The Influence of the Lives of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois on the Views on Education in America

Education was a concept held within the highest value during the 19th century, determining your worth as person and your status as a human being. After slavery and during reconstruction. The concept of education ran rapid throughout the African American community. Two key philosophies formed to help promote and uplift the African American race, derives from such thinkers as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois. A former slave himself Washington upheld.

The idea that former slaves should capitalize on industrial labor. Believing it gave the race a firm foundation in life as well as the ability to fit into white America. The second philosophy stems from W.E.B Du Bois. His approach to education is to educate a group of ten talented African Americans who would be the backbone of the African American community. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois share an inherent value in education; however they each have a different approach in achieving their concept due to such things as upbringing, educational background and their point of views of the African American race.

Booker T. Washington's ideology of education stems directly from his experience as child and young adult before and during reconstruction. Within Up from Slavery. Washington depicts his life while growing up and his educational ideologies. Beginning with the role he played as slave, Washington states that he did not have cruel master nor did he hold negative feelings towards white southern Americans for slavery.

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The first indication of Washington's idea of education came from the observation he made as little boy. Washington made comparisons of the way white people took their meals to the way slaves would have their meals. Washington states "I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together... and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner."1 Recalling this memory Washington is clearly emphasizing his point of view of how un-Americanized slaves were. All throughout the description of his childhood, Washington draws attention to the objects that he went without in comparisons to what he observed his white counterparts owning, displaying a hopeful attitude that he to would one day be just as refined as white society.

Even though his upbringing played a major distinctive role within his educational philosophy, Washington's personal education which develops within three phases of his adolescent life contributed major factors as well. Incapable of attending school right away Washington's first form of knowledge came from the salt-mines he worked in, this began his education learning the number eighteen to which was his assigned.

Mastering the number, Washington eventually taught himself the alphabet with a Webster's "blue back" spelling-book given to Washington by his mother. Working the job within the salt-mine Washington was unexpectedly forming his strong ideology as labor being a strong foundation to advancing the black race and gaining the acceptance of white America. The second phase that formed Washington's philosophy stemmed from his employment with Mrs. Ruffner who was the wife of General Ruffner and the owner of the salt-mine. "I had not lived with her many weeks, before I began to understand her. I soon began to learn that; first of all, she wanted everything kept clean about her, that she wanted things done promptly and systematically, and that at the bottom of everything she wanted absolute honesty and frankness.

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