aders. From the outset, in connection with
religious and academic training, it has emphasized industrial or hand
training as a means of finding the way out of present conditions. First,
we have found the industrial teaching useful in giving the student a
chance to work out a portion of his expenses while in school. Second,
the school furnishes labor that has an economic value, and at the same
time gives the student a chance to acquire knowledge and skill while
performing the labor. Most of all, we find the industrial system
valuable in teaching economy, thrift, and the dignity of labor, and in
giving moral backbone to students. The fact that a student goes out into
the world conscious of his power to build a house or a wagon, or to make
a harness, gives him a certain confidence and moral independence that he
would not possess without such training.

A more detailed example of our methods at Tuskegee may be of interest.
For example, we cultivate by student labor six hundred and fifty acres
of land. The object is not only to cultivate the land in a way to
make it pay our boarding department, but at the same time to teach the
students, in addition to the practical work, something of the chemistry
of the soil, the best methods of drainage, dairying, the cultivation
of fruit, the care of livestock and tools, and scores of other
lessons needed by a people whose main dependence is on agriculture.
Notwithstanding that eighty-five per cent of the colored people in the
South live by agriculture in some form, aside from what has been done by
Hampton, Tuskegee, and one or two other institutions practically nothing
has been attempted in the direction of teaching them about the very
industry from which the masses of our people must get their subsistence.
Friends have recently provided means for the erection of a large new
chapel at Tuskegee. Our students have made the bricks for this chapel.
A large part of the timber is sawed by students at our own sawmill, the
plans are drawn by our teacher of architecture and mechanical drawing,
and students do the brick-masonry, plastering, painting, carpentry work,
tinning, slating, and make most of the furniture. Practically, the whole
chapel will be built and furnished by student labor; in the end the
school will have the building for permanent use, and the students will
have a knowledge of the trades employed in its construction. In this way
all but three of the thirty buildings on the grounds