in Connecticut, and managed to borrow enough money with which to get
there. I had not been in this hotel long before I found out that I knew
practically nothing about waiting on a hotel table. The head waiter,
however, supposed that I was an accomplished waiter. He soon gave me
charge of the table at which their sat four or five wealthy and rather
aristocratic people. My ignorance of how to wait upon them was so
apparent that they scolded me in such a severe manner that I became
frightened and left their table, leaving them sitting there without
food. As a result of this I was reduced from the position of waiter to
that of a dish-carrier.

But I determined to learn the business of waiting, and did so within
a few weeks and was restored to my former position. I have had the
satisfaction of being a guest in this hotel several times since I was a
waiter there.

At the close of the hotel season I returned to my former home in Malden,
and was elected to teach the coloured school at that place. This was the
beginning of one of the happiest periods of my life. I now felt that I
had the opportunity to help the people of my home town to a higher life.
I felt from the first that mere book education was not all that the
young people of that town needed. I began my work at eight o'clock in
the morning, and, as a rule, it did not end until ten o'clock at night.
In addition to the usual routine of teaching, I taught the pupils to
comb their hair, and to keep their hands and faces clean, as well as
their clothing. I gave special attention to teaching them the proper
use of the tooth-brush and the bath. In all my teaching I have watched
carefully the influence of the tooth-brush, and I am convinced
that there are few single agencies of civilization that are more
far-reaching.

There were so many of the older boys and girls in the town, as well as
men and women, who had to work in the daytime and still were craving an
opportunity for an education, that I soon opened a night-school. From
the first, this was crowded every night, being about as large as the
school that I taught in the day. The efforts of some of the men and
women, who in many cases were over fifty years of age, to learn, were in
some cases very pathetic.

My day and night school work was not all that I undertook. I established
a small reading-room and a debating society. On Sundays I taught two
Sunday-schools, one in the town of Malden in the afternoon, and the
other