving like a star through the palace of Versailles. On that evening Dr. Washington was present. At one time in one of the rooms he happened to be talking with the duchess and two other women of high rank, two of them women of great beauty and stateliness. There were some people present who were evidently very much impressed by their surroundings. Booker Washington seemed to be absolutely unconscious of the splendor of the house in which he was, or of the society in which for the moment he found himself. Born in a hut without a door-sill, he was at ease in the most stately and beautiful private palace in London.
"On another occasion there was to be a Tuskegee meeting at Bar Harbor. The Casino had been beautifully decorated for a dance the night before. The harbor was full of yachts, the tennis courts of fine-looking young men and women; it was a picture of luxury tempered with intelligence. Mr. Washington was looking out of the window. Presently he turned to me and said, with a smile, 'And last Wednesday morning I was eating breakfast in a shanty in Alabama; there were five of us and we had one spoon!'"
At the time of his stay in London, during which this reception at Stafford House took place, he was given a luncheon by a group of distinguished men to which Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, was invited. In reply, Mr. Asquith sent this note:
10 Downing Street, Whitehall, S.W.
26th September, 1910.
Dear Sir: I much regret that my engagements do not allow me to accept your invitation to be present at the luncheon which it is proposed to give in honor of Mr. Booker T. Washington. I feel sure, however, that he will be welcomed with a cordiality which his persistent and successful labors in the cause of the education of the American Negro deserve, especially at the hands of English men, whose difficulties in many parts of the Empire have been helped toward a solution by the results of his work.
Yours faithfully,