The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.3, page 234, June 1892, U. of Illinois Press

The page presentation framework of the Booker T. Washington papers is designed to provide researchers worldwide with searchable access to the thousands of pages comprising the fourteen volumes, most of which are out of print. Adapted from the National Academy Press's Open Book framework, this framework allows searching down to the page level, provides sorting of search results chronologically, enables easy navigation across multiple volumes, and allows page-by-page local printing (via PDF) of every page.

[ Top of Page ]

[ Home ]

[ Contact Us ]

[ Help ]

OCRed data provided for searching only.
The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers An Address before the Alabama State Teachers' Association [Birmingham, Ala., June 8, 1892] AIMS AND RESULTS OF TEACHING Ladies and Gentlemen of the State Teachers, Association: It Is weD for us as educators, once In a while to pause in the midst of our labors, and ask ourselves what are the ends in view for which we are laboring, what are the results for which we are toiling, what is the type of humanity which education seeks to develop? In the membership of this Association we have represented the teacher whose days are spent in the isolated log cabin, with spelling book and primer as well as the college professor whose hours are occupied with the higher forms of science and literature. No matter how seemingly humble or how exalted may be the position what Is the goal towards which all in common are struggling? In this utilitarian age when hands and minds are so largely occupied with things material—with that which seeks for shelter, food and clothing we are tempted as educators to forget the end and mistake the means for the end to be attained. Some of us seek to make a skilled hand, to give practical knowledge of agriculture, to give a technical and scientific knowledge that will enable one to help supply the immediate wants of the body that will not only enable one to make himself independent by supplying himself with this world's goods, but will put him in a position to administer to the material necessities of his fellows. All this is well and most praiseworthy, but this is not the end of education- to provide the stomach, to fill the pocket, to shelter the body, but pave the way to that far off and higher purpose. First we teach the child about our knee the word, then the sentence; then the numbers. Soon follow history and the sciences. If we have not as teachers learned to do so, let us begin to use our curriculum of studies as so many pillars in the pyramid that is to bear our pupils upward. If we choose, let us make reading, grammar, rhetoric, one pillar; geography and history another; science another; ethics and the Bible another, but let it ever be borne in mind that these are 23~t