The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-30

l0dC nave ucIeHueu, lllcy
were convicted and sent to the peni-
tertiary, and their term expired and
you would get together a great crowd
of your people and meet them at the
depot, and they were received with
honor That man thought, Why
have done no wrong. Look how my
people welcome me back. l am a
hero, l am no convict And when your
boys and girls see what kind atten-
ton they receive, they say in their
hearts, 1T is no crime for me to do
that 1t is not right The condemna-
ton of every man who has committed
crime, whether he is white man or
a colored man, is just. You must not
make heroes out of convictS or
heroines out or harlots. You must not
do it. Now your surroundings have
been such that there has been some
leniency shown towards you perhaps
IN mat respect. You nave been poor
and needy. You have been only lit
tie over forty years out of slavery.
Women of education, you men of un-
derstanding go out and teach your
boys and girls of the rising generation
that they must be honest, they must
be pure, they must be true, they must
have gratitude, they must do justice;
and then they are in a position to
demand everything else from any
body else. That is what you
teach them. Now that is the
first thing. Get your .charac-
ter. You have made good
start. | stand here today and / pro-
claim to your race, as well as to my
own, that there is not on this earth
a man or woman who has IL good
character that cannot command
friends. 1t will always bring them.
When your heart is true, when your.
hands are honest, when your conduct
is pure, the better class of your race
will come to you, and the better class
of the white race will come to you,
and you will be sustained and helped,
and you will find in laying the foun-
dations of character you have made
the best start you ever made in your
life.
THE next lesson, manners. A dis
tinguished gentleman of North Caro-
lima, who occupied every position in it
from Justice of the Peace to a Sen
ator of the United States, on one oc-
caSion when l was talking with him,
said to me: Young man, q was just
starting out in life), l think / have
some knowledge, but all of my sue
cess and my rise to the position | oc-
cupy | owe more to courtesy ana
kindness and politeness to all my fell
lowmen than to any other thing L
L
you here today, every one of you.
that when man is kind and polite
to rhe other man you overpower him;
you knock him down; you put him
at your disposal instead of your be-
ing at his disposal. | told my boy
when | was raising him that the best
investment, next to character that he
could make was always to be polite
and kind to every man, no matter
H. hi L.
matter what his color might be. L
have no respect for white man who
is not polite to a colored man or d
coIored woman. There are some col
ored men, | think maybe there is one
of them in this audience today, and
if he is, he is one of the clevereSt old
men | ever met, and one of the most
polite. He is q porter on Pullman
car, and he will tell you that in the
morning he has a quarter for about
every single solitary man or woman
that he had on his car the night be-
fore. But if he is insolent and inn
polite he hasn't a quarter, and he
ought not to have. This old man is
one of the polite kind, for he always
gets me out of one, and sometimes
when he looks at me. straight he gets
two. Go OUT in the world, and you
show dne a colored man or a colorcd
courteous to the white race, if the
people to whom they are kind and
courteous are the right kind of peo-
pie themselves, you will never hear
of trouble; and when you do hear of
trouble of that kind, and they rebuke
you and are not courteous to you, you
are better than that class of white
people yourselves, and you have the
moral support of North Carolina in
your politeness and courtesy.
Now having got character and
manners, let us go forward and get
the right kind of education. There
are some people who are for hic, haec
and hos. and understand all the
Greek verbs and Greek roots, but
they don't belong to the most of US
/ nave studied Latin and Greek, and
l have forgotten it too. Those who
are going to teach will teach these
things, but the majority of the great
race want to have enough knowledge,
enough information, enough learning
to make them best suited and best
fitted for the kind of work they are
going to do, and always educate
themselves along the work they are
going to follow. They cut me out for
a lawyer (not because | told stories),
and every single solitary study that
l ever tried to master was to make
me a more thorough, better equipped
lawyer. SO it is with a doctor. You
educate doctors along certain lines.
You educate farmers along certain
lines. SO it is with ministers of the
gospel. The kind of education that is
best suited for all classes and all
kinds of women and men is the kind
of education that while it makes your
mind brighter and more acute, also
makes your soul purer and better, and
does not at the same time make you
stop laboring with your hands. This
A. and M. College is the finest college
on earth where the brain and the
hand and the soul all three shall be
educated at the same time. Educat-
ing your head in geography, you
know something of the great and
grand and glorious country that you
have; educating in grammar, reading,
spelling, arithmetic, and at the same
time you are educating your fingers
to know better how to pick the cotton,
educating your hands TO know how to
make furniture, how to work in the
shops, how to do something that will
help make this world stronger and
better, ard at the same time educating
your souls to remember the rights you
owe to your felloWman, duty to your
State, and service to your God.