Chapter IV: Part 4

This evening I am going to remind you of a few things which you should get out of the school year, but it will be of very little use for me to do this unless you make up your minds to do two things.

In the first place you must resolve that you are going to remember the things I am going to say, and in the second place you must put my suggestions into practice. If you will make up your minds, then, that you are going to hold on to these suggestions, so far as your memory is concerned, and then so far as possible put them into practice, we shall be able to discuss something that will be of profit to you during the year.

I want you to get it firmly fixed in your minds that books, industries, or tools of any character, no matter how thoroughly you master them, do not within themselves constitute education. Committing to memory pages of written matter, or becoming deft in the handling of tools, is not the supreme thing at which education aims. Books, tools, and industries are but the means to fit you for something that is higher and better. All these are not ends within themselves; they are simply means. The end of all education, whether of head or hand or heart, is to make an individual good, to make him useful, to make him powerful; is to give him goodness, usefulness and power in order that he may exert a helpful influence upon his fellows.

One of the things I want you to get out of this year is the ability to put a proper value upon time. If there is any one lesson that we all of us need to have impressed upon us more thoroughly and more constantly than any other, it is that each minute of our lives is of supreme value, and that we are committing a sin when we allow a single minute to go to waste. Remember that every five minutes of time you are spending at this institution is worth so much money to you. How many people there are who, after they have arrived at the ages of sixty, seventy, or eighty years, look back with regret and say, "I wish I could live the years over again." But they cannot. All they can do is to regret that they have wasted precious minutes, precious hours.

Now your lives are yet before you, not, as in the case of these people, behind you. Your lives are yet to be lived, and they will be made successful lives just in proportion as you learn to place a value upon the minutes. Spend every minute here in hard, earnest study, or in helpful recreation. Be sure that none of your time is thrown away.

Among other things, you should get out of the year the habit of reading. Any individual who has learned to love good books, to love the best newspapers, the best magazines, and has learned to spend some portion of the day in communication with them, is a happy individual. You should get yourselves to the point where you will not be happy unless you do spend a part of each day in this way.

You should get out of the year the habit of being kind and polite to every individual. As a general thing it is not difficult for a person to be polite in words and courteous in actions to individuals who are classed in the same social scale, or who, perhaps, are above him in wealth and influence. The test of a true lady or gentleman comes when that individual is brought in contact with some one who is considered beneath her or him, some one who is ignorant or poor. Show me a man who is himself wealthy, and who is gentle and polite to the ignorant about him, and to the poor people about him, and I will show you every time a true gentleman. When Prince Henry of Prussia was in this country, I remember reading this description of one of the prominent public men who received him: "He is such a true gentleman that he can meet a prince without himself being embarrassed, and can meet a poor man without embarrassing the poor man."

Learn to speak kindly to every individual, white or black. No man loses anything by being gentlemanly, by learning to be polite, by treating the most unfortunate individual with the highest deference.

We want you to learn to control your temper. Some one has said that the difference between an animal and a man is that the beast has no method of learning to control his temper. With the individual, the human being, there is education and training. He learns to master himself, to have an even temper; learns to master his temper completely. Now if any of you have a temper that often gets to be your master, make up your mind that it is a part of your duty here to learn to control it. Step upon it, as it were, and say: "I will be master of my temper, instead of letting it be my master."

You want to have that kind of courage that is going to make you able to speak the truth at all times, no matter what it may seem to cost you. This may, for the time being, seem to make you unpopular; it may inconvenience you, it may deprive you of something that you count dear; but the individual who cultivates that kind of courage, who, at the cost of everything, always speaks the truth, is the individual who in the end will be successful, is the one who in the end will come out the conqueror. You cannot afford to learn to speak anything but the absolute truth. One of the most beautiful things that I have seen printed about President Roosevelt was where someone wrote of him that one of the President's greatest faults was that he did not know when to lie--when to deceive people--but that he always spoke the absolute, frank truth. As a result of his honesty, his truth speaking, he is at the head of the nation.

We also want you to learn to be absolutely honest in all your dealings with other people's property. We may just as well speak plainly and emphatically. One of our worst sins, one of our weaknesses, is that of not being able to handle other people's property and be honest with it. You should learn to be absolutely honest with the property of your room-mates, school-mates and teachers. Make up your minds that nothing is going to tempt you from the path of absolute honesty. There is no man or woman who begins with meddling with other people's property and affairs, who begins to learn to take that which does not belong to him or her, who is not beginning in a downward path ending in misery, sorrow and disappointment. Make up your minds that you are going to be absolutely honest and truthful in all cases. There is no way to get happiness out of life, there is no way to get satisfaction out of your school career, except by following the lessons that I have here tried to emphasize.

When we speak of honesty, the first thought may be that the word applies only to the taking of property that does not belong to us, but this is not so. It is possible for a person to be dishonest by taking time or energy that belongs to someone else, just as much as tangible property. In going into a class-room, office, store or shop, one man may ask himself the question: "How little can I do to-day and still get through the day?" Another man will have constantly before him the question: "How much can I put into this hour or this day?" Now we expect every student who goes out from Tuskegee to be, not the man who tries to see how little he can do, or the average man who proposes to do merely his duty, but the man above the average, who will do more than his duty. And you will disappoint us unless you are above the average man, unless you go out from here with the determination that you are going to perform more than your duty.

I like to see young men or young women who, if employed in any capacity, no matter how small or unimportant that capacity may be, if the hour is eight o'clock at which they must come to work, I like to see them at work ten or fifteen minutes before that hour. I like to see a man or woman who, if the closing hour is five o'clock or six o'clock, goes to the person in charge and says: "Shall I not stay longer? Is there not something else I ought to do before I go?" Put your whole souls into whatever you attempt to do. That is honesty.

Another thing you should learn this year is to get into touch with the best people there are in the world. You should learn to associate with the best students in the institution. Take them as models, and say that you are going to improve from month to month, and from year to year, until you are as good as they are, or better. You cannot reach these things all at once, but I hope that each one of you will make up his mind or her mind that from to-night, throughout the year and throughout life, there is going to be a hard striving on your part toward reaching the best results. If you do this, when you get ready to leave this institution, you will find that it has been worth your while to have spent your time here.

THE GOSPEL OF SERVICE

The subject on which I am going to speak to you for a few minutes to-night, "The Gospel of Service," may not, when you first hear it, strike a very responsive chord in your hearts and minds, but I assure you I have nothing but the very highest and best interest of the race at heart when I select this subject to talk about.

The word "service" has too often been misunderstood, and on this account it has in too many cases carried with it a meaning which indicates degradation. Every individual serves another in some capacity, or should do so. Christ said that he who would become the greatest of all must become the servant of all; that is, He meant that in proportion as one renders service he becomes great. The President of the United States is a servant of the people, because he serves them; the Governor of Alabama is a servant, because he renders service to the people of the State; the greatest merchant in Montgomery is a servant, because he renders service to his customers; the school teacher is a servant, because it is his duty to serve the best interests of his pupils; the cook is a servant, because it is her duty to serve those for whom she works; the housemaid is a servant, because it is her duty to care for the property intrusted to her in the best manner in which she is able.

In one way or another, every individual who amounts to anything is a servant. The man or the woman who is not a servant is one who accomplishes nothing. It is very often true that a race, like an individual, does not appreciate the opportunities that are spread out before it until those opportunities have disappeared. Before us, as a race in the South to-day, there is a vast field for service and usefulness which is still in our hands, but which I fear will not be ours to the same extent very much longer unless we change our ideas of service, and put new life, put new dignity and intelligence into it.

Perhaps I am right in thinking that in no department of life has there been such great progress and such changes for the better during the last ten years as in the department of domestic service, or housekeeping. The cook who does not make herself intelligent, who does not learn to do things in the latest, and in the neatest and cleanest manner, will soon find herself without employment, or will at least find herself a "drug on the market," instead of being sought after and paid higher wages. The woman who does not keep up with all the latest methods of decorating and setting her table, and of putting the food on it properly, will find her occupation gone within a few years. The same is true of general housekeeping, of laundering and of nursing.

All the occupations of which I have been talking are at present in our hands in the South; but I repeat that very great progress is being made in all of them in every part of the world, and we shall find that we shall lose them unless our women go forward and get rid of the old idea that such occupations are fit only for ignorant people to follow. At the present time scores of books and magazines are appearing bearing upon every branch of domestic service. People are learning to do things in an intelligent and scientific manner. Not long ago I sat for an hour and listened to a lecture delivered upon the subject of dusting, and it was one of the most valuable hours I ever spent. The person who gave this lecture upon dusting was a highly educated and a cultivated woman, and her audience was composed of wealthy and cultivated people. We must bring ourselves to the point where we can feel that one who cooks, and does it well, should be just as much honoured as the person who teaches school.

What I have said in regard to the employments of our women is equally true of the occupations followed by our men. It is true that at the present we are largely cultivating the soil of the South, but if other people learn to do this work more intelligently, learn more about labour-saving machinery, and become more conscientious about their work than we, we shall find our occupation departing. It used to be the case in many parts of the North that the Negro was the coachman; but in a very large degree, in cities like New York and Philadelphia, the Negro has lost this occupation, and lost it, in my opinion, not because he was a Negro, but because in many cases he did not see that the occupation of coachman was constantly being improved. It has been improved and lifted up until now it has almost become a profession. The Negro who expects to remain a coachman should learn the proper dress for a coachman, and learn how to care for horses and vehicles in the most approved manner.

What is true of the coachman is true of the butler. In too many cases, I fear, we use these occupations merely as stepping stones, holding on to them until we can find something else to do, in a careless and slipshod manner. We want to change all this, and put our whole souls into these occupations, and in a large degree make them our life-work. In proportion as we do this, we shall lay a foundation upon which our children and grandchildren are to rise to higher things. The foundation of every race must be laid in the common every-day occupations that are right about our doors. It should not be our thought to see how little we can put into our work, but how much; not how quickly we can get rid of our tasks, but how well we can do them.

I often wish that I had the means to put into every city a large training-school for giving instruction in all lines of domestic service. Few things would add more to the fundamental usefulness of the race than such a school. Perhaps it may be suggested that my argument has reference only to our serving white people. It has reference to doing whatever we do in the best manner, no matter whom we serve. The individual who serves a black man poorly will serve a white man poorly. Let me illustrate what I mean. In a Southern city, a few days ago, I found a large hotel conducted by coloured people. It is one of the very cleanest and best and most attractive hotels for coloured people that I have found in any part of the country. In talking with the proprietors I asked them what was the greatest obstacle they had had to overcome, and they told me it was in finding coloured women to work in the house who would do their work systematically and well, women who would, in a word, keep the rooms in every part of the hotel thoroughly swept and cleaned. This hotel had been opened three months, and I found that during that time the proprietors had employed fifteen different chambermaids, and they had got rid of a large proportion of these simply because they were determined not to have people in their employment who did not do their work well.

One weakness pertaining to the whole matter of domestic employment in the South, at present, is this: it is too easy for our people to find work. If there was a rule followed in every family that employs persons, that no man or woman should be hired unless he or she brought a letter of recommendation from the last employer, we should find that the whole matter of domestic service would be lifted up a hundred per cent. So long as an individual can do poor work for one family, and perhaps be dishonest at the same time, and be sure that he or she will be employed by some other family, without regard to the kind of service rendered the last employer, so long will domestic service be poor and unsatisfactory.

Many white people seldom come in contact with the Negro in any other capacity than that of domestic service. If they get a poor idea of our character and service in that respect, they will infer that the entire life of the Negro is unsatisfactory from every point of view. We want to be sure that wherever our life touches that of the white man, we conduct ourselves so that he will get the best impression possible of us.

In spite of all the fault I have found, I would say this before I stop. I recognize that the people of no race, under similar circumstances, have made greater progress in thirty-five years than is true of the people of the Negro race. If I have spoken to you thus plainly and frankly, it is that our progress in the future may be still greater than it has been in the past.

YOUR PART IN THE NEGRO CONFERENCE

For eight or nine years, now, it has been our custom to hold here what is known as the Tuskegee Negro Conference. A number of years ago it occurred to some of us that instead of confining the work of this institution to the immediate body of students gathered within its walls, we perhaps could extend and broaden its scope so as to reach out to, and try to help, the parents of the students and the older people in the country districts, and, to some extent, if possible, in the cities also.

With this end in view, we, some years ago, invited a number of men and women to come and spend the day with us, and, while here, to tell us in a very plain and straightforward manner something about their material, moral and religious condition. Then the afternoon of that same day was spent in hearing from these same men and women suggestions as to how they thought this institution and other institutions might help them, and also how they thought they might help themselves.

Out of these simple and small meetings has grown what we now call "The Tuskegee Negro Conference," which, in the last few years, has grown until it numbers from nine hundred to twelve hundred persons. We not only have that large number of persons, most of whom come from farms and are engaged in farm work, but we now also have "The Workers' Conference," which meets on the day following the Negro Conference. This Workers' Conference brings together representatives from all the larger institutions for the education of the Negro in the South.

Now these meetings for this year begin next Wednesday morning, and the practical question that I wish to discuss with you to-night is,--What can we do to make that Conference a success? What can you do for the Conference, and what can the Conference do for you?

I wish you to grasp the idea that is growing through the country--that very few institutions now confine themselves and their work to mere teaching in the class-room, in the old-fashioned manner. Very few now confine themselves and their work to the comparatively small number of students that they can reach in that way, as they did a few years ago. In many cases they have their college extension work. In one way or another they are reaching out and getting hold of the young people--and getting a hold on the older people as well. And just so, to a very large degree, through this Conference, Tuskegee is doing something of the same kind of thing.

During these few days we shall have hundreds of the farmers, with their wives and daughters, gathered here. We want each and every one of you here in the institution to make up your mind that you can do something to help these people. We want each one of you here to-night to feel that he or she has a special responsibility during the time these people are gathered together at Tuskegee. We sometimes speak of it as their one day of schooling in the whole year,--that is, the one day out of the whole three hundred and sixty-five days in the year when, perhaps, they will give the greatest amount of attention to matters pertaining to themselves. In inviting them here, not only the teachers and officers of this institution have a responsibility, but each and every student here also has a responsibility. I want you to feel that, and see to what extent you can take hold of these people while they are here, to inspire and encourage them, so as to have them go away from here feeling that it is worth their while to come to the Institute for this meeting, even if--as is true of some of them--they have come a long distance.

Some of these people who will come here are ignorant, so far as books are concerned, but I want you to know that not every person who cannot read and write is ignorant. Some of the persons whom I have met and from whom I have learned much, are persons who cannot write a word. Very many of the people who will come here may not be able to read or write, but we can learn something from them notwithstanding, while they are here, and they can learn something from us.

I want you to take delight in getting hold of these people and taking them through our shops, guiding them through our various agricultural and mechanical departments. Be sure that you exert every effort possible to make them comfortable and happy while they are here. Heretofore the students have been so generous, at the time of this meeting, that many of them, if necessary, have given up their rooms that these people might have a comfortable night's rest. I do not know where you have slept, but I do not think that in the history of the school a student was ever asked to give up his room to any of these people that he did not gladly and freely do so. I believe that you are going to do the same thing this year.

I want you, also, to remember that you not only can help the Conference to be a success by being polite and kindly to the farmers who come from this and other Southern States, but also by being polite and attentive to the representatives from the large institutions that will be here. We will have present representatives from every large institution engaged in the education of our people. It means much for the principals and instructors in these large colleges and industrial schools to leave their work and come as far as many of them do, to spend these days here. We have a responsibility on their account; we desire them to feel that it has been worth their while to leave their work and spend their time and money to come here for these meetings. We wish them to get something out of our industries here; we wish them to get something out of the training here, in every department, something which they can take back to their own institution to make their work there stronger and better.

Now as to yourselves. You can get something out of this Conference for yourselves, by getting hold of everything possible, so that when you go out from Tuskegee you will have just that much more helpful information to put into practice. I want to see you go out through the South and establish local conferences. Call them together, and teach the same kind of lessons that we teach at these gatherings at Tuskegee. You can get the most out of this Conference by putting into practice this effort to make other people happy. To get the greatest happiness out of life is to make somebody else happy. To get the greatest good out of life is to do something for somebody else. I want you to find the persons who are most ignorant and most poverty stricken; I want you to find the persons who are most forlorn and most discouraged, and do something for them to make their hours happy. In doing that, you will do the most for yourselves.

I want each boy and each girl who belongs to this institution to be deep down in his or her heart a gentleman or a lady. A gentleman means simply this: a generous person; one who has learned to be kind; one who has learned to think not of himself first, but of the happiness and welfare of others. Let us put this spirit into our Conference day the coming week, and the day and week will be the greatest and most successful that we have ever had. Let our resolution be that the persons who come here, whether they represent a university, a college, an industrial school, a farm, or a shop--let our resolve be that when these people leave here they shall take away with them from Tuskegee something that will make their lives happier, brighter, stronger and more useful.

WHAT IS TO BE OUR FUTURE?

Last Thursday afternoon I received a telegram from a gentleman stopping for a time in a city in Georgia, asking me to come there at once on important business; and being rather curious to know what he wanted of me, I went. I found that this man was in the act of making his will, and that he had in mind the putting aside of a considerable sum in his will--some $20,000, in fact--for this institution.

The special point upon which this gentleman wished to consult me was the future of the Institution. He said that he had worked very hard for his money, that it had come as a result of much sacrifice and hard effort, and that there were friends of his who were beseeching him to use his money in other directions, because they thought it would be more likely to do permanent good elsewhere. And so he wished to know what the future of this Institution is likely to be, because he did not care to risk his money upon an uncertain venture, one that was likely to prosper for a few years, and then fail. He said that he would not like to give his money to an institution where it would not go on through the years, accomplishing a certain amount of good. Accordingly the question he repeated to me over and over again was: "What is to be the future of Tuskegee?" He wished to know whether, if we were given the money, it would go on from year to year, blessing one generation after another.

My point in speaking to you to-night is to emphasize what I think our good friend Professor Brown has already brought to our attention in one or two of his talks to us this week, the importance of making this institution what it ought to be, what its reputation gives it, and what its name implies.

More and more I realize--and I remember that the gentleman of whom I have spoken repeated this to me with great emphasis--that so far as the outside world is concerned, Tuskegee is sure; you need not have the least doubt that the institution will be supported. If we keep things right at the institution, if it is worthy of support, the moneyed people of the country will support it and stand by it. More and more each year this impression grows upon me, and more and more each year there are convincing evidences of the fact that the permanence and growth of this institution do not rest upon whether the people of the South or the people of the North are going to support it with their means. I have the most implicit confidence that the institution is going to be supported. But the question that comes to us with the greatest force is: "Are we going to be worthy of that support? Shall we be worthy of the confidence of the public?" That is the question that is most serious; that is the question that presses most heavily upon my heart, and upon the hearts of the other teachers here.

Now these questions can be answered satisfactorily only by evidence that each student, each individual connected with the school in any way, no matter in how low or high a capacity, is putting his or her whole conscience into the work here. When I say work, I mean study of books, work of the hand, effort of the body, willingness of the heart. No matter what the thing is, put your conscience into it; do your best. Let it be possible for you to say: "I have put my whole soul into my study, into my work, into whatever I have attempted. Whatever I have done I have honestly endeavored to do to the best of my ability."

The questions which this gentleman asked me, and similar kinds of questions, are being asked over and over again by people all over the country. The question can be answered only by our putting our consciences into our work, and by our being entirely unselfish in it. Let every person get into the habit of planning every day for the comfort and welfare of others, let each one try to live as unselfishly as possible, remembering that the Bible says: "He that would save his life, must lose it." And you never saw a person save his life in this higher sense, in the Christ-like sense, unless that person was willing, day by day, to lose himself in the interest of his fellow-men. Such persons save their own lives, and in saving them save thousands of other lives.

Such questions as these can be satisfactorily answered not merely by our putting our consciences into every effort, no matter what the effort may be, but by improving, day by day, upon what has been done the day before. In large institutions and establishments it is comparatively easy to find persons who will sweep a room day by day, or plough a field during certain seasons of the year, and do other work at certain other seasons of the year, but the difficulty comes in finding persons who make improvements in the manner of sweeping rooms, of ploughing fields and planting corn. The question for us is: "Are we going to put so much brains into our efforts every year, that we are going to go on steadily and constantly improving from year to year?" Are you going to get into the habit of so thinking about your work here that the habit will become, as it were, a part of yourself, so that when you go out into the world you will not be satisfied to take a position and go on in the same humdrum manner, but will not be satisfied until your work has been improved in every possible detail, and made easier, more systematic, and more convenient?

We must put brains into our work. There must be improvement in every department of this institution every year. It is absolutely impossible for an institution to stand still; it must go forward or backward, grow better or worse each year. An institution grows stronger and more useful each year, or weaker and less useful.

This institution can grow only by each person putting his thought into his work, by planning how he can improve the work of his particular department, by constantly striving to make his work more useful to the institution, by keeping the place where he works cleaner, and making his work more business-like and more systematic. That is the only way in which the questions which people all over the country are asking about this institution can be satisfactorily answered.

You will find that people will look to us more and more for tangible results. Not only here, but all over the country, our race is going to be called on to answer the question: "What can the race really accomplish?" It is perfectly well understood by our friends as well as by our enemies, that we can write good newspaper articles and make good addresses, that we can sing well and talk well, and all that kind of thing. All that is perfectly well understood and conceded. But the question that will be more and more forced upon us for an answer is: "Can we work out our thoughts, can we put them into tangible shape, so that the world may see from day to day actual evidences of our intellectuality?"

Last winter I was in the town of Clinton, Iowa. I think I had never heard of the place before, and when I got there I was surprised to find it a place of more than 16,000 inhabitants. The gentleman who was to entertain me wanted to take me to a coloured restaurant. I expected to go into a restaurant of the kind operated by our people generally, and I was very much surprised when he took me into a large, two-story building. I found the floors carpeted, and everything about the place as pleasant and attractive as it was possible to make it. In fact the restaurant compared very favourably with many in the largest cities in the country. I found the waiters clean, the service good, and everything conducted in the most systematic manner. And there was not the least thing, except the colour of the proprietor's skin, to show that the place was operated by coloured people.

Afterward my friend took me into another establishment of the same size, operated in the same creditable manner by another coloured man. In both I found that these gentlemen not only carried on a regular restaurant business, but manufactured their own candies and ice cream, and did a sort of wholesale catering business. I asked the white people there what they thought of the coloured people, and I did not find a single white person who did not have the most implicit confidence in the coloured people. The trouble was that there were not many coloured people there. That accounts possibly for the good opinion which the white people have of them. But you see what just two black men can do. These people had never seen many black people, but fortunately for us they had with them two of the best specimens of our race that I have ever seen anywhere in this country. As a result you do not find any one cursing the black man in that town. Everybody had the utmost confidence in black people, and respected them.

Just in proportion as we can establish object lessons of this kind all over the country, you will find that the problem that now is so perplexing will disappear. Until we do this, we shall not be able to talk away, or to argue away, this prejudice. We cannot talk our way into our rights; we must work our way, think our way, into them. And you will find that just in proportion as we do this, we are going to get all we deserve.

SOME GREAT LITTLE THINGS

I am going to speak to you for a few minutes to-night upon what I shall term "Some Great Little Things." I speak of them as great, because of their supreme importance, and I speak of them as little, because they come in a class of things which are usually looked upon by many people as small and unimportant. But in an institution like this I think they often hold first place--certainly they come under the head of important things that we can learn.

You will remember that in the sermon the Chaplain preached this morning, he mentioned the three-fold division of our nature; the physical part, the mental part, and the spiritual part. What I shall refer to to-night has largely to do with the material, the physical part of our natures. There are certain little things that each one of you can learn now, in connection with the care of your bodies, which, if left unlearned now, will perhaps go without being learned all your lives. You are now, as it were, at the parting of the ways--you are going to make these habits a part of yourselves, or you are going to let them escape you forever, and be weak in a measure all your lives for not having made them a part of yourselves.

I am going to speak very plainly, because I feel that such talk means nothing unless it is in language which every one can appreciate and understand. Now, among the first things that a person going to a boarding school should learn, if he has not already learned it at home--and I am constantly being surprised at the number who seem to have thus left it unlearned--is the habit of regular and systematic bathing. No person who has left this habit unlearned can reach the highest success in life. I mean by that, that a person who does not get into the habit of keeping the body clean, cannot do the highest work and the greatest amount of work in the world. When it comes to competing with persons who have learned the habit of keeping the body in good condition, you will find that the first named persons usually win in the race of life. I think many of you have already learned from your physiologies that when it comes to the combating of disease, where two persons are on a sick-bed with the same disease, the one who is habitually clean in his personal habits has a far greater chance for recovery than the one who has not learned the habit of cleanliness. You will also find that the person who is in the habit of caring for his body is in a better condition for study; he is in a condition to bear prolonged and severe exertion, while the person whose body is unclean is in a weak condition.

Take the matter of the teeth. Persons cannot call themselves educated and refined who do not make the matter of the cleanliness and proper care of their teeth an important part of themselves. When I speak of making such a thing a part of yourselves, I mean that you should make it such a strong habit that to leave it undone would seem unnatural. Some person has defined man as a bundle of habits. There are many habits that I wish you to make a part of yourselves, by practising so constantly that they may really be said to have become that.

There is the matter of the care of the hair, which everyone should make a part of himself. There is also the proper care of the finger nails.

Now all of these are common things, but they are great things. I should not recommend very highly a young man or young woman who went out from this institution as a graduate, and had not learned the habit of caring for the teeth, hair and nails systematically. Are you making these lessons a part of yourself?

Take the young men and young women who have been here two or three years. Have you grown to the point where you are dissatisfied and all out of sorts when your hair is not combed, your finger nails dirty, and your body not in the condition it should be in? If you have not reached that point, when you come to graduate, then there will be something wrong with your education, and you are not ready to go out from this institution, whether you are in the senior class or in the preparatory class.

Another thing; I confess that I cannot have the highest kind of respect for the person who is in the habit of going day after day with buttons off his clothes. There is no excuse for it, when buttons are so cheap. I wonder how many of you could stand, if I were now to ask all to stand who have every button in its place. I cannot have the best opinion of a girl who will let a hole remain in her apron day after day. Nor can I think well of a man who does not remove a grease spot from his coat as soon as he discovers it.

You have more respect for yourselves, and other people have more respect for you, when you get into the habit of polishing your shoes, no matter where you are, but especially when you are at school. Every man should get into the habit of polishing his shoes. See to it that they are in proper condition at all times.

I need not repeat here, after what I have said, that it is of the utmost importance that every person wear the cleanest of linen. If I speak to you so plainly, it is because I want you to make these matters a part of yourselves to such an extent that they will be essential to your happiness and success. I want every girl who goes away from here to be so nearly perfect in her dress that she cannot be happy if there is any detail unattended to; and I want the same thing to be true of the young men. Let these things have an important bearing on your education here, and on your life hereafter.

And then, above all things, although on account of the number of students here you are very much crowded in your rooms and will have to make all the harder effort on that account, get into the habit of being orderly and neat. School your room-mates to the point where they will have a place for everything. Always know where to put your hands on anything you may want in your room, whether in the light or in the dark.

Then there are one or two other little things. You should have quiet in your rooms, at your work or in your talk with your fellow students. Do your work quietly. Get into the habit of closing doors quietly. You cannot realize how much all these little things add to your happiness and to the manhood and womanhood which you are going to build up as the years go on.

And then, in conclusion, so order your lives that you can form the habit of reading. Set aside a certain amount of time each day, even if it be not more than four or five minutes, for reading and studying aside from your lessons. Read books of travel, history and biography. I want you to patronize the library this year as never before. In it are great numbers of books by authors of the highest rank.

Be regular in all your habits. Have a regular time for studying, for recreation, and for sleeping.

And last, but far from least, set aside a regular time for thinking, for meditating with yourself. Take yourself up, pick yourself to pieces, see wherein you are weak and need strengthening. Analyze yourself. Get rid, as it were, of all the weights that have been holding you back, and resolve at the end of each week that you will walk upon your dead selves of the week before. If you will go on, making that kind of progress, you will find at the end of the nine school months that you are stronger in everything essential to good manhood and good womanhood.

TO WOULD-BE TEACHERS

Since very many of you whom I see before me to-night will spend some part of your lives after you leave here as teachers, even if you do not make teaching your life work, I am going to talk over with you again a subject on which I have spoken elsewhere--How to build up a good school in the South.

The coloured schools of the South, especially in the country districts and smaller towns, are not kept open by the State fund, as a rule, longer than three or four months in the year. One of the great questions, then, with teachers and parents, is how to extend the school term to seven or eight months, so that the school shall really do some good.

I want to give a few plain suggestions, which will, I think, if carefully followed, result in placing a good school in almost every community. In this I am not speculating, because more than one Tuskegee graduate has built up a good school on the plan I outline.

In the first place the teacher must be willing to settle down in the community, and feel that that is to be his home, and teaching there his chief object in life while he is there. Not only must he not feel that he can move about from place to place every three months, but he must feel that he is not working for his salary alone. He must be willing to sacrifice for the good of the community.

The next thing is to get a convenient school-house. Usually, in the far South, the State has not been able to build a school-house. How is it to be secured? A good school-house should be carefully planned. Then the teacher or some one else should go among the people in the community, coloured and white, and get each individual to give something, no matter how small an amount if in money, or, if not in money, how little in value, for purchasing lumber. When we were getting started here at Tuskegee one old coloured woman brought me six eggs as her contribution to our work.

If enough money cannot be secured by subscription and collection to pay for the lumber, a supper, a festival, entertainment or church collection will help out. After the lumber is secured, the parents should be asked to "club in" with their waggons and haul it free. Then at least one good carpenter should be secured to take the lead in building. Each member of the community should agree to give a certain number of days' work in helping to put up the structure. In this work of building, the larger pupils can help a good deal, and they will have all the more interest in the school-house because they have had a hand in its erection. In these ways, by patient effort, a good frame school-house can be secured in almost any community.

Where it is possible, take a three or four months' public school as a starting point, and work in co-operation with the school officers, but do not let the school close at the end of these three or four months, because if that is done it will amount to almost nothing.

As soon as the teacher goes into a community, he should organize the people into an educational society or club, and there should be regular meetings once a week, or once in two weeks, at which plans for the improvement of the school should be discussed.

There are a number of ways for extending the school term. One is for each parent to pay ten, fifteen, twenty-five or fifty cents each month during the whole time the school is in session. Frequently parents who cannot pay in cash can let the teacher have eggs, chickens, butter, sweet potatoes, corn or some other kind of produce which will help to supply the teacher with food. Another plan is for each farmer to set aside a portion of land and give all that is raised upon it to the school. Still another plan, and one that is being successfully carried out in at least one place, and one that I think much of, is for the teacher to secure, either by renting or purchase, a small tract of land--say from two to five acres--and let the children cultivate this land while they are attending school. If, in this way, three bales of cotton can be raised, and a variety of vegetables and grain also, the produce can be sold and the school term extended from three months to six or seven months.

Some parents may object to this at first, but they will soon see that it is better to let the school close at one o'clock or two o'clock in the afternoon, so that the children may work on the school land for an hour or two, and in this way keep the school open six or seven months, than to let it close entirely at the end of three months. There is another advantage in this latter plan. The teacher can in this way teach the students, in a practical way, better methods of farming. Short talks on the principles of agriculture are worth much more to them than time spent in committing to memory the names of mountain peaks in Central Africa. Very often there is enough land right around the school-house for the pupils to cultivate.

In every case where it is possible, the teacher should buy a home in the community, and make his home in every way a model for those of the people who live around him. The teacher should cultivate a farm, or follow some trade while not teaching. This not only helps him, but sets a good example for the people in the community. If the teacher be a woman, there are few communities where she cannot add much to her income by sewing, dressmaking or poultry-raising.

THE CULTIVATION OF STABLE HABITS

I am going to speak with you a few minutes this evening upon the matter of stability. I want you to understand when you start out in school, that no individual can accomplish anything unless he means to stick to what he undertakes. No matter how many possessions he may have, no matter how much he may have in this or that direction, no matter how much learning or skill of hand he may possess, an individual cannot succeed unless, at the same time, he possesses that quality which will enable him to stick to what he undertakes. In a word he is not to be jumping from this thing to that thing.

That is the reason why so many ministers fail. They preach awhile, and then jump to something else. They do not stick to one thing. It is the same with many lawyers and doctors. They do not stick to what they undertake. Many business men fail for the same reason. When an individual gets a reputation--no matter what he has undertaken--of not having the quality of sticking to a thing until he succeeds in reaching the end, that reputation nullifies the influence for good of the better traits of his character in every direction. It is said of him that he is unstable.