properly, and how to care for their rooms. Aside from this, we wanted
to give them such a practical knowledge of some one industry, together
with the spirit of industry, thrift, and economy, that they would be
sure of knowing how to make a living after they had left us. We wanted
to teach them to study actual things instead of mere books alone. . . .

We wanted to give them such an education as would fit a large
proportion of them to be teachers, and at the same time cause them to
return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put
new energy and new ideas into farming, as well as into the intellectual
and moral and religious life of the people.

All these ideals and needs crowded themselves upon us with a
seriousness that seemed well-nigh overwhelming. What were we to do?
We had only the little old shanty and the abandoned church which the
good coloured people of the town of Tuskegee had kindly loaned us for
the accommodation of the classes. The number of students was
increasing daily. The more we saw of them, and the more we travelled
through the country districts, the more we saw that our efforts were
reaching, to only a partial degree, the actual needs of the people whom
we wanted to lift up through the medium of the students whom we should
educate and send out as leaders.

The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to us from
several parts of the State, the more we found that the chief ambition
among a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they
would not have to work any longer with their hands. . . .

About three months after the opening of the school, and at the time
when we were in the greatest anxiety about our work, there came into