AT THE COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES OF HOWARD UNIVERSITY


JUNE 1, 1906 

Mr. President; Ladies and Gentlemen; and you in 
particular, Members of the Graduating Class: 
What I have to say will be largely to supplement 
what Congressman Burton has said and to empha 
size one or two points that he made. In speaking to 
any body of graduates, I always feel like laying par 
ticular stress upon two points. The first point is the 
necessity that the graduate shall have high ideals; 
and the next point is that those ideals shall be prac 
tical, so that it is possible to come measurably near 
living up to them. I always distrust a sermon in 
which there is insistence upon a line of conduct 
which can not possibly be achieved, because I feel 
that those who most enjoy such a sermon on Sun 
day are apt to be those who live farthest away from 
it on week days. We must insist upon high ideals. 
If there is not such a high standard set before us 
then indeed will our fall be miserable. We are 
never going to come quite up to the standard, and 
it is necessary that the standard should be raised 
aloft. My plea is that it should not be raised so far 
aloft as to make us feel the minute that we come 
to apply ourselves practically that there is not any 
use of striving after it at all. I want to see in the 
breast of each man and each woman here on the 
stage, of each man and each woman here in the audi 
ence, the firm purpose to strive after what is high 
and honorable, and at the same time a practical real 
ization of the difficulties to be encountered, which 
will make you have before you something to which 
you hope you can measurably attain. 


I want each man here who is graduating, each 
girl here who is graduating, to feel that in the first 
place he or she must be able to keep himself or 
herself. You men here, who are going into the law, 
into medicine, you who are going to teach, your 
first duty is to achieve so much of material success 
as will enable each of you to keep himself and to 
be a help and not a burden to those closest dependent 
upon him. Probably there are several of your num 
ber to whose families your college years have meant 
considerable self-denial so that the son could get the 
advantages of education. The man to whom so 
much of practical family affection has been given 
owes it not only to himself but to those who must 
be far dearer than himself, to achieve the material 
success that will justify their self-sacrifice as well 
as his effort. I would not for one moment say to 
any man that he must not regard material suc 
cess. On the contrary, he must regard it. The 
material well-being must be the foundation-stone 
in his career; he must pull his own weight first be 
fore he can be of use to any one else. If you are 
not able to help yourself, to keep yourself in food, 
clothing, shelter, to keep those dependent upon you 
in food, clothing, shelter, you can not possibly help 
any one else. On the contrary, you will be a bur 
den upon others. Therefore, you can not afford 
to neglect the duty of providing for yourself the 
material success which is indispensable if you 
are to count as an element of help in the lives of 
those to whom you owe most. I do not wish to 
see any college graduate leave an institution like 
this with his eyes so firmly fixed upon the stars 
that he forgets that he has got to walk on the 
ground. 

There must be in the first place the foundation 
of successful effort, the ability to earn a little more 
than your keep, before you can count for anything 
else in life. So much for the purely practical side 
of idealism ; that is, the foundation. Without that 
as a foundation you can no more build a superstruc 
ture than you could erect this building if you did 
not have a foundation. There are any number 
of utterly foolish people, who pride themselves upon 
being practical people, who think the foundation is 
all. If there was only a foundation here you could 
not form any idea of what building might be put 
upon it; it might not be at all like a church. So 
with the character of every man, he must have as 
a basis the foundation of material success ; but that 
is only the beginning, and if on that he builds badly 
it would be better that the foundation had never 
been laid. If he builds ill on the foundation, then 
it would be better that he had not had in him the 
power to achieve material success at all. As soon 
as you have achieved that measure of success which 
means your ability to hold your own, then you are 
false to the teachings of your alma mater, you are 
false to every worthy tradition of the social and 
religious life, if you do not in good faith turn to 
with the resolute effort to make those who are not 
as well off as you are a little bit better because of 
the exceptional opportunities that you have enjoyed. 


You can render that service in more than one way, 
and there are several indispensable ways in which 
you must render it if it is to be rendered at all. 
And mind you, when one speaks the deepest truths, 
they are bound to be so homely that they almost 
seem trite in the repetition. The first indispensable 
prerequisite to bettering your fellows is to better 
those that are nearest to you in everyday life. I 
have a profound distrust for the individual with the 
philanthropic longing to do good to mankind at 
large, whose own wife and children do not first 
experience the effects of that philanthropy. The 
first and most important field in which to show your 
fealty to a high ideal is in the field of the family. 
If the man is a good husband, son, father, if the 
woman is a good wife, mother, daughter, neither 
has accomplished all, but each has gone a good way 
toward it, each has taken the most important step 
toward it. 

To you on this platform much has been given, 
and from you rightfully much will be expected. I 
was pleased to hear Congressman Burton dwell with 
such emphasis upon the fact that it is not the col 
lege days that are happiest, just, Mr. Burton, as I 
was glad to hear you dwell with even greater em 
phasis upon the praise of honest effort, whether it 
is crowned or not with what we call success. There 
are exceptions, of course, but, speaking generally, 
it is not true that the college days are the happiest, 
just as it is not true of any really worthy man or woman 
that, looking back on life, he or she will say that 
the times were happiest when there was least to do. 
The highest law of life is the law of worthy effort. 
The greatest chance that can come to man or woman 
is the chance to do something worth doing. You 
have not the right stuff in you if you look back at 
the easy or effortless days as being the days that 
were happiest. The days that are happy are the 
hard days out of which you win triumph, the hard 
days where effort is crowned at the end. 

I have spoken to you to-night simply as I should 
speak to any body of American college graduates. 
Yet each of you has an additional responsibility to 
bear beyond the responsibility that every college 
graduate in this land must bear. You are those 
of your race to whom most has been given, and in 
addition to the burden of honorable obligation rest 
ing upon you as educated American citizens, to do 
your duty by the commonwealth, rests the burden of 
honorable obligation so to carry yourselves that your 
lives may be a guide and an inspiration to all of the 
people of your race, that your lives may justify your 
race in the eyes of the American people. The rights 
of each man are important, but his duties are more 
important still. If the duties are well done, sooner 
or later in a time to be measured only by the in 
scrutable working of Providence, the rights will 
take care of themselves. 

And, oh, my fellow-citizens, I ask of each of you 
the fullest and most generous performance of duty 
in accordance with the highest sense of 
obligation toward your Creator and toward your 
brethren, not only for the sake of our nation 
as a whole, but for the sake of that portion 
of our nation which belongs to your own race in 
particular.