astonishing truths, waving my arms and breathing fast! They applauded
with what now seems to me uncalled-for fervor, but then! I walked home
on pink clouds of glory! I asked for a fellowship and got it. I
announced my plan of studying in Germany, but Harvard had no more
fellowships for me. A friend, however, told me of the Slater Fund and
how the Board was looking for colored men worth educating. No thought of
modest hesitation occurred to me. I rushed at the chance.

The trustees of the Slater Fund excused themselves politely. They
acknowledged that they had in the past looked for colored boys of
ability to educate, but, being unsuccessful, they had stopped searching.
I went at them hammer and tongs! I plied them with testimonials and
mid-year and final marks. I intimated plainly, impudently, that they
were "stalling"! In vain did the chairman, Ex-President Hayes, explain
and excuse. I took no excuses and brushed explanations aside. I wonder
now that he did not brush me aside, too, as a conceited meddler, but
instead he smiled and surrendered.

I crossed the ocean in a trance. Always I seemed to be saying, "It is
not real; I must be dreaming!" I can live it again--the little, Dutch
ship--the blue waters--the smell of new-mown hay--Holland and the Rhine.
I saw the Wartburg and Berlin; I made the Harzreise and climbed the
Brocken; I saw the Hansa towns and the cities and dorfs of South
Germany; I saw the Alps at Berne, the Cathedral at Milan, Florence,
Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Pesth; I looked on the boundaries of Russia;
and I sat in Paris and London.

On mountain and valley, in home and school, I met men and women as I had
never met them before. Slowly they became, not white folks, but folks.
The unity beneath all life clutched me. I was not less fanatically a