mere boy, I saw a young colored man, who had spent several years
in school, sitting in a common cabin in the South, studying a French
grammar. I noted the poverty, the untidiness, the want of system and
thrift, that existed about the cabin, notwithstanding his knowledge of
French and other academic subjects. Another time, when riding on the
outer edges of a town in the South, I heard the sound of a piano coming
from a cabin of the same kind. Contriving some excuse, I entered, and
began a conversation with the young colored woman who was playing, and
who had recently returned from a boarding-school, where she had been
studying instrumental music among other things. Despite the fact that
her parents were living in a rented cabin, eating poorly cooked food,
surrounded with poverty, and having almost none of the conveniences of
life, she had persuaded them to rent a piano for four or five dollars
per month. Many such instances as these, in connection with my own
struggles, impressed upon me the importance of making a study of our
needs as a race, and applying the remedy accordingly.

Some one may be tempted to ask, Has not the negro boy or girl as good
a right to study a French grammar and instrumental music as the white
youth? I answer, Yes, but in the present condition of the negro race in
this country there is need of something more. Perhaps I may be forgiven
for the seeming egotism if I mention the expansion of my own life partly
as an example of what I mean. My earliest recollection is of a small
one-room log hut on a large slave plantation in Virginia. After the
close of the war, while working in the coal-mines of West Virginia for
the support of my mother, I heart in some accidental way of the Hampton
Institute. When I learned that it was an institution where a black boy
could study, could have a chance to work for his board, and at the
same time be taught how to work and to realize the dignity of labor,
I resolved to go there. Bidding my mother good-by, I started out one
morning to find my way to Hampton, though I was almost penniless and
had no definite idea where Hampton was. By walking, begging rides,
and paying for a portion of the journey on the steam-cars, I finally
succeeded in reaching the city of Richmond, Virginia. I was without
money or friends. I slept under a sidewalk, and by working on a vessel
next day I earned money to continue my way to the institute, where
I arrived with a surplus of fifty cents. A