Booker T. Washington's Signs of Progress Among The Negores Lit. Response

Booker T. Washington’s, Signs of Progress among the Negroes, mainly uses two rhetoric devices. His pathos establishes an emotional connection with his audience. He uses logos in his explanations of his beliefs. These devices help better the audience’s understanding of the text, and make it a reading the audience can take to heart so to speak.
Washington’s main purpose for this passage is to show the progress among the Negroes, especially in the matter of education. He tells a story within this text which better establishes the sense of pathos. Washington talks about a young black boy who lived and worked on a plantation. The plantation owner, feeling sorry for the boy, would toss nickels and dimes at him every time he would ride by. Eventually, after the boy saved up the money he was receiving from Mr. S----, the plantation owner, he used it to go to school and get himself an education. This story brings Washington’s view into perspective for his audience. It establishes an emotional connection with the audience, because very likely Washington’s readers felt for the boy who wanted to get himself an education, even though in the south, it was illegal to teach black slaves. Even when this law was outlawed, those who were involved in the teaching of black people were greatly mistreated. This is what leads one to believe why Washington does not use the plantation owner’s full name, Mr. S----. He does this to protect his identity, likely because of how much teaching blacks was hated. This gets the reader involved, because now the reader thinks in his own mind, what he would have done in this situation. As we see later within the passage, Mr. S--- had forgotten about the boy after he left for school. When the boy wrote to him in a letter he just threw the letters away. But when the boy showed up and paid Mr. S---- his money back with interest, Mr. S---- was impressed. He was impressed to the point that he opened a school on his plantation so his blacks could get an education and turn out just like the boy that went to school. Now the readers more involved emotionally with the story. They likely want the school to succeed, to teach more blacks living and working on the plantation. And they were likely joyful once they learned that the school eventually did get its success and did teach many Negroes.
Washington further discusses how far the Negroes have come, and how far they can go. One great point which he brings this out is where he says: “Perhaps the most that we have accomplished in the last thirty years is to show the North and the South how the fourteen slaves landed a few hundred years ago at Jamestown, Virginia, now nearly eight millions of freemen in the South Alone are to be made a safe and useful part of our democratic and Christian institutions.” Washington obviously sees something here, and his logos, or his logic, helps convey his thoughts to his audience. He sees where the blacks have come from, as he brings out the fourteen slaves that landed in Jamestown, and now the eight million freemen in the south. And he now sees that they can go somewhere greater, through the use of education. “So long as the whites in the south are surrounded by a race that is, in a large measure, in ignorance and poverty, so long will this ignorance and poverty of the Negro in a score of ways prevents the highest development of the white man.” So as long as the Negroes remain uneducated, they will stay in their current state, but when they become educated, like the young boy in his earlier illustration, they can and will take themselves to bigger and better places. It’s this logic that helps the audience to understand Washington’s point.
In this passage Washington uses both pathos and logos to convey his ideas. His pathos helps establish an emotional connection with his audience, as in his illustration with the young black boy who sought his education, and his logos shows his logic in how he is thinking, which better helps the audience to understand his points and ideas. It is these two aspects of his writing that brings the reader to a greater knowledge and understanding of what Booker T. Washington was trying to express.