Labor Day Inspiration: How Booker T. Washington Realized the Importance of Manual Labor

Americans most remember Booker T. Washington as an educator, but his educational model was particularly successful and famous precisely because it combined manual labor with rigorous academic learning. He learned in his own life the value of working with his hands, and even wrote a whole book about it to help others learn the same lesson. In his Working With the Hands, Washington reflected on a formative employment experience he had after "I was made free by the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln." He attended a public school where he became bothered by the teacher's insistence that education's chief goal was to speak and write English correctly, as this seemed to him too narrow a definition. The more he encountered his peers with varying levels of education, the more he began to see that education without the character formation of hard work would not actually raise up any individual. As Washington sought a method of learning to read and write while still helping his impoverished family, and after he took a job with an honest but exacting employer, he began to develop the principles that he would put into practice at the Tuskegee Institute. America used to stand out from other nations in the world not only because we had much greater opportunities for upward mobility, but because we respected work, rather than giving the most honor to useless aristocratic leisure classes. This was a very Biblical attitude, as from God's command to Adam to work (Genesis 2:15) to God becoming man as the carpenter Jesus to St. Paul forbidding food to those who did not work (2 Thessalonians 3:10), the Bible emphasizes that work is man's vocation. Booker T. Washington was both a pious Christian and a patriotic American, and he understood the importance of manual labor. Washington made an interesting observation about how the (Democrat) Southern plantation culture, which was the closest to European aristocracy, had wrongly convinced white and black men alike that manual labor was ignominious: Just after the Civil War the Negro lad was strongly influenced by two beliefs; one, that freedom from slavery brought with it freedom from hard work, the other that education of the head would bring even more sweeping emancipation from work with the hands. It is fair to add that the Negro was not directly responsible for either of these ideas, but they warped his views nevertheless, and held sway over the masses of the young generation. I had felt and observed these things, and further, as a child in Virginia, had naturally noted that young white boys whose fathers held slaves did not often work with their hands. It is tragic that the same ideas are still pervasive across the younger demographics of all racial backgrounds today. Huge numbers of U.S. young people demand that they be given no difficult standards, to have no jobs but ones that please them exactly, and to have vast amounts of leisure time regardless of whether they have earned it. I increasingly see videos and comments from teachers saying their students insist they need to complete no schoolwork and learn no job skills because they plan to be rich TikTok stars. The respect for hard work and the desire to earn a better life through one's own efforts that used to characterize Americans so distinctively are disappearing. The Democrats who once reigned as aristocrats in the South have imported their pernicious ideas around the country through their political plantation. Related: Labor Day Reminder: Capitalism Enriches Workers, Communism Impoverishes Them But to return to Washington's story in Working With the Hands. He noted that during his boyhood, one lady who had moved from Vermont to the South earned a reputation in the neighborhood for being a "hard person to get along with," for having high turnover rates among her youthful employees. Washington, taking his turn at working for her, said he was surprised at how kind and "frank and positive" was Mrs. Ruffner's manner. She was detailed in her instructions and high in her expectations, but quite willing to allow Washington time for attending night school in winter if he were able to do his main tasks. At first, Washington felt discouraged, for he had to cut Mrs. Ruffner's lawn smoothly and evenly with a clumsy little hand-scythe. He felt himself "heartsick and discouraged" the first few times he tried it. Then at last both he and Mrs. Ruffner "could take pleasure in looking upon a yard where the grass was green, and almost perfect in its smoothness, where the flower beds were trimly kept, the edges of the walks clean cut, and where there was nothing to mar the well-ordered appearance.' Suddenly, Washington 'felt a self-respect, an encouragement, and a satisfaction that I had never before enjoyed or thought possible. Above all else, I had acquired a new confidence in my ability actually to do things and to do them well.' He began to reject the idea that 'the head meant everything and the hands little in working endeavour, and that only to labour with the mind was honourable while to toil with the hands was unworthy and even disgraceful. With this vital growth of realisation there came the warm and hearty commendation of the good woman who had given me what I now consider my first chance to get in touch with the real things of life.' He began to study out how to do his work better and more efficiently. Washington, who became an internationally famous speaker and educational expert, called Mrs. Ruffner "one of my greatest teachers." Unlike the plantation owner who had once owned him, or some of the former slaves to whom their ex-owners lied, Washington realized that manual labor is not only necessary but beneficial to one's character and body. The well-rounded man is not only educated in literature, science, history, and mathematics, but capable of building and/or fixing his own home and property.