WORKING WITH THE HANDS

MR. WASHINGTON IN HIS OFFICE AT TUSKEGEE

WORKING
WITH THE HANDS

BEING A SEQUEL TO "UP FROM SLAVERY"
COVERING THE AUTHOR'S
EXPERIENCES IN INDUSTRIAL
TRAINING AT TUSKEGEE

By

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Illustrated from photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1904

Copyright, 1904, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
Published, May, 1904

INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL
SUBSCRIPTION EDITION

There are few subjects that are more important to the people of all sections of the country than emphasising the value of labour with the hands. It has an especial interest for the people who dwell in small towns and in country districts. It has an interest for the farmer, the mechanic, and for the woman who is engaged in domestic work, as well as for those whose occupations are more in the direction of mental work alone. How to dignify all forms of hand-labour, and to make it attractive instead of repulsive, is a question that vitally concerns every family. It is my earnest desire that what I have said in the following pages may reach that class of people in our country, especially those who are struggling with the hands to reach a higher and more useful plane of life. It is my further wish that many youths who may read what I have said may have their ambition quickened and their courage strengthened for the battle of life.

For several years, I have been receiving requests, from many parts of the United States and from foreign countries as well, for some detailed information concerning the value of industrial training and the methods employed to develop it. This little volume is the result, in part, of an attempt to answer these queries. Two proved facts need emphasis here:

First: Mere hand training, without thorough moral, religious, and mental education, counts for very little. The hands, the head, and the heart together should be so correlated that one may be made to help the others. At the Tuskegee Institute we find constantly that we can make our industrial work assist in the academic training, and vice versa.

Second: The effort to make an industry profitable should not be the aim of first importance. The teaching should be most emphasised. Our policy at Tuskegee is to make an industry pay its way if possible, but at the same time not to sacrifice the training to mere economic gain. Those who undertake such an endeavour, with the expectation to getting much money out of an industry, will find themselves disappointed, unless they realise that the institution must be, all the time, working upon new material. At Tuskegee, for example, when a student is trained to the point of efficiency where he can construct a first-class wagon, we do not keep him there to build more vehicles, but send him out into the world to exert his trained influence and capabilities in lifting others to his level; and we begin our work with the raw material all over again.

I shall be more than repaid if these chapters serve the purpose of helping forward the cause of education, even though their aid be remote and indirect.

Booker T. Washington.

July 22, 1904,
South Weymouth, Mass.

PREFACE

For several years I have been receiving requests, from many parts of the United States, and from foreign countries as well, for some detailed information concerning the value of industrial training and the methods employed to develop it. This little volume is the result, in part, of an attempt to answer these queries. Two proven facts need emphasis here:

First: Mere hand training, without thorough moral, religious, and mental education, counts for very little. The hands, the head, and the heart together, as the essential elements of educational need, should be so correlated that one may be made to help the others. At the Tuskegee Institute we find constantly that we can make our industrial work assist in the academic training, and vice versa.

Second: The effort to make an industry pay its way should not be made the aim of first importance. The teaching should be most emphasised. Our policy at Tuskegee is to make an industry pay its way if possible, but at the same time not to sacrifice the training to mere economic gain. Those who undertake such endeavour with the expectation of getting much money out of an industry, will find themselves disappointed, unless they realise that the institution must be, all the time, working upon raw material. At Tuskegee, for example, when a student is trained to the point of efficiency where he can construct a first-class wagon, we do not keep him there to build more vehicles, but send him out into the world to exert his trained influence and capabilities in lifting others to his level, and we begin our work with the raw material all over again.

I shall be more than repaid if these chapters will serve the purpose of helping forward the cause of education, even though their aid be remote and indirect.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

WORKING WITH THE HANDS

WORKING WITH THE HANDS

CHAPTER I Moral Values of Hand Work

The worth of work with the hands as an uplifting power in real education was first brought home to me with striking emphasis when I was a student at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, which was at that time under the direction of the late General S. C. Armstrong. But I recall with interest an experience, earlier than my Hampton training, along similar lines of enlightenment, which came to me when I was a child. Soon after I was made free by the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, there came the new opportunity to attend a public school at my home town in West Virginia. When the teacher said that the chief purpose of education was to enable one to speak and write the English language correctly, the statement found lodgment in my mind and stayed there. While at the time I could not put my thoughts into words clearly enough to express instinctive disagreement with my teacher, this definition did not seem adequate, it grated harshly upon my young ears, and I had reasons for feeling that education ought to do more for a boy than merely to teach him to read and write. While this scheme of education was being held up before me, my mother was living in abject poverty, lacking the commonest necessaries of life, and working day and night to give me a chance to go to school for two or three months of the year. And my foremost aim in going to school was to learn ways and means by which I might make life more endurable, and if possible even attractive, for my mother.

There were several boys of our neighbourhood who had superior school advantages, and who, in more than one instance, had reached the point where they were called "educated," which meant that they could write and talk correctly. But their parents were not far removed from the conditions in which my mother was living, and I could not help wondering whether this kind of education alone was fitted to help me in the immediate needs of relieving the hard times at home. This idea, however, ran counter to the current of widespread opinion among my people. Young as I was, I had come to have the feeling that to be a free boy meant, to a considerable extent, freedom from work with the hands, and that this new status applied especially to the educated boy.

Just after the Civil War the Negro lad was strongly influenced by two beliefs; one, that freedom from slavery brought with it freedom from hard work, the other that education of the head would bring even more sweeping emancipation from work with the hands. It is fair to add that the Negro was not directly responsible for either of these ideas, but they warped his views nevertheless, and held sway over the masses of the young generation. I had felt and observed these things, and further, as a child in Virginia, had naturally noted that young white boys whose fathers held slaves did not often work with their hands.

Not long after I had begun to think of these new conditions and their results, viewing them as seriously as could be expected of an ignorant boy, an event of my working life left important influences in its wake. There lived a little way from my mother's cabin a woman of wealth, who had lived many years in the South, although she had been born and educated in Vermont. She had a high respect for manual labour, showing actively her appreciation of the dignity of honest work well done, and, notwithstanding her own position and culture, she was not ashamed to use her hands. In the neighbourhood, this lady was reputed to be exceedingly hard to please in the performance of any sort of work on her place, and among the village boys she was called a "hard person to get along with."

As I remember, at least half a dozen boys had been successively chosen to live with her, but their residence in service had been consistently short-lived. I think a week was about the average period, in spite of the widely advertised fact that the household had the redeeming reputation of always providing good things to eat. In addition to pies and cakes, which boys in a community like ours seldom saw in their own cabin homes, the orchards around the house bore heavy yields of the finest fruits, yet such extraordinary inducements as these could not hold the boys, who one by one returned to the village with the same story, that the lady of the mansion was too strict and too hard to please.

After a long record of these mutual disappointments, my mother told me that my turn had come, as the rich and exacting personage had sent to ask me to come and live with her, with the promise of five dollars a month in wages. After a long and serious talk with my mother I decided to make the effort to serve this woman, although the tidings of so many failures filled me with foreboding. A few days later, with my clothes made as presentable as possible, and with my heart thumping in fear and anxiety, I reported for duty.

I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner, her wealth, her fine house, and her luxurious surroundings, overshadowed by her appalling severity and exacting discipline, that I trembled with a terror which I shall not try to describe at the thought of facing her. My life had been lived in a cabin, and I was now to try to toil in what looked to me like a grand mansion, an enchanted palace filled with alarms. But I got a grip on all the courage in my scanty stock, and braced myself to endure the ordeal with all possible fortitude.

The meeting was not at all what I had expected. Mrs. Ruffner talked to me in the kindliest way, and her frank and positive manner was tempered with a rehearsal of the difficulties encountered with the boys who had preceded me, how and why they had failed to please, and what was expected of them and of me. I saw that it would be my fault if I failed to understand my duties, as she explained them in detail. I would be expected to keep my body clean and my clothes neat, and cleanliness was to be the motto in all my work. She said that all things could be done best by system, and she expected it of me, and that the exact truth at all times, regardless of consequences, was one of the first laws of her household—a law whose violation could never be overlooked.

I remember, too, that she placed special emphasis upon the law of promptness, and said that excuses and explanations could never be taken in the place of results. At the time, this seemed to me a pretty stern program to live up to, and I was fighting a sense of discouragement when, toward the end of the interview, she told me that if I were able to please her she would permit me to attend school at night during the winter. This suggestion so stimulated my ambition that it went a long way toward clinching the decision to make the effort of my life to satisfy my employer and to break all records for length of service in her household.

My first task, as I remember it, was to cut the grass around the house, and then to give the grounds a thorough "cleaning up." In those days there were no lawn-mowers, and I had to go down on my knees and cut much of the grass with a little hand-scythe. I soon found that my employer not only wished the grass cut, but also demanded that it be trimmed smooth and even. Any one who has tried to mow a lawn with a dull hand-scythe or sickle can realise the difficulties which beset this labour. I am not ashamed to say that I did not succeed in giving satisfaction the first, or even the second or third time, but at last I made the turf in that yard look as smooth and velvety as if I had been over it with the most improved pattern of lawn-mower. With this achievement my sense of pride and satisfaction began to stir itself and to become a perceptible incentive. I found, however, that cutting the grass was not the whole task. Every weed, tuft of dead grass, bit of paper, or scrap of dirt of any kind must be removed, nor did I succeed at the first attempt in pleasing my employer. Many times, when tired and hot with trying to put this yard in order, I was heartsick and discouraged and almost determined to run away and go home to my mother.

But I kept at it, and after a few days, as the result of my efforts under the strict oversight of my mistress, we could take pleasure in looking upon a yard where the grass was green, and almost perfect in its smoothness, where the flower beds were trimly kept, the edges of the walks clean cut, and where there was nothing to mar the well-ordered appearance.

When I saw and realised that all this was a creation of my own hands, my whole nature began to change. I felt a self-respect, an encouragement, and a satisfaction that I had never before enjoyed or thought possible. Above all else, I had acquired a new confidence in my ability actually to do things and to do them well. And more than this, I found myself, through this experience, getting rid of the idea which had gradually become a part of me, that the head meant everything and the hands little in working endeavour, and that only to labour with the mind was honourable while to toil with the hands was unworthy and even disgraceful. With this vital growth of realisation there came the warm and hearty commendation of the good woman who had given me what I now consider my first chance to get in touch with the real things of life.

When I recall this experience, I know that then and there my mind was awakened and strengthened. As I began to reap satisfaction from the works of my hands, I found myself planning over night how to gain success in the next day's efforts. I would try to picture the yard as I meant it to look when completed, and laid awake nights trying to decide upon the prettiest curves for the flower beds and the proper width of the walks. I was soon far more absorbed in this work than in filling in my leisure time seeking mischief with the village boys.

I remained in this family for several years, and the longer I was employed there the more satisfaction I got out of my work. Instead of fearing the woman whom the other boys had found so formidable, I learned to think of her and to regard her now (for she still lives) as one of my greatest teachers. Later, whether working in the coal mines or at the salt furnaces, I learned to find the same kind of satisfaction in everything I did for a livelihood. If while sweeping or dusting a room, or weeding a bed of flowers or vegetables, there remained the least imperfection, I was unhappy, and felt that I was guilty of dishonesty until the flaw in my work had been removed.

While I have never wished to underestimate the awakening power of purely mental training, I believe that this visible, tangible contact with nature gave me inspirations and ambitions which could not have come in any other way. I favour the most thorough mental training and the highest development of mind, but I want to see these linked with the common things of the universal life about our doors.

It was this experience in using my hands that led me, in spite of all the difficulties in the way, to go to the Hampton Institute, where I had learned that pupils could have not only their minds educated, but their hands trained. When I entered the Hampton Institute few industries were taught there, but these had to do with the fundamentals of every-day life. The hand work began with the duties which lay directly in the path of the student. We were taught to make our own beds, to clean our rooms, to take care of the recitation rooms, and to keep the grounds in order. Then came lessons in raising our food on the farm and the proper methods of cooking and serving it in the school. The instruction in iron and wood-work in the earlier years of the institution was mostly in making and repairing the farming implements and in helping to maintain the buildings.

While much of this work may seem rudimentary, it had great educational value. How well I remember the feeling of stimulus and satisfaction inspired by the sight of a perfectly made bed, the pillows placed always at the right angle, and the edges of the sheets turned over according to rules of neatness and system. The work of the farm had a similar kind of influence upon my views of relative values in education. I soon learned that there was a great difference between studying about things and studying the things themselves, between book instruction and the illumination of practical experience.

This chain of experiences, whose links I have tried to indicate, served as a preparation for the work of training the head, the heart, and the hands which I was to undertake later at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. When I went to Alabama to begin this work, I spent some time in visiting towns and country districts in order to learn the real conditions and needs of the people. It was my ambition to make the little school which I was about to found a real service in enriching the life of the most lowly and unfortunate. With this end in view, I not only visited the schools, churches, and farms of the people, but slept in their one-roomed cabins and ate at their tables their fare of corn-bread and fried pork.

FIRST BUILDING ERECTED ON SCHOOL GROUNDS

Often while making these visits, both in the towns and in the plantation districts, I found young men and women who had acquired considerable education, but it seemed to be limited to memorising certain rules in grammar and arithmetic. Some of them had studied both the classic and modern languages, and I discovered students who could solve problems in arithmetic and algebra which I could not master. Yet I could not escape the conviction that the more abstract these problems were, and the further they were removed from the life the people were then living, or were to live, the more stress seemed to be placed upon them. One of the saddest features was to find here and there instances of those who had studied what was called "art" or "instrumental music," in other words "the elegant accomplishments," but who were living in houses where there was no sign of beauty or system. There was not the slightest indication that this art or these accomplishments had had or ever would have any influence upon the life in the homes of these people.

Indeed, it did not seem to have occurred to them that such things ought to have any relation to their every-day life. I found young men who could wrestle successfully with the toughest problems in "compound interest or banking" or "foreign exchange," but who had never thought of trying to figure out why their fathers lost money on every bale of cotton raised, and why they were continually mortgaging their crops and falling deeper into debt. I talked with girls who could locate on the map accurately the Alps and the Andes, but who had no idea of the proper position of the knives and forks on the dinner table. I found those who remembered that bananas were grown in certain South and Central American countries, but to whom it had never occurred that they might be a nourishing and appetising food for their breakfast tables.

In a country where pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, berries, peaches, plums, vegetables, nuts, and other wholesome foods could be produced with little effort, school teachers were eating salt pork from Chicago and canned chicken and tomatoes sent from Omaha. While the countryside abounded in all manner of beautiful shrubbery and fragrant flowers, few of these ever found their way into the houses or upon the dinner tables. While in many instances the people had always lived in the country, and would continue to do so, what few text-books I saw in their cabins were full of pictures and reading matter relating to city life. In these text-books I saw pictures of great office buildings, ships, street-cars, warehouses, but not a single picture of a farm scene, a spreading apple-tree, a field of grass or corn, a flock of sheep, or a herd of cows.

CHAPTER II Training for Conditions

The preliminary investigation of certain phases of the life of the people of my race led me to make a more thorough study of their needs in order that I might have more light on the problem of what the Tuskegee Institute could do to help them. Before beginning work at Tuskegee I had felt that too often in educational missionary effort the temptation was to try to force each individual into a certain mould, regardless of the condition and needs of the subject or of the ends sought. It seemed to me a mistake to try to fit people for conditions which may have been successful in communities a thousand miles away, or in times centuries remote, without paying attention to the actual life and needs of those living in the shadow of the institution and for whom its educational machinery must labour.

In the beginning of my work, when I thought it necessary to investigate at closer range the history and environment of the people around us, it soon became evident that this data was a valuable basis for the undertaking at Tuskegee. For it was demonstrated that we were about to take a share in the burden of educating a race which had had little or no need for labour in its native land, before being brought to America—a race which had never known voluntary incentives to toil.

The tropical climate had been generous to the inhabitant of Africa and had supplied him without effort with the few things needful for the support of the body. I had cause to recall the story of a native who went to sleep on his back in the morning under a banana tree with his mouth open, confident that before noon a providential banana would fall into his mouth. While the African had little occasion to work with his hands in the land of his nativity, by the end of his period of slavery in this country he had undergone two hundred and fifty years of the severest labour. Therefore, many friends of the race argued that the American Negro, of all people, ought to be released from further hand-training, especially while in school. Others said that the Negro had been worked for centuries, and now that the race was free there ought to be a change.

BREAKING UP NEW GROUND WITH AN EIGHT-OX TEAM

At Tuskegee we replied that it was true that the race had been worked in slavery, but the great lesson which the race needed to learn in freedom was to work. We said that as a slave the Negro was worked; as a freeman he must learn to work. There is a vast difference between working and being worked. Being worked means degradation; working means civilisation. This was the difference which our institution wished chiefly to emphasise. We argued that during the days of slavery labour was forced out of the Negro, and he had acquired, for this reason, a dislike for work. The whole machinery of slavery was not apt to beget the spirit of love of labour.

Because these things were true we promised to try to teach our students to lift labour out of drudgery and to place it on a plane where it would become attractive, and where it would be something to be sought rather than something to be dreaded and if possible avoided.

More than this, we wanted to teach men and women to put brains into the labour of the hand, and to show that it was possible for one with the best mental training to work with the hands without feeling that he was degraded. While we were considering our plans at Tuskegee, many persons argued with me, as they had done with General Armstrong years before, at Hampton, that all the Negro youth needed as education was mental and religious training, and that all else would follow of itself.

Partly in answer to this argument, we pointed to our people in the republic of Hayti, who were freed many years before emancipation came to our race in the Southern States. A large number of the leading citizens of Hayti during the long period of years had been given a most thorough mental training not only in Hayti but in France, and the Catholic Church had surrounded the population from birth with religious influences. Many Haytians had distinguished themselves in the study of philosophy and the languages, and yet the sad fact remained that Hayti did not prosper.

I wish to be entirely fair to the Haytians. Hayti exports annually from sixty to eighty million pounds of coffee and several hundred million pounds of precious woods. A French statistician says that "among the sixty countries of the globe which carry on regular commerce with France, Hayti figures in the seventeenth place. In amount of special duties received at the French Custom House upon the products imported from those sixty countries, Hayti comes in the fourth rank." It seems well to observe, then, that here is the foundation for the upbuilding of a rich and powerful country, with great natural resources. It seems all the more inexcusable that industrial conditions should be as unsatisfactory as they are.

The thoughtful and progressive men in the republics of Hayti and Santo Domingo now recognise the fact that while there has always been a demand for professional men and women of the highest type of scholarship, at the same time many of these scholars should have had such scientific and industrial education as would have brought them into direct contact with the development of the material resources of the country. They now see that their country would have been advanced far beyond its present condition, materially and morally, if a large proportion of the brightest youths had been given skilled handicrafts and had been taught the mechanical arts and practical methods of agriculture. Some of them should have been educated as civil, mining, and sanitary engineers, and others as architects and builders; and most important of all, agriculture should have been scientifically developed. If such a foundation had been laid it is probable that Hayti would now possess good public roads, streets, bridges, and railroads, and that its agricultural and mining resources would have made the country rich, prosperous, and contented.

It is a deplorable fact that one of the richest islands in natural resources in the world is compelled to import a large proportion of its food and clothing. It is actually true that many of the people of Hayti, some of them graduates of the best universities of France, content themselves with wearing clothes imported from Europe. It is also true that great quantities of canned meats and vegetables are brought from the United States, commodities which could easily be produced at their very doors. The Haytians claim, however, that most of the imported food is for the use of foreigners, as they, themselves, eat very little meat that is not freshly cooked. The people live almost wholly upon the primitive products of undisturbed nature, and the greater part of the harvesters and other workers are women.

I have been told, upon reliable authority, that the majority of the educated persons in the island take up the professions, and that because there is almost no industrial development of the country, the lawyer, naturally, finds himself without clients, and he, in common with others of the educated classes, spends much of his time in writing poetry, in discussing subjects in abstract science, or embroiling his country in revolutions.

In recent years I have received most urgent appeals from both Hayti and Santo Domingo for advice and assistance in the direction of educating industrial and scientific leaders. The best friends of Hayti and Santo Domingo now realise that tremendous mistakes have been made. They see that if the people had been taught in the beginning of their freedom that all forms of idleness were disgraceful and that all forms of labour, whether with the head or with the hand, were honourable, the country to-day would not be in such stress of poverty. They would have fewer revolutions, because the people would have industries to occupy their time, their thoughts, and their energies. I ought to add that, in such deficiencies as these, Hayti is perhaps not worse off than some South American republics which have made the same mistakes.

The situation in these countries which have overlooked the value of industrial training remind me of a story told by the late Henry W. Grady about a country funeral in Georgia. The grave was dug in the midst of a pine forest, but the pine coffin that held the body was brought from Cincinnati. Hickory and other hard woods grew in abundance nearby, but the wagon on which the coffin was drawn came from South Bend, Indiana, and the mule that drew the wagon came from Missouri. Valuable minerals were close to the cemetery, but the shovels and picks used in digging the grave came from Pittsburg, and their handles from Baltimore. The shoes in which the dead man was buried came from Lynn, Massachusetts, his coat and trousers from New York, his shirt from Lowell, Massachusetts, and his collar and tie from Philadelphia. The only things supplied by the county, with its wealth of natural resources, was the corpse and the hole in the ground, and Mr. Grady added that the county probably would have imported both of these if it could have done so.

When any people, regardless of race or geographical location, have not been trained to habits of industry, have not been given skill of hand in youth, and taught to love labour, a direct result is the breeding of a worthless idle class, which spends a great deal of its time in trying to live by its wits. If a community has been educated exclusively on books and has not been trained in habits of applied industry, an unwholesome tendency to dodge honest productive labour is likely to develop. As in the case of Hayti, the people acquire a fatal fondness for wasting valuable hours in discussing politics and conspiring to overthrow the government. I have noted, too, that when the people of a community have not been taught to work intelligently with their hands, or have not learned habits of thrift and industry, they are likely to be fretting continually for fear that no one will be left to earn a living for them.

There are few more dismal and discouraging sights than the men of a community absorbed in idle gossip and political discussion. I have seen more than a dozen white men in one small town take their seats under a tree or on the shady side of the street as early as eight o'clock in the morning and talk politics until noon. Then they would go home for dinner, and return at one o'clock to spend the remainder of the day threshing out the same threadbare topics. Their greatest exertion during the whole long day would be in moving from the sunny side of the street or tree to the shady side and back again. A curious trait of such parasites is that they are always wondering why "times are hard," and why there is so little money in circulation in their communities.

An argument handed down from Reconstruction times was once urged by many people, both white and coloured, against industrial education. It was to the effect that because the white South had from the first opposed what is popularly called "higher education" for the Negro, this must be the only kind good for him. I remember that when I was trying to establish the Tuskegee Institute, nearly all the white people who talked with me on the subject took it for granted that instruction in Greek, Latin, and modern languages would be main features in our curriculum; and I heard no one oppose what it was thought our course of study would embrace. In fact, there are many white people in the South at the present time who do not know that the dead languages are not taught at Tuskegee.

Further proof of what I have said will be furnished by the catalogs of the schools maintained by the Southern States for Negro people, and managed by Southern white people; it will be found that in almost every instance instruction in the higher branches is given with the consent and approval of white officials. This was true as far back as 1880. It is not unusual to meet even at this time Southern white people who are as emphatic in their belief in the value of classical education as a certain element of the coloured people themselves. But the bulk of opinion in the South had little faith in the efficacy of the "higher" or any other kind of education for the Negro. They were indifferent, but did not openly oppose. Not all have been indifferent, however, for there has always been a potent element of white people in all the Southern States who have stood up openly and bravely for the education of all the people, regardless of race. This element has had considerable success thus far in shaping and leading public opinion, and I believe it will become more and more influential. This does not mean that there is as yet an equitable division of the school funds raised by common taxation.

While the education which we proposed to give at the Tuskegee Institute was not spontaneously welcomed by the white South, it was this training of the hands that furnished the first basis for anything like united and sympathetic interest and action between the two races at the South and the whites at the North and those at the South. Aside from its direct benefits to the Negro race, industrial education, in providing a common ground for understanding and coöperation between the North and South, has meant more to the South and to the cause of education than has been realised.

Many white people of the South saw in the movement to teach young Negroes the necessity and honour of work with the hands a means of leading them gradually and sensibly into their new life of freedom, without too sudden a transition from one extreme to the other. They perceived, too, that the Negroes who were master carpenters and contractors under the guidance of their owners could greatly further the development of the South if their children were not too suddenly removed from the atmosphere and occupations of their fathers, but taught to use the thing in hand as a foundation for still higher growth. Some were far-sighted enough to see that industrial education would enable one generation to secure economic independence, and the next, on this foundation, to obtain a more abstract education, if desired. The individual and community interest of the white people was directly appealed to by industrial education. They perceived that intelligence, coupled with skill, would add wealth, in which both races would increasingly share, to the community and to the State. While crude labour could be managed and made to some degree profitable under the methods of slavery, it could not be so utilised in a state of freedom. Almost every white man in the South was directly interested in agricultural, mechanical, or other manual labour; in the cooking and serving of food, laundering and dairying, poultry-raising, and everything related to housekeeping in general. There was no family whose interest in intelligent and skillful nursing was not now and then quickened by the presence of a trained nurse.

Therefore there came to be growing appreciation of the fact that industrial education of the black people had a practical and vital bearing on the life of every white family in the South. There was little opportunity for such appreciation of the results of mere literary education. If a black man became a lawyer, a doctor, a minister, or an ordinary teacher, his professional duties would not ordinarily bring him in touch with the white portion of the community, but rather confine him to his own race. While professional education was not opposed by the white South as a whole, it aroused little or no interest, beyond a confused hope that it would produce a better and higher type of Negro manhood. Industrial education, however, soon recommended itself to the white South, when they saw the Negro not only studying chemistry, but its applications to agriculture, cooking, and dairying; not merely geometry and physics, but their application to blacksmithing, brickmaking, farming, and what not. A common bond at once appeared between the two races and between the North and the South.

CUTTING SUGAR-CANE ON THE SCHOOL'S FARM

A class of people in the South also favoured industrial education because they saw that as long as the Negro kept abreast in intelligence and skill with the same class of workmen elsewhere, the South, at present free from the grip of the trade union, would continue free from its restrictive influences. I should like to make a diversion here to call attention to the fact that official records show that within one year about one million foreigners came into the United States, yet practically none of the immigration went into the Southern States. The records show that in 1892 only 2,278 all told went into the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. One ship sometimes brings as many as these to New York in one trip. Foreigners avoid the South. It must be frankly recognised by the people of that section that for a long period they must depend upon the black man to do for it what the foreigner is doing for the Great West, and that they cannot hope to keep pace with the progress of people in other sections if one-third of the population is ignorant and without skill. If the South does not help the Negro up, it will be tying itself to a body of death. If by reason of his skill and knowledge one man in Iowa can produce as much corn in a season as four men can produce in Alabama, it requires little reasoning to see that Alabama will buy most of her corn from Iowa.

An instance which illustrates most interestingly the value of education that concerns itself with the common things about us, is furnished by Professor Geo. W. Carver, the Director of our Agricultural Department. For some time it has been his custom to prepare articles containing information concerning the condition of local crops, and warning the farmers against the ravages of certain diseases and insects. Some months ago a white landholder in Montgomery County asked Mr. Carver to inspect his farm. While doing so, Mr. Carver discovered traces of what he thought was a valuable mineral deposit used in making a certain kind of paint. The interests of the agricultural expert and the landholder at once became mutual. Mr. Carver analysed specimens of the deposits in the laboratory at Tuskegee and sent the owner a report of the analysis, with a statement of the commercial application and value of the mineral. It is an interesting fact that two previous analyses had been made by chemists who had tabulated the constituents with greatest accuracy, but failed to grasp any idea of value in the deposits. I need not go into the details of this story, except to say that a stock company, composed of some of the best white people in Alabama, has been organised, and is now preparing to build a factory for the purpose of putting the product on the market. I hardly need add that Mr. Carver has been freely consulted at every step, and that his services have been generously recognised in the organisation of the concern.

Now and then my advocacy of industrial education has been interpreted to mean that I am opposed to what is called "higher" or "more intellectual" training. This distorts my real meaning. All such training has its place and value in the development of a race. Mere training of the hand without mental and moral education would mean little for the welfare of any race. All are vital factors in a harmonious plan. But, while I do not propose that every individual should have hand training, I do say that in all my contact with men I have never met one who had learned a trade in youth and regretted it in manhood, nor have I ever seen a father or mother who was sorry that his children had been taught trades.

There is still doubt in many quarters as to the ability of the Negro, unguided, and unsupported, to hew out his own path, and put into visible, tangible, indisputable forms the products and signs of civilisation. This doubt cannot be extinguished by mere abstract arguments, no matter how ingeniously and convincingly advanced. Quietly, patiently, doggedly, through summer and winter, sunshine and shadow, by self-sacrifice, by foresight, by honesty and industry, we must re-enforce arguments with results. One farm bought, one house built, one home neatly kept, one man the largest tax-payer and depositor in the local bank, one school or church maintained, one factory running successfully, one truck-garden profitably cultivated, one patient cured by a Negro doctor, one sermon well preached, one office well filled, one life cleanly lived—these will tell more in our favour than all the abstract eloquence that can be summoned to plead our cause. Our pathway must be up through the soil, up through swamps, up through forests, up through the streams and rocks; up through commerce, education, and religion!

In my opinion we cannot begin at the top to build a race, any more than we can begin at the top to build a house. If we try to do this, we shall reap in the end the fruits of our folly.

CHAPTER III A Battle Against Prejudice

When the first few students began to come to Tuskegee I faced these questions which were inspired by my personal knowledge of their lives and surroundings:

What can these young men and women find to do when they return to their homes?

What are the industries in which they and their parents have been supporting themselves?

The answers were not always to my liking, but this was not the point at issue. I had to meet a condition, not a theory. What I might have wanted them to be doing was one thing; what they were actually doing was the bed-rock upon which I hoped to lay the foundation of the work at Tuskegee.

It was known that a large majority of the students came from agricultural districts and from homes in which agriculture in some form was the mainstay of the family. I had learned that nearly eighty per cent of the population of what are commonly called the Gulf States are dependent upon agricultural resources, directly or indirectly. These facts made me resolve to attempt in downright earnest to see what the Tuskegee Institute could do for the people of my race by teaching the intelligent use of hands and brains on the farm, not by theorising, but by practical effort. The methods in vogue for getting enough out of the soil to keep body and soul together were crude in the extreme. The people themselves referred to this heart-breaking effort as "making a living." I wanted to teach them how to make more than a living.

I have little respect for the farmer who is satisfied with merely "making a living." It is hardly possible that agricultural life will become attractive and satisfactory to ambitious young men or women in the South until farming can be made as lucrative there as in other parts of the country where the farmer can be reasonably sure of being able to place something in the bank at the end of the year. For the young farmer to be contented he must be able to look forward to owning the land that he cultivates, and from which he may later derive not only all the necessities of life, but some of the comforts and conveniences. The farmer must be helped to get to the point where he can have a comfortable dwelling-house, and in it bathtubs, carpets, rugs, pictures, books, magazines, a daily paper, and a telephone. He must be helped to cherish the possibility that he and his family will have time for study and investigation, and a little time each year for travel and recreation, and for attending lectures and concerts.

GRINDING SUGAR-CANE AT THE SCHOOL'S SUGAR-MILL

But the average farmer whom I wanted to help through the medium of the Tuskegee Institute was far from this condition. I found that most of the farmers in the Gulf States cultivated cotton. Little or nothing in the form of stock or fowls, fruits, vegetables, or grain was raised for food. In order to get the food on which man and live stock were to live while the cotton crop was being grown, a mortgage or lien had to be given upon the crop, or rather upon the expected crop, for the legal papers were usually signed months in advance of the planting of the crop.

Cotton in the South has been known for years as "the money crop." This means that it is the one product from which cash may be expected without question as soon as the crop is harvested. The result of this system has been to discourage raising anything except cotton, for the man who holds the mortgage upon the crop discourages, and in some cases prevents, the farmer from giving much of his time and strength to the growing of anything except cotton, since the money-lender is not sure that he can get his money back from any other crop.

The result of this has been that, beginning in January, the farmer had to go to the store or to the money-lender for practically all of his food during the year. The rate of interest which the farmer had to pay on his "advances" was in many cases enormous. The farmer usually got his "advances" or provisions from a storekeeper. The storekeeper in turn borrowed money from the local bank. The bank, as a general thing, borrowed from New York. By the time the money reached the farmer he had to pay in not a few cases a rate of interest which ranged from 15 to 30 per cent. If he failed to make his payment at the end of the year he was likely to be "cleaned up"—that is, everything in sight in the way of crops or live stock was taken from him. After being "cleaned up" he would either try to make another crop on the same rented farm—trusting to Providence or the weather for better luck—or else move to another farm and go in search of some one else to "run him," as the local expression describes the process. Not a few of the farmers whom I met had been "cleaned up" half a dozen times or more.

In addition to having to pay the high rate of interest for food supplies and clothing advanced, the ground rent was also to be paid. By far the greater part of the land was rented. This, of course, had a hurtful effect. Because the man who tilled the land did not own it, his main object was to get all he could out of the property and return to it as little as possible. The results were shown in the wretched cabins and surroundings. If a fence was out of repair, or the roof of the house leaked, the tenant had no personal interest in keeping up the premises, because he was always expecting to move, and he did not want to spend money upon the property of other people.

Instead of returning the cotton-seed to the ground to help enrich the soil, he sold this valuable fertiliser. The land, of course, was more impoverished each year. Ditching and terracing received little attention. The mules with which the crops were made were rented or were being bought "on time," as a rule, and the farmer did not have enough direct interest in them to encourage him to spend money in keeping them in prime condition. Besides, the food fed to the animals was not raised on the place, but had to be bought.

Another serious result of the "one-crop" system was that the farmers handled almost no cash except in the fall. To the ignorant and inexperienced men of my race this was hurtful. If by any chance they were able to pay their ground rent, and the principal and exorbitant interest charged for their "advances," and have a few dollars in cash left, the money did not remain with them long, for it came into their hands about Christmas time, when the temptation to spend it for whisky, cheap jewelry, cheap buggies, and such unprofitable articles was too strong to be resisted. Had the same value been in the hands of the farmer in the form of corn, vegetables, fruit, stock, or fowls it would have been not only less likely to be wasted, but it would also have been available for the farmer and his family during the whole or the greater part of the year.

The conditions which I have described had a discouraging effect upon many people who tried to get their living from the soil. As numbers of them expressed it to me, if they worked hard during the year they came out at the end in debt, and if they did not work they found themselves in debt anyhow. Some went so far as to perform only sufficient work to "make a show" of raising enough cotton on which to get "advances" during the year, with no thought of ridding themselves of debt or of coming out ahead.

Notwithstanding these conditions, there were instances each year of individuals who triumphed over all these difficulties and discouragements and came out with considerable money or cotton to their credit. These men soon got to the point where they could begin to buy their own homes.

In justice to the class of men in the South who advance money or provisions each year to the farmers, I ought to say that many of them deplore the state of affairs to which I have referred as much as any one, but with them it is simply a system of lending money on uncertain security. If these advances were not made, in many instances the farmers and their families would starve. The average merchant prefers to deal with the man who owns his land and can pay cash for his goods, but the many ramifications of the mortgage system make both the farmer and the money-lender slaves to the one-crop plan. If cotton fails, or if the tenant abandons the crop before it is matured, the money-lender is bound to lose. Both with the farmer and the money-lender it has been like the old story of the man hugging the bear, each desperately anxious to find a way to get free.

From the first I was painfully conscious of the fact that I could do very little through the work of the Tuskegee Institute to help the situation, but I was determined to make an effort to do what I could. Many of my own race had been reduced to discouragement and despair. Before the school could begin its practical help I spent all the time that could be spared in going about among the people, holding meetings, and talking with individual leaders, to arouse their ambition, and inspire in them hope and confidence.

My first effort was to try to help the masses through the medium of the thing that was nearest to them, and in which they had the most vital and practical interest. I knew that if we could teach a man's son to raise forty bushels of corn on an acre of ground which had before produced but twenty bushels, and if he could be taught to raise this corn with less labour than before, we should gain the confidence and sympathy of that boy's father at once.

In this connection I have often thought that missionaries in foreign countries would make greater progress if at first more emphasis were placed upon the industrial and material side than upon the purely spiritual side of education. Almost any heathen family would, I believe, appreciate at once the difference between a shack and a comfortable house, while it might require years to make them appreciate the truths of the Bible. Through the medium of the home the heart could be reached. Not long ago I was asked by a missionary who was going into a foreign field what, in my opinion, he ought to teach the people, and how he ought to begin. I asked him what the principal occupation of the people was among whom he was going, and he replied that it was the raising of sheep. I advised him, then, to begin his missionary work by teaching the people how to raise more sheep than they were raising and better sheep, and said that I thought the people would soon decide that a man who could excel them in the raising of sheep might also excel them in the matter of religion, and that thus the foundation for effectual mission work might be laid.

The first few students of our school came largely from the farming districts. The earliest need at the Tuskegee School was food for teachers and students. I said: "Let us raise this food, and while doing so teach the students the latest and best methods of farming." At the same time we could teach them the dignity and advantages of farm life and of work with their hands. It was easy to see the reasons for doing this, and easy to resolve to do it, but I soon found that there were several stubborn and serious difficulties to be overcome. The first and perhaps the hardest of these was to conquer the idea, by no means confined to my race, that a school was a place where one was expected to do nothing but study books; where one was expected not to study things, but to study about things. Least of all did the students feel that a school was a place where one would be taught actually to do things. Aside from this, the students had a very general idea that work with the hands was in a large measure disgraceful, and that they wanted to get an education because education was something which was meant to enable people to live without hand work.

In addition to the objections named, I found that when I began to speak very gently and even cautiously to the students about the plan of teaching them to work on the farm, two other objections manifested themselves with more or less emphasis. One was that most of the students wanted to get out of the country into a town or a city, and the other that many of them said they were anxious to prepare themselves for some kind of professional life, and that they therefore did not need the farm work. The most serious obstacle, however, was the argument that since they and their parents for generations back had tilled the soil, they knew all there was to be known about farming, and did not need to be taught any more about it while in school.

These objections on the part of the students were reinforced by the parents of many of them. Not a few of the fathers and mothers urged that because the race had been worked for two hundred and fifty years or more, now it ought to have a chance to rest. With all of my earnestness and argument I was unable in the earlier years of the school to convert all the parents and students to my way of thinking, and for this reason many of the students went home of their own accord or were taken home by their parents. None of these things, however, turned the school aside from doing the things which we were convinced the people most needed to have done for them.

I shall always remember the day when we decided actually to begin the teaching of farming—not out of books, but by real and tangible work. In the morning I explained to the young men our need of food to eat, and the desire of the school to teach them to work with their hands. I told them that we would begin with the farm, because that was the most important need. The young men were greatly surprised when the hour came to begin work to find me present with my coat off, ready to begin digging up stumps and clearing the land. As my first request was more in the form of an invitation than a command, I found that only a few reported for work. I soon learned, too, that these few were ashamed to have any one see them at work. After we had put in several hours of vigorous toil I noticed that their interest began to grow, because they came to realise that it was not my farm they were helping to cultivate, but that it belonged to the school, in which we all had a common interest. The next afternoon a larger number reported for duty. They were still shy about having any one see them at work, however, and were especially timorous at the idea of being caught in the field by the girl students.

Gradually, year by year, the difficulties which I have enumerated began to melt away, but not without constant effort and very trying embarrassments. It soon became evident that the students had practical knowledge of only one industry, and that was the cultivation of cotton in the manner in which it had been grown by their fathers for years. Another defect soon became evident, and that was that they had little idea of caring for tools or live stock. Plows, hoes, and other farming implements were left in the field where they were last used. If quitting time came when the hoe was being used in the middle of a field or at the end of a row, the tool remained there over night. Where the last plowing in the fall was done, there the plow would most likely spend the winter. No better care than this was given to wagons or harness, and mules and horses shared this impartial neglect.

It was the custom in the earlier days of the school—as it is now—for students and teachers to assemble in the evening for prayers. After considerable ineffective effort to teach the students to put their implements away properly at night, I caused a mild sensation at evening prayers by calling the names of three students who had left their implements in the field. I said that these three students would be excused from the room to attend to this duty, and that we would not proceed with the service until their return, and that I felt sure they would be more benefited by prayer and song after having done their work well than by leaving it poorly done. A few lessons of this kind began to work a notable betterment in the care with which the students looked after their implements, and attended to other details of their daily round.

THE REPAIR SHOP
All of the broken furniture of the school is mended here

CHAPTER IV Making Education Pay Its Way

I cannot emphasise too often the fact that my experience in building up the Tuskegee Institute has taught me year by year the value of hand work in the building of character. I have frequently found one concrete, definite example illustrating the difference between right and wrong worth more than hours of abstract lecturing on morality. I have told girls many times that a dish is either thoroughly washed and dried or it is not. If a thing is not well done, it is poorly done. Furthermore, I have taught our girls from the beginning of this school that a student who receives pay for properly attending to dishes, and does her work poorly, is guilty of two wrongs. She is guilty of falsehood and guilty of receiving money for doing something which she has not done.

This lesson taught in the kitchen, with the carelessly cleaned utensil in evidence as an illustration, has a power that is hard to resist. Just so the implement left in the field over night has many times been made to teach the same lessons—of warning against untruth and dishonesty. Leaving it there was untruthful, because the student had said by his action that he had properly performed the work of the day; it was dishonest because the school had been robbed of a portion of the value of the implement by reason of the rain and dew falling on it and causing it to rust and depreciate in value.

In the beginning our methods of instruction in farming were primitive and crude, but month by month, and year by year, steady growth encouraged our efforts. One difficulty to which I have not referred was that the land on which we began work was not the richest in the world. When attention was called by the students and others to the poor quality of the soil, I replied that poor soil was the best in which to begin the teaching of agriculture, because this would give us an opportunity to learn to make poor land rich. I told them also that if we could teach the students how to cultivate poor land profitably they would have little difficulty in making more than a living upon fairly good or rich soil.

Apart from the problems found on the school grounds, our methods were at first misunderstood by school officials in high authority throughout the country, and our aims were not appreciated by other schools established in the South for the education of my race. I remember that after I had spoken for an hour at a meeting of a State Teachers' Association, trying to explain the meaning and advantages of industrial education or hand work, a teacher arose and asked the State superintendent, who was present, a very simple question regarding the subject. The superintendent replied that he would have to refer the question to me, as the subject was one that he had never heard discussed before. It happened occasionally that students on their way to the Tuskegee Institute were asked if they were going to an "ox-driving school," the question implying, I suppose, that the main thing taught at Tuskegee was ox-driving. Our critics, however, did not know that at the time we were too poor to own oxen, and that on our little farm we had nothing in the way of draught animals except one poor blind horse which a white friend in Tuskegee had given us.

During the first year the training in agriculture on the school farm consisted of about two hours of work daily for each of the young men students, the remaining time being spent in the class rooms. The outdoor period, during the first school session, was mostly spent in grubbing up stumps, felling trees, building fences, making ditches, and in plowing the ground preparatory to planting a little crop. We had few implements with which to do this work, and most of these were borrowed. The reader will realise how hard it must have been under these conditions to make the student feel that he was acquiring new knowledge of farm life. As I recall it now, I am sure that the main thing that we were able to teach the students in those early days was that book education did not mean a divorce from work with the hands.

Gradually we were able to secure more land for farming purposes and to cultivate what we did have to better advantage. As the school grew, we learned more about the proper fertilisation of the soil, and how to use labor-saving machinery more effectively. It was surprising to note how many of the students believed that farm labour must from its very nature be hard, and that it was not quite the proper thing to use too much labour-saving machinery. Indeed, many of the white planters in certain sections of the South have until recently refused to encourage the use of much agricultural machinery, for the reason, as they stated it, that such assistance would spoil the Negro "farm hands." For some years the Tuskegee Institute did not escape this charge. As our department of farming grew from month to month, I was not afraid to let it be known that I felt certain that one result of any proper system of hand training was to spoil, or get rid of, the ordinary "farm hand." If one will study the industrial development of the South, he will be forced to the conclusion that one of the factors that has most retarded its progress has been and is the "farm hand." This individual has too long controlled the agriculture of the South. With few exceptions, he is ignorant and unskilled, with little conscience. He seldom owns the land which he pretends or tries to cultivate. Too often he is a person who has no permanent abiding place, and if he has one it is probably a miserable one-room cabin. The "farm hand" can be hired for from forty to sixty cents a day. In fact, I have known of cases where such men were hired for twenty-five cents a day and their board; and they were very dear help even at that price.

IN THE AGRICULTURAL LABORATORY

I believe that most of the worn-out and wasted fields, the poor stock, the run-down fences, the lost and broken farm tools and machinery, as well as the poor crops, are chargeable to the "farm hand" whom, I have been warned so many times, I must be careful not to spoil. Such a man is too ignorant to know what is going on in the world in progressive agriculture. He is without skill to such an extent that he knows almost nothing about setting up and operating labour-saving machinery. His conscience has not been trained, and hence he has little idea of giving an honest day's labour for a day's pay, and of doing unto others in matters of labour as he would have others do unto him.

It will be seen at a glance that such a worker in the soil as this cannot compete with the farmer of the Northwest, who owns the land that he cultivates, who is intelligent, and who uses the latest improved farm machinery. One such man is worth as much to the general industrial interests of a country as three "farm hands." No country can be very prosperous unless the people who cultivate the soil own it and live on it. I repeat, then, that one of my first thoughts in beginning agricultural training at the Tuskegee Institute was to help to replace the "farm hand" of the South with something better.

As an illustration of the need of new ideas in farming, and of the effect that the long-continued cultivation of a single crop has upon the tiller, I remember that some years ago I invited a farmer into my office and explained to him in detail how he could make thirty dollars an acre on his land if he would plant a portion of it in sweet potatoes, whereas if he planted cotton, as he had been doing for years, he could make only fifteen dollars per acre in the best season. As I explained the difference, step by step, he agreed with me at every point, and when I came near to the end of my argument I began to congratulate myself that I had converted at least one man from the one-crop system to better methods. Finally, with what I fear was the air of one who felt that he had won his case, I asked the farmer what he was going to cultivate on his land the coming year. The old fellow scratched his head, and said that as he was getting old, and had been growing cotton all his life, he reckoned he would grow it to the end of his few remaining years, although he agreed with me that he could double the product of his land by planting sweet potatoes on it.

Soon after we had succeeded in clearing the trees and stumps from a few acres of ground, we planted a small crop. This crop, as I have stated, was not very different from others which the students had seen planted or had taken part in planting at their homes, because the school was poor in implements and stock. The main difference between our first crop and those which the students had come into contact with at their homes was that ours was to some extent a diversified crop. The increasing number of students soon made it necessary to increase the acreage of land cultivated. In the first few months of the Tuskegee Institute the students boarded in families. This made it difficult to get the greatest value out of our farm products. Partly to overcome this, we arranged to begin boarding the students upon the school grounds. Here another difficulty presented itself. It was found that a student would be of little value to the farm and would gain very little in knowledge and skill if he worked only a few hours each day. We discovered that, after there had been subtracted the minutes required for him to reach his work, get his tools, and otherwise prepare himself, little time would be left for getting actual results out of the soil. In order to overcome this weakness in our system, we decided to follow in some measure the plan originated by General Armstrong at the Hampton Institute. This was to have the students study in the class rooms during four days of the week, and work on the farm two days. The students, however, for a long while referred to these two days as "lost days."

It was often amusing, as well as interesting, to note the intense faith of the students in their books. The larger the book and the bigger the words it contained, the more highly it was revered. At this time there were almost no text-books which dealt with industrial subjects. For this reason, any one who wanted to give instructions in such branches had, in a very large measure, to "blaze" his way. The absence of text-books on these subjects made it all the more difficult at first to combine industrial and academic teaching. We partly solved the problem by having the students work two days at some industry and study four days in the school-room.

We found it advisable to consider not only the best system of teaching in our practical work, but the economic values also. We felt that it would be possible to teach the students the latest and best methods of performing all kinds of hand work, and at the same time show them the dignity of such service. But in addition to this we wanted the students to do such work as they could about the school, work which otherwise would have been done by hired men not connected with the institution.

ROAD-BUILDING BY TUSKEGEE STUDENTS

We felt, therefore, that the fair thing to do would be to arrange some scheme by which the student would receive compensation for all the work of value which he did for the school. This we felt was not only just, but would emphasise another valuable element in teaching. The lack of this economic emphasis I have always felt to be one of the weak points in manual training. To enable us to meet this condition, we decided to have the students board on the school grounds, to charge them eight dollars per month for their board, and then to give them credit on their board-bills for all the work they did which proved to have productive or money-saving value.

Aside from the economic results of the work, we knew that the mere effort on the part of the student to help himself through school by labour would prevent our making "hot-house plants" of our students, and would prove worth while in character building. In all cases payment for work depended upon the individual efforts of the students. One of the dominating purposes kept always in mind was to give the student a chance to help himself by means of some industry. In this connection, I beg to say that in my judgment the whole problem of the future of my race hinges largely upon the question: "To what extent will the Negro, when given a chance, help himself, and make himself indispensable to the community in which he lives?"

We soon learned that in the practical application of our scheme the average student would earn from two to three dollars a month by working two days in the week, leaving only five or six dollars to be paid in cash. Some students were so much in earnest that they worked out more than half of the eight dollars. This opportunity proved a godsend to most of the students, as very few of them were able to pay the eight dollars a month in cash during nine months of the year. Aside from other considerations, we began to find out that we could quickly test the worth of a student by the degree of earnestness which he evinced in helping himself through labour with his hands. After a little while, many of the students began to take great pride in telling their parents at the end of each month how much they had helped themselves through their work on the farm or in other industries. This information and enthusiasm came in time to have its influence in leading the parents to appreciate the value of hand training.

As the school grew in size and experience, it became apparent that we ought to find a way to help the large number of young men and women who were constantly seeking admission, but who had no money with which to pay any portion of their expenses. We became convinced that some of the most promising and worthy students were those who came from the country districts, where they had had very few advantages of book education. They had little or no money, but they had good strong bodies, and were not ashamed to work with their hands. In reaching this class of students I found that my experience at the Hampton Institute was of great advantage. We decided to start a night school for students who could not afford to go to school in the day time. The number who availed themselves of this arrangement was very small at first. We began by making a written contract with each student to the effect that he or she was to work during the whole of the day at some industry, and study in the class room for two hours at night, after the day's work was completed. In order to put this plan upon a sound basis, the following form of contract was signed:

TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE.

(INCORPORATED.)

This agreement, made the seventeenth day of October, 1902, between James C. Black, of the first part, and Booker T. Washington, Principal of The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, of the second part,

Witnesseth, that the said James C. Black has agreed faithfully, carefully and truly to serve The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, in whatever capacity the said Booker T. Washington, Principal, etc., or those deputed by him, may designate, from date hereof to the seventeenth day of October, 1904.

In consideration of service to be rendered by James C. Black, the said Booker T. Washington, Principal, etc., has agreed to allow said James C. Black eight dollars per month, provided he remains until October 17, 1904; otherwise he has agreed to pay him at the rate of one-fifth of that sum per month for the time he may have been in the service of The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute; this latter amount to include all amounts which may have been charged against said James C. Black.

It is agreed, further, that the amount earned shall be reserved in the hands of the said Booker T. Washington, Principal, etc., the same to be used in paying the expenses of said James C. Black in the regular classes of The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. In case the said James C. Black leaves school voluntarily, or is dismissed after the expiration of the time for which he agrees to serve, he is to forfeit all that the school may owe him at that time.

It is further agreed that no part of what said James C. Black may earn shall be transferred to another's account, but shall be kept for James C. Black's exclusive use after he shall have entered the Day School.

It is distinctly understood that what said James C. Black may earn is for the purpose of paying board, and no part can be drawn in cash.

In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals.

James C. Black (L. S.)
Booker T. Washington (L. S.)

Witness: { Abram T. Blackett
{ George F. May

CHAPTER V Building Up a System

The system we decided to use at Tuskegee divided the school into two classes of students: those who worked with their hands two days in the week, and spent four days in the class room; and the night students, who, through the first year of their course, worked all day with their hands and spent their evenings in the class rooms. Of course, the student who worked ten hours each day was paid more than the one who laboured only two days in the week. The night-school students were to earn, not only their board, but something in addition. The surplus was to be used in paying their expenses in the regular day school after they had remained in the night school one or two years as they might elect. The night school, besides other opportunities, gave the student a chance to get a start in his books and also in some trade or industry. With this as a foundation, I have rarely seen a student who was worth much fail to pass through the regular course.

The night school had not been in session many weeks before several facts began to make themselves prominent. The first was the economic value of the work of the night students. It was plain that these students could perform much labour for which we should otherwise have had to pay out cash to persons not connected with the institution. It is true that the work at first was crude, but it should be remembered that in the earlier years the whole school was crude. All work in laying the foundation for a race is crude.

The economic value of hand work at the Tuskegee Institute can be illustrated in no better way than by data of the construction of our buildings. When a friend has given us twenty-five thousand dollars for a building, instead of having it constructed by an outside contractor, we have had the students produce the material and do the work as far as possible, and through this method a large proportion of the money given for the building passes into the hands of the students, to be used in gaining an education. The plan has a double value, for, in addition to the twenty-five thousand dollars which is diverted into channels through which a large number of students get an education, the school receives the building for permanent use.

BUILDING A NEW DORMITORY
Students draw plans, dig foundations, make the brick, cut timber, which they saw and make into joists and frames. The painting,
plastering, plumbing and roofing are also done by the students under the direction of their instructors.

Let us value the work at Tuskegee by this test: The plans for the Slater-Armstrong Memorial Trades' Building, in its main dimensions 283 × 315 feet, and two stories high, were drawn by a coloured man, our instructor in mechanical drawing. Eight hundred thousand bricks were required in its construction, and every one of them was manufactured by our students while learning the trade of brick-making. All the bricks were laid into the building by students who were being taught the trade of brickmasonry. The plastering, carpentry work, painting, and tin-roofing were done by students while learning these trades. The whole number of students who received training on this building alone was 196. It is lighted by electricity, and all the electric fixtures were put in by students who were learning electrical engineering. The power to operate the machinery in this building comes from a 125 horse-power engine and a 75 horse-power boiler. All this machinery was not only operated by students who were learning the trade of steam engineering, but was installed by students under the guidance of their instructor.

For other examples of the amount of work that our students do in the direction of self-help, I would mention the fact that they manufactured 2,990,000 bricks during the past twelve months; 1,367 garments of various kinds have been made in the tailor shop, and 541,837 pieces have been laundered in the laundry division by the girls.

Agriculture is the industry which we plan to make stand out most prominently; and we expect more and more to base much of our other training upon this fundamental industry. There are two reasons why we have not been able to send out as many students from our agricultural department as we have desired:

First, agriculture was the industry most disliked by the students and their parents in the earlier years of the school. It required nearly ten years to overcome this prejudice.

Second, nearly all of our buildings, seventy-two in number, have been built by the students, and the building trades have, of necessity, been emphasised. As soon as the building period slackens, we shall be able to send out a larger number skilled in all the branches of agriculture.

I have been asked many times about the progress of the students in the night school as compared with those in the day school. In reality, there is little difference. A student who studies two hours at night and works with his hands ten hours during the day, naturally covers less ground in the text-books than the day student, yet in real sound growth and the making of manhood, I question whether the day student has much advantage over the student in the night school. There is an indescribable something about work with the hands that tends to develop a student's mind. The night-school students take up their studies with a degree of enthusiasm and alertness that is not equalled in the day classes. I have known instances where a student seemed so dull or stupid that he made practically no progress in the study of books. He was away from the books entirely for a few months and put to work at a trade; at the end of a few months he has returned to the class room, and it has been surprising to note how much more easily he could master the text-books than before. There is something, I think, in the handling of a tool that has the same relation to close, accurate thinking that writing with a pen has in the preparation of a manuscript. Nearly all persons who write much will agree, I think, that one can produce much more satisfactory work by using the pen than by dictation.

DIGGING FOUNDATION FOR A NEW BUILDING ON THE INSTITUTE GROUNDS

While speaking of the effect of careful hand training on the development of character, it is worth while to mention an uncommonly instructive example. If any one goes into a community North or South, and asks to have pointed out to him the man of the Negro race of the old generation, who stands for the best things in the life of the coloured community, in six cases out of ten, I venture to say, he will be shown a man who learned a trade during the days of slavery. A few years ago, James Hale, a Negro, died in Montgomery, Alabama. He spent the greater part of his life as a slave. He left property valued at fifty thousand dollars, and bequeathed a generous sum to be used in providing for an infirmary for the benefit of his race. James Hale could not read or write a line, yet I do not believe that there is a white or black man in Montgomery who knew Mr. Hale who will not agree with me in saying that he was the first coloured citizen of Montgomery. I have seldom met a man of any race who surpassed him in sterling qualities. When Mr. Hale was a slave his master took great pains to have him well trained as a carpenter, contractor and builder. His master saw that the better the slave was trained in handicraft, the more dollars he was worth. In my opinion, it was this hand-training, despite the evil of slavery, that largely resulted in Mr. Hale's fine development. If Mr. Hale was all this with mere hand training, what might he have been if his mind had also been carefully educated? Mr. Hale was simply a type of many men to be found in nearly every part of the country.

The average manual-training school has for its main object the imparting of culture to the student; while the economic element is made secondary. At the Tuskegee Institute we have always emphasised the trade or economic side of education. With any ignorant and poverty-stricken race, I believe that the problem of bread-winning should precede that of culture. For this reason the students who have attended the night school at Tuskegee have, as a rule, mastered the principles and practice of agriculture, or have been taught a trade by means of which we felt sure they could earn a living. With the question of shelter, food and clothing settled, there is a basis for what are considered the higher and more important things.

SELECTING FRUIT FOR CANNING

We have, therefore, emphasised the earning value of education rather than the finished manual training, being careful at the same time to lay the foundations of thorough moral, mental and religious instruction. In following this method something may be lost of the accuracy and finish which could be obtained if a course in manual training preceded the industrial course, but the fact that the student is taught the principles of house-building in building a real house, and not a play house, gives him a self-reliance and confidence in his ability to make a living, that manual training alone could not give. The boy in the conditions surrounding the average Negro youth, leaving school with manual training alone, finds himself little better off than he was before, so far as his immediate and pressing problem of earning a living is concerned. He and those dependent upon him want at once food, shelter, clothing and the opportunity to live properly in a home. Industrial education takes into consideration the economic element in production in a way that manual training does not, and this is of great value to a race just beginning its career.

While I am speaking of the comparative value of manual training and industrial education, there is one other difference between them to which I ought to call attention. The proportion of students who complete an industrial or trade course is likely to be smaller than the proportion completing a literary or manual training course. For example, a boy comes to Tuskegee Institute, as has often happened, from a district where he has been earning fifty cents a day. At Tuskegee he works at the brickmason's trade for nine months. He cannot master the trade during this time, but he gets a start in it. At the end of the nine-months' session, if he returns home, this student finds himself in demand in the community, at wages which range from one dollar and a half to two dollars a day. Unless he is a man of extraordinarily strong character, he will be likely to yield to the temptation to remain at home, and become a rather commonplace mason, instead of returning and finishing his trade, in order that he may become a master workman. So far I have been unable to discover any remedy that will completely offset this tendency. The most effective cure for it, so far as my experience is concerned, is an appeal to the pride of the student.

AT WORK IN THE SCHOOL'S BRICK-YARD
Getting a kiln ready to fire

Another question often asked me is, how long it will take an industrial school to become self-supporting. To this question I always reply that I know of no industrial school that is self-supporting, nor do I believe that any school which performs its highest functions as an industrial school will become so. I believe that it is the duty of all such schools to make the most of the economic element—to make each industry pay in dollars and cents just as far as is possible—but the element of teaching should be made the first consideration, and the element of production secondary. Very often at the Tuskegee Institute it would pay the institution better to keep a boy away from the farm than to have him spend a day at work on it; but the farm is for the boy, and not the boy for the farm.

An industrial school is continually at work on raw material. When a student gets to the point where he can build a first-class wagon or buggy, he is not retained at the school to build these vehicles merely for their economic value, but is sent out into the world to begin his life's work; and another student is taken in his place to begin the work afresh. The cost of teaching the new student and the waste of material weigh heavily against the cost of production. Hence, it can easily be seen that it is an almost impossible task to make money out of an industrial school, or to make it self-supporting. The moment the idea of "making it pay" is placed uppermost, the institution becomes a factory, and not a school for training head and hand and heart.

One of the advantages of the night school at Tuskegee is in the sifting-out process of the student body. Unless a student has real grit in him and means business, he will not continue very long to work with his hands ten hours a day for the privilege of studying two hours at night. Though much of the work done by students at an industrial school like Tuskegee does not pay, the mere effort at self-help on the part of the student is of the greatest value in character building.

Most races have come up through contact with the soil, either directly or indirectly. There is something about the smell of the soil—a contact with a reality that gives one a strength and development that can be gained in no other way. In advocating industrial training for backward or weak races or individuals, I have always kept in mind the strengthening influence of contact with a real thing, rather than with a third-rate imitation of a thing.

The great lesson which the race needs to learn in freedom is to work willingly, cheerfully and efficiently. In laying special stress upon hand training for a large proportion of my race, I ask no peculiar education for the Negro, because he is a Negro, but I would advocate the same training for the German, the Jew, or the Frenchman, were he in the same relative stage of racial development as the masses of the Negroes. While insisting upon thorough and high-grade industrial education for a large proportion of my race, I have always had the greatest sympathy with first-class college training and have recognised the fact that the Negro race, like other races, must have thoroughly trained college men and women. There is a place and a work for such, just as there is a place and a work for those thoroughly trained with their hands.

I shall never forget a remark I once heard made by a lady of foreign birth. She had recently arrived in America, and by chance had landed in one of our largest American cities. As she was a woman of considerable importance, she received lavish social attention. For weeks her life was spent in a round of fashionable dressing, dining, automobiling, balls, theaters, art museums, card parties, and what not. When she was quite worn out, a friend took her to visit the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. There she saw students and teachers at work in the soil, in wood, in metal, in leather, at work cooking, sewing, laundering. She saw a company of the most devoted men and women in the world giving their lives in the most unselfish manner, that they might help to put a race on its feet. It was then that she exclaimed in my presence: "What a relief! Here I have found a reality; and I am so glad that I did not leave America before I saw it."

I think I was able to understand something of her feeling. In the history of the Negro race since freedom, one of the most difficult tasks has been to teach the teachers and leaders to exercise enough patience and foresight to keep the race down to a reality, instead of yielding to the temptations to grasp after shadows and superficialities. But the race itself is learning the lesson very fast. Indeed, the rank and file learn faster than some of the teachers and leaders.

SHOE SHOP—MAKING AND REPAIRING

CHAPTER VI Welding Theory and Practice

Broom-making has been recently included among the industries for girls at Tuskegee. Hundreds of brooms were being worn out every year in sweeping the floors of more than seventy buildings; and I venture to say that more brooms were used up for the same amount of floor space than at almost any other institution of the kind. Wherever you may go in the shops, or halls, you will find some one busy with a broom most of the time. The litter in the carpenter shop or the mattress-making room is not allowed to accumulate until the end of the day, but is swept up so often that visitors sometimes ask me whether there is a moment of the working day when some one is not wielding a busy broom somewhere in the institution.

It was this reason that inspired the home manufacture of the needed supply of brooms. It had been found possible to supply most of the needs of the school by student labour, and after establishing a summer canning factory, which Chaplain Penney directs while the Bible School is not in session, making brooms seemed a natural evolution of supply and demand. But investigation showed that none of the instructors knew anything about making brooms, and that the Experimental Farm had not yet taken up the task of raising broom-corn. These obstacles were not serious in comparison with many others which had been attacked in the industrial school.

A way was found to make the first sample broom, and gradually the needed machinery was installed. Then the director of the Agricultural Department discovered that broom-corn could be raised on the farm, and now students can be equipped to take the industrial knowledge home with them, and also to grow the crop on their own farms. This department keeps the school supplied with good brooms at small cost, and out of a minor need grew another useful industry. The lesson in this little story is that finding a way to solve the problems closest at home helps to build up the community at large. It was found, also, that the work of the class room could be correlated even with broom-making, and made to harmonise with the Tuskegee theory of education of head and hands together. The girls were asked to write compositions descriptive of their work in this industry, and some of these efforts have been very creditable.

MATTRESS-MAKING
All the mattresses and pillows used at the Institute are made by the students]

I insert one of these compositions as a sample:

"BROOM-MAKING"

"I am a nice large broom just made Tuesday by Harriet McCray. Before I was made into a broom, I grew over in a large farm with a great many others of my sisters. One day I was cut down and brought up to the broom-making department, and was carefully picked to pieces to get the best straw. I was put in a machine called the winder. Here I was wound very tightly, and then put in another machine called the press. I was pressed out flat and sewed tightly. Out of the press I was carried to the clipper, and all of my seed and long ends were cut off. From the cutter I was carried to the threshing machine and combed out thoroughly, and put in the barrel for sale. I was sold to the school for thirty-five cents. He will use me very roughly in doors, and when I begin to get old, I shall be used in sweeping the yards. When I am worn completely out, I shall be pulled to pieces to get my handle, which will be used again to make a fresh, new broom."

Class-room work is also made a part of the training in this varied catalogue of industries in successful operation at Tuskegee: Agriculture, basketry, blacksmithing, bee-keeping, brick-masonry, plastering, brick-making, carpentry, carriage trimming, cooking, dairying, architectural, free-hand and mechanical drawing, plain sewing, dress-making, electrical and steam engineering, founding, harness-making, house-keeping, horticulture, canning, laundering, machinery, mattress making, millinery, nurses' training, painting, saw-milling, shoe-making, printing, stock-raising, tailoring, tinning, and wheelwrighting.

It will be seen that the school is a community unto itself, in which buildings can be erected, finished, and furnished, the table supplied the year round, and economic independence achieved in a large measure. But this work is for the benefit of the student, not to make the school self-supporting. Therefore, no one side of his education must be neglected in order that he may be for the time a more productive labourer in his department of industry. It would be wronging both him and the system to keep him at the work-bench all the working hours in order that he might turn out the greatest possible number of shoes, or window sashes, or fruit cans in a week.

BASKET-MAKING
Special effort is made to have the students use the natural products of the region as material

For example, if you should chance to visit the carpenter shop, you would find a score of young men turning out the finished material for some new building in process of erection, or at the lathes turning out the interior finishings. But in a small room in one corner, having a hard time to be heard above the din of the steam saws, is an instructor with a class of students, who are learning to draw up contracts for jobs in carpentry or building. They are not going out with the expectation of always being carpenters at day wages. They should know how to make contracts as "boss carpenters," to build houses, or repair them, or how to hire other men to build houses for them. Therefore, they learn to draw up specifications in both legal and practical form, so that when the occasion arises they will know how to work with intelligence.

Their class-room work in spelling, mathematics, grammar, and English composition comes effectively into play. They find out that a carpenter has small chance of getting ahead unless he can use his head intelligently. He writes out a contract, for example, to put up a four-room house, on a basis of three cash payments—when he takes the job; when the roof is on; and when the house is turned over to the owner. This contract is read aloud by the instructor, who asks the other members of the class to criticise it. One of them points out a flaw which would allow the owner to "crawl out" of his bargain on a technicality. Another is pleased to discover that the arithmetic is so faulty that the estimates of the cost of material would land the contractor in the poor-house. Then the student begins to see that his so-called academic teaching is as important in his calling as his skill with the plane, the saw and the miter-box, and that he cannot hope to become a good carpenter unless he is also a diligent scholar.

In the winter an instructor in the Agricultural Classes may teach his students to familiarise themselves, through books, with insect pests which infest the peach tree. They are asked to give their own ideas of the "borer," or the "scale," but this information is not allowed to be packed away in the attic of memory, to be forgotten like so much useless lumber. The real examination comes in the spring, not in written papers, but in the school orchard. The same instructor takes the class among the peach trees, and, with branches in their hands, they are required to identify the "borer," and apply to the trees the remedies laid down in their books and lectures.

When a new building is to be erected, the school industries join their activities in a common cause. The project sets in motion, first, the wagons to be used in removing the excavated material. The young men in the wheelwright, blacksmithing, and harness-making rooms see their work tested, for they have made and equipped all the heavy farm wagons needed for this hauling. Along with their daily work with the hands, the patterns and instructions had been given them on blackboards and in lectures. They have trained their minds, they have learned handicraft, and the combined results are applied. Their wagons and harness are not to be sent away or put on exhibition. They must stand the strain at home, and if they are faulty it cannot be hidden.

IN THE SCHOOL'S SAWMILL

Then come the brick-makers, turning out 20,000 bricks a day in the school kilns. They know whether they have made good bricks when they see them handled, and put into the walls by the student masons. In the course for brick-masonry, there is practical demonstration the year round. All the brick work on the buildings of the school is done by students, under the supervision of the instructors. Plastering and repair work, both inside and outside of the buildings, is in charge of the Brickmasonry Division. The theory is taught in the class room, the practical test is always close at hand. The brick-mason and plasterer has one hundred and eighteen lessons in the fundamental principles of the trade, he is taught how to make estimates on different kinds of work, he has a course in architectural drawing, and he does research work in trade journals. So much for theory, but his diploma of efficient mastery of his trade is built into the walls of the Tuskegee buildings. They show whether he has learned to be a brick-mason, or whether he has merely learned things about brick-masonry.

The school sawmill turns out the lumber for the building in course of erection. The instruction in saw-milling includes these branches of information:

"Names of machines and their uses. Care of machines. Defects of timber trees. Felling timber trees and loading logs on wagon. Measuring lumber and wood. Industrial classes. Drawing. Scaling logs to find their contents in board measure. Grading lumber. Running planer and other machines. Care of belts. Saw filing and caring for saws. Designing and making cutters for mouldings. Calculating speed of pulleys. Arrangement of machines in a planing and saw mill, etc."

Theory and practice in this department are dovetailed in the finished work in the interior of such a structure as the Carnegie Library, or the new Collis P. Huntington Memorial Building, where the wood work, handsomely finished in Southern pine, is the product of the school saw-mill and planer, the carpenter shops and the paint-shop.

IN THE MACHINE-SHOP
Three years are required to complete this course

The equipment of the machinery, engineering, and foundry department and the courses of study offered are designed to give students a thorough training in their various branches. The machine shop is equipped with the latest machine tools, driven by power from an Atlas engine. All the repair work on the mechanical equipment of the school, including steam pumps, steam engines, woodworking machines, printing presses, metal working machines, is done in this shop. About fifty different machines outside of this department, including the complete steam laundry, the agricultural and dairy machinery, are in daily operation, furnishing the best possible demonstration of the theory taught in the classes. In the course for steam engineers, the young men are able to study the working of eleven different steam engines, seven steam pumps, twelve steam boilers, and a complete water-works system, with miles of piping, valves, gauges, recording apparatus, etc. The instructors lay out the courses in theory and written work, and the mathematical studies are applied in work on blue-print drawings and free-hand sketches.

A foundry is in daily operation, and here the castings used in repair work for the school are made. When the Tuskegee cotton-raising party went to Africa, the castings for the cotton press sent with them were made in the school foundry. In the plumbing and steam-fitting division, the tools and shop equipment are ample for training in lead and iron work, for water and steam piping systems in buildings of various kinds. The plumbing and steam fitting in nearly all the buildings of the Institute were done by the classes of this division. This work includes sinks, bath-tubs, steam radiators, lavatories and sanitary closets. More than eight miles of piping of various sizes, for steam and water, are in use on the school grounds, with all the necessary valves, expansion joints, unions and fittings. The tinsmithing shop turns out nearly every kind of tin work from covering a house to making a pepper-box. The apprentice becomes a first-class tinsmith in two years' training. More than two thousand one-gallon fruit cans were made by the students last year in addition to many other useful articles.

The object of the course in electrical engineering is to give the student a foundation upon which he may build along any special line he may choose later. Arc and incandescent lighting is in use at the school, and there is a complete telephone service connecting most of the buildings and offices through a central station. The students learn not only how to install these systems, but to maintain them in the highest state of efficiency. The dynamos and other electrical machinery of a complete powerhouse are in operation for lighting the school buildings and grounds, so that the student finds practical work at every turn in his course.

STUDENTS AT WORK IN THE SCHOOL'S FOUNDRY

He has learned how to build and equip a building. He is taught also how to design it in all its parts. All students in the day and night schools who are in the Mechanical Department are required to take instruction in mechanical drawing. The work of the first year is largely preparatory. It begins with simple geometrical drawing, to accustom the student to the use of instruments and to teach him accuracy and neatness. This is followed by work in projection, which finds application in scale-drawing of simple objects. As soon as a fair knowledge of the instruments has been attained, with a thorough drill in free-hand sketching, the study of design is carried far enough to secure an understanding of the principles, and facility and accuracy in the construction of drawing plans. Strictly speaking, mechanical drawing begins with the second year of trade work, with the study of materials and working drawings. During the last quarter of the third year the student learns how to make blue, solar, and black prints. During the fourth year several excursions are made by the class to the shops, the buildings under construction, the brick-yard, etc. In such excursions detailed notes must be taken and a satisfactory report submitted upon the things seen and examined.

The course of architectural drawing covers three years, and aims to give thorough instruction in drawing, building construction and design. In all cases, the general mechanical and artistic training is supplemented by the course of study in the Academic Department. On entering the third year of the architectural course, the student, in addition to his regular work, is given actual practice in office training and general superintendence. The student visits also the trade shops, and is required to attend classes in heating, electrical lighting, and plumbing. Many of the most satisfactory and imposing buildings of the school were designed in our architectural department.

It will be seen from the foregoing survey that the students are able to build and equip a large building from top to bottom, inside and out, and these object lessons of their own handiwork stand clustered over many acres, a city in itself built by young coloured men, most of whom were wholly ignorant of systematic mental or manual training when they asked to be admitted to Tuskegee.

They maintain also what may be called the running machinery of the institution. The carpenters learn wood-turning and cabinet-making. They make the furniture used in the class rooms and dormitories. Their regular division has been so crowded in recent years that it was found necessary to organise an auxiliary division, called the "Repair Shop." Here all the school's repairs in wood work are done, and the training has proved so valuable that it has been made a separate course of study extending over three years. In the blacksmith shop is performed the ironing of carriages, buggies, and wagons, of which a hundred are used by the school, in addition to making all kinds of implements and the shoeing of horses. Hundreds of farm implements are repaired here. The student blacksmith is not a mere labourer. He is taught how to run a shop of his own. He learns how to make out bills for material, how to keep shop supplies, and a part of his time is devoted to mechanical drawing and class room work.

CLASS IN MECHANICAL DRAWING

The division of wheelwrighting is fitted for work in all details of the trade. The students have constantly on hand new work, such as the building of wagons, drays, horse and hand carts, wheel-barrows, buggies and road carts. A great deal of repair work must be done to keep the farm equipment in first-class shape, and the shop is constantly patronised for this kind of work by the farmers of the town and neighbourhood. The school has a standing order for farm wagons from merchants in Tuskegee and Montgomery. These are turned out complete, and have proved serviceable and popular. All of the harness used by the school, and a large quantity sold outside, is made in the harness-making department. All the vehicles turned out by the blacksmith and wheelwrighting divisions are finished by the students in the carriage-trimming shop.

The visitor, therefore, who wishes to inspect the Tuskegee Institute, is met at the station by a carriage built by the students, pulled by horses raised on the school farms, whose harness was made in a school shop. The driver wears a trim, blue uniform made in the school tailor-shop, and shoes made by student class work. The visitor is assigned to a guest room in a dormitory designed, built, and furnished by the students. His bathroom plumbing, the steam heat in his room, and the electric lighting were installed by students. The oak furniture of his room came from the shops. The young woman who takes care of his room is a student working her way through the Institute. After supper, she will change her wearing apparel to a blue uniform dress and a neat straw hat, all made in the school. The steam laundry sends over to know if the visitor wishes some washing done, and girl students send it back, proud of the snowy polish of shirts and collars. The visitor is asked to be a guest in the teachers' dining-hall. The bill of fare may read as follows:

BREAKFAST:

Breakfast food, ham, fried cakes, bread, syrup, coffee, tea, butter, fruit.

DINNER:

Roast beef, tomatoes, rice, corn-bread, sweet potatoes, buttermilk, snap beans, dessert.

SUPPER:

Cold ham, tea, bread, syrup, butter, milk, fried potatoes, coffee.

In looking over this program, the guest will discover that the ham, roast beef, vegetables, cornbread, syrup, butter, milk, and potatoes are products of the school farms, raised, cared for and produced by student labour.

Throughout these varied fields of industrial and productive activity, the following objects are kept constantly in view, and their relative importance is in the order of their enumeration:

To teach the dignity of labour.

To teach the trades, thoroughly and effectively.

To supply the demand for trained industrial leaders.

To assist the students in paying all, or a part, of their expenses.

THE BLACKSMITH SHOP

CHAPTER VII Head and Hands Together

That the distinctive feature of Tuskegee Institute—ample provision for industrial training—has received in the public prints almost exclusive attention is not strange. But it is well to remember that Tuskegee Institute stands for education as well as for training, for men and women as well as for bricks and mortar.

Of course, the distinction involved in the words, "education" and "training," is largely theoretical. My experience convinces me that training to some productive trade, be it wagon-building or farming, educates. For example, one of our students is foreman on the large and beautifully planned Collis P. Huntington Memorial Building, now in process of construction; that young man is notable for a simple honesty, an unobtrusive confidence and self-reliance, that abundantly testify to his manliness. That this manliness is in large degree directly traceable to his skill and his experience in bearing industrial responsibility—in short, to his training—is beyond peradventure. Indeed, in running over the long list of students who, for one reason or another—lack of money or lack of taste for books—have left Tuskegee without completing the prescribed course in the Academic Department, I have been forcibly impressed with the fact that training to productive industry directly tends to develop sound judgment and manly independence—those qualities of the mind and heart that collectively constitute the character of the educated man.

CLASS IN OUTDOOR GEOMETRY

Another example of the effect of the training given at the Tuskegee Institute on the mind of the student occurs to me. A few weeks ago it was decided to modify the Day School system. To make any change in a great organisation like ours requires great discriminating judgment and care. The faculty discussed the change in its every phase, and I finally called the students of the four upper classes together, presented to them our plans, and explained to them the reasons for the proposed change.

Their response was not a negative acquiescence, but a series of direct and searching questions. They were alert and quick to see minor defects, and to give direct and constructive criticism in regard to many details. Their work in the shops and on the farm had brought them into touch with real issues and real things—their daily work in constructing and equipping our buildings and in helping to build the institute had brought with it an intelligent interest in the school and an enlightened appreciation of values; in other words, it had taught them to think.

It is obvious that a man cannot build wagons or run a farm with continuous success who is unable to read, write, and cipher. But, far deeper than the mere commercial advantage of academic studies, is the fact that they afford incentives to good conduct and high thinking. To make a boy an efficient mechanic is good, for it enables him to earn a living and to add his mite to the productiveness of society; but a school must do more—must create in him abiding interests in the intellectual achievements of mankind in art and literature, and must stimulate his spiritual nature. And so Tuskegee has always maintained an Academic Department, at present housed mainly in four buildings. The most important of these are Porter Hall, a three-story frame building, the first building erected after the opening of the Institute, though poor in appointments, yet rich in traditions; Thrasher Hall, a handsome three-story brick building with well-equipped physical and chemical laboratories; and the Carnegie Library, a beautifully proportioned brick structure, which is the center of Academic interests. The collection of books is well selected, and the generosity of Tuskegee's friends keeps it constantly growing. The admirable Collis P. Huntington Memorial Building will be the largest building on the grounds, and is to be used exclusively for academic purposes.

STUDENTS FRAMING THE ROOF OF A LARGE BUILDING

On the faculty of the Academic Department are twenty-eight men and women of Negro blood with degrees from Michigan, Nebraska, Oberlin, Amherst, Cornell, Columbia, and Harvard. In order to display the character of work done in the Department, it may be well for me to explain the course of study in some special branches.

The aim of the work in English in the preparatory classes is to bring about familiarity with the mother tongue, and correctness and ease in its use. From contact with good models of spoken or written discourse the pupil learns to appreciate and interpret thought well expressed. From the careful attention given his own language, he learns to feel the correctness or incorrectness of an expression, without slavish reliance upon rules. In other words, in these classes language is taught as an art; the necessary rules and definitions, when they occur, are treated as working principles, and abundant practice in applying them is given. In the advanced years of the course, technical grammar is taught because at this stage the pupil has already become familiar with good usage, and has attained a certain facility in employing the mother tongue. He should now be taught more thoroughly the fundamental principles governing the correct or incorrect use of an expression, while in the preparatory classes, oral exercises in narration, description and reproduction predominate. The pupil is encouraged to talk simply and naturally about something he has seen or heard or read. He is taught to exercise care for unity, logical sequence of ideas, and smoothness of transition. To the narration and description of the lower grades, argumentation and exposition are added in the advanced work, these subjects being expanded to form the basis of a course in public speaking.

The pupil obtains material for themes and debates from his experience in shop and field and from literature technical to the subject. The themes are submitted for correction and in due course committed, and, after preliminary training, delivered at the monthly public rhetoricals of the class. Except for the written brief required of each disputant, debates are extemporaneous. In the preparation of a program like the following, considerable experience and research must necessarily be involved.