W.E.B. Du Bois’s Enduring Education Debate with Booker T. Washington
As the nineteenth century came to a close, American education was beset by several turbulent, shifting trends. Defenders of the old modes of education battled with those who believed more technical schooling would better prepare students for a rapidly changing world. During this transition period, W.E.B. Du Bois and fellow education reformer Booker T. Washington debated what sort of education freedmen — and their children and grandchildren — should receive.
Born at the start of the Reconstruction Era, Du Bois was an intellectual force in the push for civil rights. He argued black Americans needed access to traditional classical education in order to achieve equal rights with their white countrymen. By developing intellectual, moral, and civic virtue, Du Bois believed the robust curricula of classical education prepared students for responsible citizenship and he wanted black Americans to have opportunities to receive a quality liberal arts education like his own.
Du Bois’s non-traditional schooling gave him a distinctive perspective on education. Born to free parents in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, he saw his education in primarily white elementary and high schools as a model. Du Bois received his bachelor’s degree from Fisk University before becoming the first black American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He spent three semesters at Berlin University where he encountered a wealth of knowledge in the classics, literature, and philosophy. Eventually, he came to believe the educational method proposed by Booker T. Washington and his supporters denied black Americans the fundamental knowledge unlocked through classical education, termed by Du Bois as the “kingdom of culture.” Du Bois recognized that classical education nourishes the whole person by leading students to know, practice, and love virtue.
Washington, who was born into slavery, argued for freedmen to receive an industrially focused education, believing black Americans should learn useful trades that were relevant in post-Civil War America. By achieving success in the booming late 19th-century U.S. economy — mastering a practical trade in the fields of agriculture or mechanics, for instance — Washington believed black Americans could earn the respect of their white countrymen. He wanted the school he founded, the Tuskegee Institute, to educate black Americans to be self-sufficient contributors to the existing society.
Du Bois, however, believed Washington’s proposal of technical education would create a permanent caste system in the United States, restraining the potential of black Americans and creating a two-tiered society. Education, for Du Bois, was a means to bypass the prejudices of his time. As a result, in his work “The Souls of Black Folk,” he called for social equality, the right to vote, and access to a liberal arts education for black Americans. He presented a list of the Great Books which he believed Americans should read, including the works of Lucretius, Livy, Cicero, Dante, and Don Quixote.
In his writings, DuBois wrote of a group of men educated in the liberal arts called the “talented tenth” who could lead and educate the society, expanding the culture of knowledge and overcoming the bigotries of the day:
“I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out of the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed Earth and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil.”
Du Bois believed knowledge of the humanities and citizenship were fundamentally linked. The purpose of education was to rise above the “veil” culturally dividing the races so men could experience their shared intellectual history and have insight into each other's lives. For him, the means to this education were the old, time-tested methods. Indeed, he and his colleagues provided such an education to the children of freedmen at Atlanta University.
“Nothing new, no-time saving devices — simply old time-glorified methods of delving for Truth, and searching out the hidden beauties of life, and learning the good living,” DuBois wrote. “The riddle of existence is the college curriculum that was laid before the Pharaohs, that was taught in the groves by Plato, that formed the trivium and quadrivium, and is today laid before the freedmen’s sons at Atlanta University.”
The enduring educational lessons of Du Bois persist in schools throughout the nation. Yet many schools are abandoning classical education in favor of vocational training. Howard University was the last historically black university with a classics department, but it decided to close the department last year. While Howard continues to offer courses that were offered in the department, it’s unfortunate given Du Bois’s influence that so many historically black universities and colleges have strayed away from the liberal arts tradition.
The old Washington-Du Bois debate over the proper method of education is just as relevant today as it was more than a century ago. Du Bois’s voice — challenging us to immerse students in classical education as a way to enrich and elevate their lives — is one we ought to heed.
