P utting the M ost I nto L ife By Booker T. Washington Author of “Up from Slavery” New York Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Publishers Copyright, 1906, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Published September, 1906 Composition and electrotype plates by D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Boston New York Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Publishers Copyright, 1906, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Published September, 1906 Composition and electrotype plates by D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Bo

The individual who puts the most into life is the one who gets the most out of life. The first requisite for making life effective for one’s self or society is a sound body. There have been many people who in spite of weak bodies have enriched the world by noble thought and work. There has been a long line of physically weak men who have helped the world onward; but the rule holds that the best work has been done by men and women of vigorous health. It is important that the Negro race in its pre

The student who would put the most into his school life must first of all be happy. I do not believe it is possible for a student to accomplish very much, certainly not the most, while he is in school, unless he learns to be happy in all his relations in school life. If the students are unhappy there is something wrong with the institution, or with the teachers, or with the student body. The normal state of a student in a well-ordered institution is a happy one. It is impossible to get the most

The large problem of the teacher is not to impart knowledge and maintain discipline. The larger problem is to bring school life and real life into closer contact. With the average teacher, as with the average student, there is very little connection between the school and life as it is actually lived every day outside the school-room; and as long as this is true there will be ground for reasonable and just criticism. In the primary school, the intermediary school and the high school there is oft

It was Emerson who said that “One generation clears the forests, the next builds the palaces.” Each generation is very anxious to engage in the building of the palaces, an ambition which is altogether laudable, but the forests must first be cleared or there will be no palaces. And so it falls to the lot of every successful individual of every race and nation to engage at some time or period in their existence in dealing in a large degree with the industrial or material affairs of life. The forms

Educated men and women, especially those who are in college or other institutions of learning, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people and beneath the interest and sympathy of the educated man. In too many cases they are disposed to think that religion is for the weak, and that to express doubts concerning religion and the future life is an indication of a vigorous, independent mind. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this. Some years ago, when I

In the Bible one finds over and over again the words “a peculiar people.” Reference is made to the Jews as “a peculiar people,”—a people differing in thought and temperament and mode of life from others by whom they were surrounded. Now the race to which Americans of African lineage belong is often described as “a peculiar people,” having had, as we know, a peculiar history. They differ in color and in appearance, and in a very large degree their temperament and thought differ from that of the p