Next to this achievement comes Mr. Washington's work in
gaining place and consideration in the North. Others less
shrewd and tactful had formerly essayed to sit on these two
stools and had fallen between them; but as Mr. Washington
knew the heart of the South from birth and training, so by
singular insight he intuitively grasped the spirit of the age
which was dominating the North. And so thoroughly did he
learn the speech and thought of triumphant commercialism,
and the ideals of material prosperity, that the picture of a lone
black boy poring over a French grammar amid the weeds and
dirt of a neglected home soon seemed to him the acme of
absurdities. One wonders what Socrates and St. Francis of
Assisi would say to this.

And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough one-
ness with his age is a mark of the successful man. It is as
though Nature must needs make men narrow in order to give
them force. So Mr. Washington's cult has gained unquestion-
ing followers, his work has wonderfully prospered, his friends
are legion, and his enemies are confounded. To-day he stands
as the one recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows,
and one of the most notable figures in a nation of seventy
millions. One hesitates, therefore, to criticise a life which,
beginning with so little, has done so much. And yet the time
is come when one may speak in all sincerity and utter cour-
tesy of the mistakes and shortcomings of Mr. Washington's
career, as well as of his triumphs, without being thought
captious or envious, and without forgetting that it is easier to
do ill than well in the world.