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Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

"The Souls of Black Folk"

Nothing new, no time-sav-
ing devices,--simply old time-glorified methods of delving
for Truth, and searching out the hidden beauties of life, and
learning the good of living. 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 to-day laid before the freedmen's sons by
Atlanta University. And this course of study will not change;
its methods will grow more deft and effectual, its content
richer by toil of scholar and sight of seer; but the true college
will ever have one goal,--not to earn meat, but to know the
end and aim of that life which meat nourishes.
The vision of life that rises before these dark eyes has in it
nothing mean or selfish. Not at Oxford or at Leipsic, not at
Yale or Columbia, is there an air of higher resolve or more
unfettered striving; the determination to realize for men, both
black and white, the broadest possibilities of life, to seek the
better and the best, to spread with their own hands the Gospel
of Sacrifice,--all this is the burden of their talk and dream.


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