Service by the Educated Negro / Address of Roscoe Conkling Bruce of Tuskegee Institute at the Commencement Exercises of the M Street High School Metropolitan A. M. E. Church Washington, D.C., June 16, 1903

An address to recent graduates argues that a diploma brings responsibility to apply education toward personal improvement and public service. It outlines practical qualities gained—ambition, self-discipline, resourcefulness, organizational intelligence, civic awareness, and cultural interests—and considers how these assets may be useful in everyday life. The speaker emphasizes that individual competence and honest work in many occupations, rather than making communal uplift a single professional duty, best advance the general welfare. Teaching is highlighted as a personal art rooted in character and influence, and educators are urged to look beyond the classroom to engage homes and community conditions that shape pupils' lives.