SOME BOOKS OF TIIE WEEK.
[Under Ibis heading we oIice such Books of the 'reek as hems not been reserved for review in other foram.] My Larger Education. By Booker T. Washington. (Hodder and Stoughton. 6s.)—Mr. Booker Washington relates in this volume the experiences which ho has had in helping the cause of his race in his own country and in other parts of the world. Incidentally he gives us his opinion about the race problem in general and about various related questions. We cannot accept all his judgments. We respect his wish to be practical, but it is nothing better than folly to say that there is just as much to be learned that is edifying, broadening, and refining in a cabbage as there is in a page of Latin. We think too well of Mr. Washington to believe that this is his real conception of a "Larger Education." Nor do we boll with him when he tolls us that there is more to be learnt from newspapers than from books. Nevertheless there is plenty of good sense and reasonableness in his book. His moderation, his sense of the difficulties which exist in the relation of white and coloured men in the States, his recognition of what white men are doing for the other race, are deserving of all praise. But ho does not conceal his conviction that much more might be done. He is not blind to the distressing facts of London poverty, for instance, but he thinks that "if one- half or ono-tenth of the money, interest, and sympathy that have been expended for the education and uplifting of the poorer classes in London were spent upon the negro in the South the race problem in our country would be practically solved." It is interesting to see that of all European countries Denmark is the one which most approves itself to him.
Previous page
