The Well-Educated Mind Novels in Order: from least to all-time favorite

The Well-educated Mind (TWEM) by Susan Wise Bauer was first published in 2003, but I did not know about it until after I had read The Well-trained Mind, Bauer's classical education "bible" for homeschoolers. The promising subtitle of TWEM - A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had - caused me to consider the deficiencies in my education; acknowledge my intimidation of classic literature; and the need for me to know something about a classical education since this is what we were doing at home.

In December of 2011, I bought a copy of TWEM and finished it in January 2012. The first novel on the list was Don Quixote. Years before I had picked up a brand new, untouched "used" copy for sale at my library, as if I was going to read it; but I was terrified. However, now I had no excuses. I even began a blog to record my chapter narrations and keep myself accountable. My blog was called "An Experiment With the Well-educated Mind." (Later it was renamed "A Great Book Study.")

Bauer suggests to read slowly and in short increments, and to write one to two sentence narrations per chapter. Of course, a classical education consists of reading a book numerous times, though not everyone can do that. And I find the short narration after each chapter really helpful for comprehension.

Immediately, I loved reading again, and my intimidation of great works subsided. I was comprehending classic literature that I thought was impossible. In a couple of years, I had completed the list of novels, then the biographies, and recently, histories. Now I am on to poetry. And ten years later, I am re-reading many of the novels again. 

Today, I thought it would be interesting to order the books from the lists that I have completed, from least favorite to absolute favorite, if possible. 

Following are the NOVELS:

These are the novels on TWEM list that I kept; the rest I donated.

NO STARS

Morrison: Song of Solomon (1977) [DNF - read one chapter]

     From the first chapter, I was not impressed with the language or concept. I was relieved to trash it. That's all I'm going to say.

ONE STAR

Conrad: Heart of Darkness (1902) ⭐

    I absolutely hated this one, but it would be interesting to see what I think about it if I did give it a second chance. Many readers love this one. I just could not comprehend it.

TWO STARS

Cavino: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (1972) ⭐⭐ 

James: The Portrait of a Lady (1881) ⭐⭐

     To be fair, I was very angry with James at the time for writing this story. However, I plan to reread it, and I will make a fair attempt to better understand it. I have since forgiven James. 

THREE STARS

Bellow: Seize the Day (1956) ⭐⭐⭐

Camus: The Stranger (1942) ⭐⭐⭐

     Oh, I was really disgusted with Camus regarding this one. And it has drawn the most hostile readers who disagreed with me. Some people are really protective of Camus' philosophy of Absurdism. Yuck!

Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway (1925) ⭐⭐⭐

    This was a really difficult one to get through. I am surprised I gave it three stars. 

Byatt: Possession (1990) ⭐⭐⭐

     This was a really interesting concept, but I was a little bored by it, too. 

DeLillo: White Noise (1985) ⭐⭐⭐

Swift: Gulliver's Travels (1726) ⭐⭐⭐

FOUR STARS

Kafka: The Trial (1925) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ellison: Invisible Man (1952) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dickens: Oliver Twist (1838) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

    I think I liked the happy ending most of all because I am not a big fan of Dickens.

Hardy: The Return of the Native (1878) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

    This was my first Hardy, and I struggled in the first chapter. However, I wonder if it will get even more stars once I reread it? I have since fallen in love with Hardy. 

FIVE STARS

Wright: Native Son (1940) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

     I was gripped by Native Son; however, I'm a little apprehensive to go through it again because it was a haunting. 

Melville: Moby-Dick (1851) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read)

    An impressive work, but it takes commitment to stick with it. 

Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read)

    I disliked OHYOS the first time, but the reread opened my eyes to its magic. I love it!

Crane: The Red Badge of Courage (1895) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read) 

     I struggled to place this one ahead of OHYOS because this is a serious work, but tedious, too. Not as interesting as mystical realism. So...

Wharton: The House of Mirth (1905) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress in Modern English (1679) re-read review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cervantes: Don Quixote  (1605) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (partial re-read)

     Some people dislike DQ. How cruel he is! But I find Cervantes hysterical. I can't help it.

Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read)

     I love Twain's dig at civilization and slavery. 

Brontë: Jane Eyre (1847) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read)

     I mean, this is epic writing. So, it counts for something even if the story is odd and Mr. What's-his-face is a weirdo. 

Flaubert: Madame Bovary (1857) re-read ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

     I just finished re-reading this, and it was really eye-opening! 

Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (1850) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read)

     The first couple of times I read this, I disliked Hawthorne's attack on the Puritans. Everyone likes to dump on the Puritans. Well, this third read I really dug deeper and came to actually  appreciate this work. 

Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment (1866) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read)

     The Russian authors are impressive. What can I say?

Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1815) re-read review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

     This is one of the cleverest of stories around the classic world. You go, Jane!

Tolstoy: Anna Karenina (1877) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (rereading now)

     Another major impressive work and story, full of noble ideas. 

Orwell: 1984 (1949) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read multiple times)

     Only radicals read this and hold fast to its truths. 

Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read)

     One of the most eccentric, memorable, and quintessential American works. Like a speeding car struck you down in the middle of the night...and kept going. (I don't know why it makes me feel like that.)

ALL-TIME FAVORITE

Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (1851) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (re-read multiple times)

     UTC is not a popular book, it seems. Possibly no one is interested in another book about American slavery as it was. But this is a good place to start if you do want to know something. Stowe's writing style is superb, her words are commanding and compassionate. Many characters are beautiful and good. It is a hopeful story at a time when a nation was at a crossroads. 

     What impresses me most is Stowe's courage to write such a book at that time. Today she would have been censored by the powers that control the narrative. She took on an entire nation - yes, both North and South, pro-slavery and anti-slavery, including the Christian Church - with her pen. 

     Reading this inspires me and makes this book my most favorite novel from The Well-educated Mind. 

* * *

Do you have any favorites from this list? Which ones and why? 

A Woman's Education: The Road From Coorain Leads to Smith College by Jill Ker Conway

A Woman's Education 

The Road from Coorain Leads to Smith College

 Jill Ker Conway

Published 2001

⭐⭐⭐

After reading The Road from Coorain, by Jill Ker Conway, I was interested to know what happened to her after she moved to the United States from Australia. Her story was intriguing and somewhat tragic, but she was such a courageous person to leave her home and make a new start in another continent. 

Unlike The Road from Coorain, this short story reads very quickly, and covers Jill's ten years as Smith College's first woman president, beginning in 1975. Smith College is a private women's liberal arts college in Massachusetts. Jill was attracted to the unique history of Smith College, begun by Sophia Smith - "spinster inheritor of a railroad fortune" - who decided to spend her wealth on a "college for women that would be national in scope and would rival elite male colleges." The school balanced its two ideals: one in voluntarism, preserving the natural environment and caring for the needs of children and the elderly; and the other in women working in the professional fields, such as law and medicine. 

Jill had a vision for women's education in America and she was ready to serve and lead Smith College to "academic excellence." One of her goals was to expand admission to older women, who thought they were past their opportunities to further their education or pursue a career, 

a first step along the way to creating an institution that concerned itself with educating all women, not just eighteen-to-twenty-two-year-olds.

But one issue she had to debate was the concern of coeducation, which was becoming the norm for many male-only colleges. Should Smith admit men? In addition, her goal was to "help build an educational system that made intellectual maturity possible for all women." 

Jill thought it important to preserve the classical Western tradition, and not completely throw out philosophers because they were men; but she wanted to include women.

I revered the tradition of Western scholarship...but I also believed passionately that that tradition needed modifying by equally rigorous scholarship about women. Not scholarship of the ladylike"petit point" kind, but rigorous, unsentimental, root-and-branch scrutiny and questioning of the categories and assumptions that shaped our understanding of the past.

I did not know this was a thing in the seventies, but the idea of "enforced, conformity to heterosexuality" had its roots even back in then. Yikes! 

A lifetime of studying gender systems...had convinced me that one of societies' major oppressions lay in the effort to coerce sexual behavior. We need a framework of law to manage the institutions that care for the rising generation, but that framework isn't dependent on enforced conformity to heterosexuality.

Apparently, Jill believed this, but also recognized that "a women's institution resting on voluntary support couldn't move too far ahead of the informed opinion in the larger society." She also thought that "America's idiosyncratic attitudes on homosexuality" came from "Puritan fear of sexuality." Huh?

Speaking of the issue of raising money, which was a major responsibility as president: Jill would not completely admit that she agreed with the ideals of capitalism, but she did appreciate it when it came time to "raise capital, invest it well, and generate a surplus to be invested in continuously improving a Smith education." Yay, capitalism! She also permitted student's "poorly planned or sloppily executed" projects to fail instead of acting like Big Daddy Government who rescued them financially.

As you can guess, Jill was a feminist, and she was "intent on making a Smith education one that gave women the tools to think critically about their own experience (which makes sense to me), and to deconstruct patriarchal intellectual authority wherever necessary."

A lifelong feminist, I'd been in the business of deconstructing male power since girlhood.

Basically, she said she needed to "fight the entrenched male power within a women's college..." asking for "funding to support research and teaching about women's experience across the humanities and social sciences." So I understood the goal and purpose and dilemma, but I do not agree with taking down the male side of history. Why not insert and assert the female portion? Can we not do that instead of declaring war on men? Can we just rise above it?

I thought it was rather silly when Jill wrote "her or his" as opposed to the common order "his or her" because it is just unnecessarily petty and we should be able to move beyond such little nuances. Today she would be accused of being gender insensitive by writing either one! How's that for foolishness? But I digress.

Jill, who was married but unable to have any children, recognized that women wanted to find ways to achieve serious work and creativity in their own lives, and still combine marriage and family. She also sought to find ways to encourage women into higher wage-earning careers to close the pay-gap, and even "called CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to ask them to consider recruiting women from Smith's campus." 

By the early eighties, new disciplines needed to be introduced to Smith College in order to keep up with the "culture wars." Jill regretted missing those cues, which signaled an end to Western Civilization curricula. She said it would have been a benefit to include non-Western ideas and customs. 

But by now she was already considering stepping down in order to spend more time caring for her aging and ailing husband. She also felt satisfied in what she had accomplished, and now it was someone else's time to do a better job. 

She considered what she learned in her ten years, like how women were accused of being aggressive if they tried to do what men did; how women who could not break into men's fields or were overlooked for higher positions often founded their own organizations and businesses to do as they pleased. Now Jill wanted to know how to change those situations, specifically in the business world; hence, she "decided to give time to corporate governance."

Being environmentally minded, she also wanted to educate herself on ecofeminism and its critics (whatever that was). She was also convinced that Western Civ. vs. non-Western ideals was a battle worth taking up. 

This was the political battle of ideas that inspired the new right and gave birth to the leftish postmodern view of cultural politics. Its resonance at Smith was complicated by the gender composition of the faculty, because deconstructing the narrative of European superiority also undermined the concept of the [evil] Western male hero. 

I inserted the [evil] for her. 

Jill said that in 1975, a Smith student might have read works by great male authors, but by 1985, she would choose between "dead white males" or a female author. It was a costly curriculum change, but she thought it necessary that students be exposed to the "[white European] male bias in the canon."

Finally, she presented her plan for the remainder of her life: to spend part of her time becoming a writer, creating a record of feminist ideas she thought incorrect. She wanted to write about what women were not supposed to desire: ambition, adventure, intellectual power, physical courage and endurance, risk taking, poor mother-daughter relationships (obviously). Then she'd spend another part of her life educating herself on environmental issues, especially damage caused by [destructive] male aggressiveness. Thirdly, she would spend time helping to govern institutions of business, higher education, and social causes she cared about. And finally, she looked forward to reading aloud in the evenings with her husband (which I think is a pretty cool idea for husbands and wives to do together -- even if I do not have one of these myself).

Regardless of her opposing liberal ideas, I like Jill. She seemed to be fair and just. On some issues she was a bridge between the old and the new. She could compromise intelligently and reasonably. She was probably, to the generation she served, a breath of fresh air, a leader, and a confidant. She appeared to be extremely likable and sounded approachable, even if she disagreed with one's ideas.

I like this quote most of all. Jill celebrated what Smith College has achieved, and she 

often wondered what Virginia Woolf would have made of it. This was not just a room of one's own but an entire institution that its graduates owned, beholden to no one but their female predecessors. It gave women, however briefly, a sense of owning their place in life, a place never thereafter easily surrendered.

Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver De Mille

A Thomas Jefferson Education:

Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century

Oliver DeMille

Published 2000

⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is the most awesome book about self-education and reading classics. I have read it three times. Shortly after I began homeschooling, in 2001, it inspired me to begin my own journey of self-education, and it radically changed my views on schooling. 

...societies are successful when people choose to be good. If people choose mediocrity, they end up with a mediocre society. If they choose excellence, they build an excellent society; if they choose decadence, society decays. This is not only common sense, it is historically accurate.

THE STATE OF EDUCATION TODAY

Oliver DeMille argues that the reason we cannot fix education is because people cannot agree on its purpose. There is also a misconception about what the problem is. In the end, the only person who can fix the education problem is the student. DeMille adds that teaching is not education, but rather teachers should inspire students to educate themselves. Education happens when excellent teachers inspire students to learn.

There are only two teachers: mentors and the classics. Mentors meet with students face-to-face to encourage, inspire, and share knowledge, while the classics are works produced by other great teachers through books, music, art, science, and the like. 

Parents are a student's first mentors, which is why homeschooling is perfect for education. Unfortunately, many parents only know one way of teaching: the way they learned in school. 

THE THREE SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION

1. Public Education teaches WHAT to think, and prepares everyone for a job. Originally, public schools were created to educate the poor, while the wealthy were educated at private institutions or had tutors or apprenticeships, focusing more on leadership or professional training. 

Public schools use a "conveyor belt" method of teaching. Each student gets the same ideas and is graded the same, "regardless of interests, talents, goals, and mission." The object is to set standards so low that all students finish at the same time, while conforming to the same ideas.

Over time, even the wealthy attended public schools, which monopolized the education system, eliminating those institutions that produced professionals and leaders. 

2. Professional Education teaches WHEN to think and trains up specialists, like doctors, lawyers, etc. to know how to utilize information in their field of expertise; but it is not the best training for leadership. Even this system has its own conveyor belt, in which standards are set higher, making the field competitive.

3. Leadership Education teaches HOW to think and prepares students to be entrepreneurs in business, statesmen in government, and leaders in the home and community. The three main goals of leadership education are to train up competent thinkers, to perpetuate freedom, and to lead effectively to "help society remain free and prosperous.

THE LEADERSHIP CRISIS

Today, more people receive the conveyor belt public school education, which means there are more people in leadership positions, such as business and government, who are unfit for such positions. (You can say that again!) The result is a highly trained, uneducated society of people. 

HOW TO MENTOR

Thomas Jefferson, the author of America's Declaration of Independence, was a well-educated statesman. (Look at his resume, if you need evidence.) George Wythe, signer of the Declaration and delegate to the Constitutional Convention, mentored Jefferson for four years in law, the ancient classics, English literature, and political philosophy. It was an "apprenticeship for greatness." 

Mentoring under TJE is also quite simple because all that is required is reading, having the student write about what he read, and then discussing with the student what moral lessons he takes away from reading the book. When discussing, mentors should ask questions to prompt the student to think deeply. When students write, mentors can focus on content and helping them to be better communicators. Another aspect of mentoring is application of lessons, either personally or to current events and society. 

Mentors can personalize a program for each individual to fit his or her goals. Learning through the classics is individualized because each reader will get something different from the same book. 

Finally, mentors must set the example by reading, studying, thinking about, and applying the classics along with their students.

WHY STUDY THE CLASSICS

Reading the classics changes people because they make us think about the "great ideas of humanity." 

The classics teach us about human nature, how to predict behavior, and to use good judgment. They teach us "empathy, compassion, wisdom, and self-discipline." 

They bring us "face-to-face" with greatness and inspire us to be better. They give us courage to confront our internal "frontier," which has yet to be conquered. They force us to think. And they connect us to those we share stories in common. 

In addition, reading the classics helps us to discover our own PERSONAL CANON, "a set of stories which we hang onto and believe in and base our lives around; and great classics are the best canon. A canon is the set of books we consider to be the standard of truth." Our canon "becomes our plot!"

There are four types of stories: bent, broken, whole, and healing. Bent portray evil as good, and good as evil. Avoid these. Broken portray evil as evil and good as good, but evil wins; though not pleasant, they may help us to change the direction of society. Whole stories portray good as good, and good wins. These are the best stories. Finally, healing stories are whole or broken where the reader is personally moved, changed, and improved for life. Healing stories become part of your canon.

DeMille encourages readers to develop a personal canon, spend time reading these books, become an expert in them, and teach them to others. 

As students become familiar with and...conversant with the great ideas of humanity, they will learn how to think, how to lead, and how to become great. The classics, by introducing the young mind to the greatest achievements of mankind and the teachings of God, prepare children to become successful human beings,...

TEACHING

Teaching subjects in TJE simply means using the classics in literature, history, science, math, art, and the rest. DeMille encourages students and mentors to study the originals and make personal inferences instead of using modern text books that often "mischaracterizes classics and historical figures to fit an agenda." 

STATESMANSHIP: MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN SOCIETY

Again, TJE seeks to develop men and women capable of leadership, no matter what they do. Statesmen portray six characteristics: virtue, wisdom, diplomacy, courage, ability to inspire greatness in others, and to move the cause of liberty.

The Leadership Education goal is to train thinkers, entrepreneurs and statesmen - individuals with the character, competence and capacity to do the right thing and do it well in business, government, church, school, family, and other organizations.

 The second goal is to perpetuate freedom, to prepare people who know what freedom is, what is required to maintain it, and who exert the will to do what is required.

The success and perpetuity of our society depend upon leadership education. 

###

Following is a list of 100 required classics for students of George Wythe University, which sadly closed its doors in 2016. Nonetheless, it's a book list!! My edition also includes a list for children and youth and a recommended reading list about education. 

Home Education by Charlotte Mason

Home Education, Volume 1

 Charlotte Mason  

Published 1906

Education

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My husband bought me the Simply Charlotte Mason reprint of Charlotte Mason's Original Home Schooling Series for my birthday last summer. There are six volumes, and I have already finished the first three books. This is a review of volume one. By the way, there is so much in these books that I cannot speak to everything; therefore, I will only paraphrase what my favorite parts are. Also, this first book is mostly directed toward children less than ten years of age.

Charlotte Mason was an advocate of children, parents, and learning. There is no confusion over where her heart was. She believed bringing up and instructing children as most essential to society, certainly in school, but more so at home because home influences the character and calling of the future adult. She expected more from the mother in the early years because "mothers . . . have the sole direction of the children's early, most impressible years." 

Maternal love is the first agent in education.

At least for the first six years of life, mothers, " . . . are waking up to [their] duties, and . . . will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children . . .  is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own.  

Mason noticed that (even during the time of her writing) there was a kind of "child-worship," in which children were protected from physical exertion and discomfort. She believed "children should be trained to endure hardness." 

Charlotte Mason was a proponent of nature and being outdoors. She strongly encouraged parents to permit their children to live and learn and play outside in nature as much as possible. 

Never be within doors when you can rightly be without.

She said, ". . . a mother's first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, . . . spent for the most part out in the fresh air." This allows for sightseeing, observation or perception, and expression. Being able to observe or perceive also leads to discernment with very little instruction or talk from Mother. In fact, least said the better. Children will make the connections on their own.

Mason made the case that education is based on natural law. She said, ". . . the chief function of the child - his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life - is to find out all he can, . . . by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge . . . ; the endeavor of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance . . . with Nature . . . ; the intellectual education of the young child should lie in the free exercise of perceptive power because the first stages of mental effort are marked by the extreme activity of this power; and the wisdom of the educator is to follow the lead of Nature . . ." (Where I said in the margin, "Wow! Public education has this completely opposite.")

There is a long section on habits and habit formation:

The formation of habits is education, and Education is the formation of habits.

She explained why it is important for the educator (Mom) to teach the child moral strength and purpose and self-control over his own nature. Habits that help a child are habits that work against nature because Mason knows that unruly human nature is contrary to God's law, which is written on a man's heart. Educators must teach them habits, which "lead them in ways of order, propriety, and virtue."

The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children.

Mason discussed the necessity of mental habits, like attention and obedience, and behaviors that affect other people, like gentleness, courtesy, kindness, candour and respect. Lessons should be short and worthwhile for young children, and their minds should rest after study and observation. A child can be taught to focus attention, and made aware that if he does not get control of his thoughts, they will wander and control him. A child should put his whole heart into all his work.

To ensure the habits of obedience, a mother must teach her child that it is "a noble thing to be able to make himself do, immediately and rightly, the very thing he would rather not do."

The children who are trained to perfect obedience may be trusted with a good deal of liberty. 

If you wonder why someone else's child seems a spoiled brat:

The root of the evil is, not that these people were born sullen, or peevish, or envious - that might have been mended; but that they were permitted to grow up in these dispositions.

Mason next addressed lessons in general. She explained that children learn in order for mental growth, to get fruitful ideas, for valuable, interesting knowledge, and to exercise power for their minds. Since knowledge should come by way of a child's own investigation (under direction) in Nature, the schoolroom should not encroach on his right to long hours for physical exercise and investigation; his play should be vigorous, and he should be left to himself (with supervision), and the happiness of the child should be based on his progress.

This volume includes an in-depth section on spelling, reading, recitation, narration, writing/composition, dictation, Bible, arithmetic, nature science, history, geography and art/music lessons. Lessons and subjects should be linked, interlaced, and recall the last. (That's why I love teaching history in chronological order. It just makes sense.) It is better for a child to focus on real experience, like a primary source or a chronicle or biography from history by someone who was there and learned first hand, than to memorize names and dates and boring facts. And he should read really good books. (I like that very much.)

The last section, probably the most important, speaks to the will of the child. The three functions of the will are: controller of passions and emotions, direction of desires, and ruler of appetites. Mason explains willfulness, and that a disciplined will is necessary to heroic Christian character. To discipline the will one must change his thinking - have a change of heart attitude. Parents must teach their child that:

. . . there is a power within you, your own will, which will enable you to turn your attention from thoughts that make you unhappy and wrong, to thoughts that make you have and right.

Hence, a child must learn early on a habit of self-management to control himself. Mason believed the shaping of the will is far more important to the well-being of the individual than the education of the mind. She quotes:

. . . Theory and doctrine, and inculcation of laws and propositions, will never of themselves lead to the uniform habit of right action. 

The section on conscience is beautiful. ". . . every soul is a 'living soul,' a fully developed, full-grown soul." Mason makes you think: if a bee can produce an apple tree, imagine what a child, made in the image of God can do. She pleads: The parent must not make blundering, witless effort: as this is the most highest duty imposed upon him, it is also the most delicate; and he will have infinite need of faith and prayer, tact and discretion, humility, gentleness, love, and sound judgment, if he would present his child to God, and the thought of God to the soul of his child. And finally she makes encouraging applications how to do this. Let me end here by saying, I wish before I became a new mom I read Charlotte Mason's books. She was more than a homeschool or learning advocate; her words are practical and commonsensical and encouraging for parents of young children to love them purposefully, raise them up rightly, and train them in the way they should go that would most benefit their souls and society in general. She is highly intellectual, articulate, practical, feminine, and lovely, that I think of her as the Jane Austen of child rearing and early childhood education.

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington

Up From Slavery

Booker T. Washington

Published: 1901

The Well-Educated Mind [biographies]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

This is my third slave narrative and my fourth book about American slavery, this year. Slavery is never an easy topic to read about; however, Up From Slavery is actually extremely encouraging and inspirational.  

The short version of Booker T. Washington's life is that he was born into slavery and was under age ten when slavery ended.  After the Civil War, he moved with his mother and brother to the North. As a young boy, Booker worked to earn money for the family, but what he desired most was an education.  Even in utter poverty and unimaginable hardships, he found a way to go to school and gain knowledge. 

At school, Washington proved himself a hard worker and dedicated student that he was recommended to open a new school in Alabama, which would become the Tuskegee Institute.  He remained the leader and representative of Tuskegee until his death in 1915.  

Tuskegee would become his life work.  He literally built and expanded the school with his bare hands, along with students. He made it his responsibility to secure donations or loans from wealthy individuals and politicians to purchase the land, buy supplies, and furnish the school. The students provided all of the labor because he wanted to teach that there is dignity in merit, industry, and labor.

At the time, ex-slaves believed education (book learning) was the way to avoid hard labor, but Washington wanted them to learn the value of building, creating, and making something worthy and necessary with their own hands, something they could use personally or to sell it because there was a demand.  In turn, students learned a skill, which they were good at and could earn an income.  He taught them how community works.

Some controversial ideas from Washington involved his attitude about the white race.  He forgave slaveholders and never harbored negative feelings towards them or whites.  Of course, he was only eight when he gained his freedom, and he hardly had a memory of slavery. While he sought to lift up the black race, he also wanted to see the same done for the white race because he knew that whites suffered, too, because of slavery.  For example, after the War, southern whites scarcely knew what to do with themselves because they were accustomed to servants doing everything for them.  Surely they needed assistance in learning and living, just as the black race.  He did not want to see whites being left out of any programs or projects that were meant to help only the blacks.  Washington said,

if Congress wanted to do something which would assist in ridding the South of the race question and making friends between the two races, it should, in every proper way, encourage the material and intellectual growth of both races.  

Washington was also worried that the Republicans were pushing too quickly on the black community to get involved in politics when he knew they were not prepared to be in office. He believed the Republicans were using the blacks to gain power in the South, which is very probable, and Washington was more concerned with the moral and intellectual stability of the black race, first.  

He also said that the generation he was teaching now would need to understand that they were laying the foundation for their future children and grandchildren, that they "could grow to higher and more important things in life."  In other words, they were going to have to start at the bottom and work their way up.  They could not expect to begin at the top.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.  It is at the bottom of life we must begin and not at the top.  Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

I understand now why Booker T. Washington was and still is called an "Uncle Tom" by other blacks: because his ideas and policies were and are passive and conservative.  He was eager to see the races equal and did not argue for the "rights" of the black race.  He rather show through hard work, dedication, industry, and education that the black race is worthy of respect and has a place in society.  He wanted to demonstrate that, if given the opportunity, blacks would contribute to their community and prove to be worthy.

He had a positive vision for his people and for the nation and its future.  If this had been the only book I ever read about slavery, I would have thought that the issue of racism was done and over with in America, since Booker T. Washington's time.  He highlights how eager wealthy, white people were to work with or support him in his endeavors, which is why he believed that people would reward merit and that rich people would always support good work someone else was doing. 

But what happened to Washington's ideals?  What happened to his vision?  What happened to his America?  

This reminds me of a story:  Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.  The city of New Orleans, which is already below sea level, was in danger.  The Mayor had issued a mandatory evacuation order, but for whatever reason, many stayed behind.  When the hurricane was over, the levies (which protected the city from the sea) broke, flooding the city.  (No, President Bush did not blow up the levies). 

Many people fled their flooded neighborhoods to get to the Superdome, which had been open to the public, but had remained surprisingly empty during the storm.  And for another unknown reason, the Superdome WAS NOT STOCKED with supplies or resources. THE CITY WAS NOT PREPARED!  People thought they would spend a few hours through the storm and then it would be over.  But that did not happen.  When crowds of helpless, tired, sick, elderly, hungry, frightened, angry people showed up at the Superdome at the same time, it was pure chaos.  This lasted for three days!  

This was frustrating to watch on TV.  When buses arrived at the Superdome, they took 150,000 people and transported them to Houston, Texas, where many of them would start new lives.  Instead, I thought, why not find a way to keep the people in the area? Louisiana could not accommodate her own people?  Why not have them rebuild their city?  After all, the media was talking about how they were all out of work (especially now).  Work?  There would be so much work to be done; someone was going to have to do it.  

And what about all of the people who remained, only to live in FEMA trailers for YEARS and YEARS, waiting for someone else sent by the government to rebuild their home?  Really?  If we learned anything, it is that government fails us on these levels.  How much faster could we get it done ourselves if we could be proactive and involved, instead of waiting for [government] to do it for us?

If Booker T. Washington were alive today, he would have advocated that all of the capable people rebuild their homes, their churches, their neighborhoods, and their community.  He would have rolled up his sleeves to work, too, instead of waiting for government.  Imagine the lessons that would have been learned.  Imagine the skills gained. Imagine the sense of accomplishment.  Imagine the new lives built up after such suffering.  

Booker T. Washington was an insightful, optimistic, brilliant leader.  I'm not sure that America makes those anymore, but we could use one about now.