The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.2, page 428, Apr. 1888, U. of Illinois Press

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The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers which has so far proven a blessing and honor to the State and race. Coming as you have direct from your fields of labor, perhaps at a sacrifice of time and money, let us at least hope that our meeting shall not only prove restful and refreshing, but that each may go back to his field of labor inspired by a new determination and increased zeal to accomplish more and better work than in the past. As I look over your faces the question presents itself, for what purpose is this gathering? What end do you have in view in meeting here? Perhaps, if you say education is the end sought after, I would follow this question with another, and ask, what end does education seek to accomplish? I deem it not out of place at the beginning of our meeting to spend a few minutes in considering the subject, ''What is the end sought for in education?'' Let us if possible get close up to the question and look it directly in the face. What end are we seeking for in education? Why this annual gathering of teachers from all parts of the State? Why spend so much time and money to attend these meetings? WORK OF THE FAITHTUE TEACHERS What is that teacher whose lot is cast in some dark and neglected part of the State with her little school, that is taught in some wreck of a log cabin with slab seats with no backs, seeking to accomplish? What ideal is in her mind as she patiently tries day after day to teach two score of little ones to read and write and spell? What does she expect to gain by working for a salary barely sufficient to clothe and feed the body? What by bearing up under discouragements, accidents and indifference of parents and school officials? What end does she hope to subserve by exposing her body to the cold of winter in poorly built school-houses? Why does she stay month after month in a community where perhaps she is almost completely shut out from intelligent association and from communication with the great busy progressive world? Has this faithful teacher ever paused and considered what in reality will have been accomplished when these boys and girls shall have learned to read and write and cipher? Are these accomplishments and their modifications the great ultimatum sought for? MONEY AND TIME SPENT In our higher institutions, our young men and women are spending 428