The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.9, page 485, Mar. 1908, U. of Illinois Press

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MARCH · 1 go8 Our people are too easily satisfied. Their ambitions are too easily satisfied. You go into many communities where our people are trying to run a little grocery business, or a little barber shop, or a restaurant, and in too many cases, they have a little room around the corner, and carry on their business in the most primitive manner. All people have to begin in that way, but there is no reason why it should be said from year to year, that they have made no progress. See to it that under all circumstances, you make progress; that you are dissatisfied next year with what you have had this year. See to it that the year following you are even more dissatisfied, and so on and on. You cannot make this progress in farm life, in the home, in carrying on a mercantile or any business, unless you, yourselves, are thoroughly awake, unless you get yourselves in touch with the best that is going on in the world, unless you get in your minds the spirit of progress. That is what we are trying to do here for you. If you enter into the business of building up a school, do not be satisfied with a little school. Don't be satisfied unless your school is better next year than it is this year. I do not mean necessarily that you should enlarge it, so far as the physical equipment is concerned, but see to it that the schoolhouse is more convenient, that it is made more attractive every year. See that the teaching is better each year, that everything is on the move, that you never get to the point where you are satisfied. When your eye rests upon the old thing year after year, you begin to feel that there is nothing new that you can learn, that there is no improvement you can make. Never get to the point in farming, in housekeeping, in business or in school teaching, where you feel that you have reached the end of all you can accomplish. And in higher matters, in reading, in studying, see to it that you are never satisfied. If you are reading a newspaper, week after week, see if there is not a better one you can find. If you are -reading a magazine, seek continually to find out if there is not a better one. Seek continually to find out if there is not some idea that you can get hold of in some book, some magazine, in some newspaper, that will make you more progressive, that will make you more dissatisfied with your personal surroundings, that will better fit you for your life's work. In a word, all that I am trying to suggest to you tonight is, that you- keep yourselves informed of the best things taking place in 485