The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.2, page 398, 1887, U. of Illinois Press

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The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers This position gave him an immense advantage over his contemporaries. Coming more directly to his method of teaching we find it largely based on questioning. His questions were put in such a manner that an adversary was gradually and unconsciously convinced of his error. Knowing that the most effectual way to bring about a reform was to begin with the young we find him spending much of his time moving about in an easy and unostentatious manner in their company. He was continually before the people. His method was not to teach by set or formal lectures. Much of his work was with individualsnow spending an hour in conversation with an eminent artist, now with a common mechanic. His reasoning was that the state was made up of individuals hence to inspire right principles in the hearts and minds of the individuals of the various crafts and professions was to reform the state. One writer Says: ''His usual method was to apply to the person whom he wished to bring over his own opinion with a pretended ignorance as one who wanted to obtain information and without asserting anything himself he would put to him in succession a series of questions which admitted but one answer, and so by degrees bring him to acknowledge the truth which Socrates wished to establish. He used to make his appearance as it were by accident amidst the various tribes of Athenians who were listening to some famous Sophist and professing his admiration for such talents and eloquence and the straitness of his means which debarred him from the advantage of becoming a scholar of so able a master, he would propose some simple question to the Sophist to which an eloquent but diffuse reply would be given upon which Socrates would request him to so far honor his infirmities and slowness of comprehension as to proceed step by step. When this was done he soon made manifest the clearness and justice of his own opinions, and the confused and inconsistent notions of the Sophist, reducing him by a series of simple but closely connected questions to admit' the truth which Socrates desired to prove. In vain did the Sophist treat with contempt the maxims of common sense and plain downright morality which were at variance with his own notions as to the best methods of prospering in life. Socrates returned with coolness of temper to the charge and by a series of such attacks exposed the inconsistency the shallowness of those ''pretenders to wisdom.'' Socrates was perhaps the purest and strongest character of antiquity 398