事业 · 创业者自述
布克·T·华盛顿：力争上游·摘录 5
布克·T·华盛顿《力争上游》· Up from Slavery · 领导
I got the cue to Mr. Washington’s character from a very simple incident many years ago. I had never seen him, and I knew little about him, except that he was the head of a school at Tuskegee, Alabama. I had occasion to write to him, and I addressed him as “The Rev. Booker T. Washington.” In his reply there was no mention of my addressing him as a clergyman. But when I had occasion to write to him again, and persisted in making him a preacher, his second letter brought a postscript: “I have no claim to ‘Rev.’” I knew most of the coloured men who at that time had become prominent as leaders of their race, but I had not then known one who was neither a politician nor a preacher; and I had not heard of the head of an important coloured school who was not a preacher. “A new kind of man in the coloured world,” I said to myself—“a new kind of man surely if he looks upon his task as an economic one instead of a theological one.” I wrote him an apology for mistaking him for a preacher.
出处：
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2376
定位：Excerpt 5 · 核对日期：2026-10-19 · 核验：短摘录
白话
作者说，多年前一件小事让他看懂了华盛顿的性格。他没见过华盛顿，只知道他是阿拉巴马州塔斯基吉一所学校的负责人。第一次写信时，他称呼对方为“尊敬的布克·T·华盛顿牧师”。回信里没提这个称呼。第二次写信，他又坚持把对方当牧师，结果第二封信附了一句：“我无权被称为‘牧师’。”作者这才意识到，当时成名的黑人领袖多半不是政客就是牧师，而华盛顿两者都不是，是把办学当作经济事业而非神学事业的新式人物。于是他写信道歉。
上下文
这是《超越奴役》中的一段回忆，作者通过两次写信称呼失误，发现布克·华盛顿不同于当时常见的黑人领袖类型。
今日一问
你有没有因为一个称呼或头衔，而误判过一个人的实际工作？
公版作品；原文逐字取自 Project Gutenberg，仅摘录段落并附全书链接。
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