The university which can claim him on its list of
sons, whether in regular course of _honoris causa_, may be proud.
It has been mentioned that Mr. Washington is the first of his
race to receive an honorary degree from a New England university.
This, in itself, is a distinction. But the degree was not
conferred because Mr. Washington is a coloured man, or because he
was born in slavery, but because he has shown, by his work for the
elevation of the people of the Black Belt of the South, a genius
and a broad humanity which count for greatness in any man, whether
his skin be white or black.
Another Boston paper said: --
It is Harvard which, first among New England colleges, confers
an honorary degree upon a black man. No one who has followed the
history of Tuskegee and its work can fail to admire the courage,
persistence, and splendid common sense of Booker T. Washington.
Well may Harvard honour the ex-slave, the value of whose services,
alike to his race and country, only the future can estimate.
The correspondent of the New York _Times_ wrote: --
All the speeches were enthusiastically received, but the
coloured man carried off the oratorical honours, and the applause
which broke out when he had finished was vociferous and long-
continued.
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