ago, and
he is fast learning the lesson that he cannot afford to act in a manner
that will alienate his Southern white neighbours from him. More and more
I am convinced that the final solution of the political end of our race
problem will be for each state that finds it necessary to change the law
bearing upon the franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty,
and without opportunity for double dealing or evasion, to both races
alike. Any other course my daily observation in the South convinces me,
will be unjust to the Negro, unjust to the white man, and unfair to the
rest of the state in the Union, and will be, like slavery, a sin that at
some time we shall have to pay for.

In the fall of 1878, after having taught school in Malden for two years,
and after I had succeeded in preparing several of the young men and
women, besides my two brothers, to enter the Hampton Institute, I
decided to spend some months in study at Washington, D.C. I remained
there for eight months. I derived a great deal of benefit from the
studies which I pursued, and I came into contact with some strong
men and women. At the institution I attended there was no industrial
training given to the students, and I had an opportunity of comparing
the influence of an institution with no industrial training with that of
one like the Hampton Institute, that emphasizes the industries. At this
school I found the students, in most cases, had more money, were better
dressed, wore the latest style of all manner of clothing, and in some
cases were more brilliant mentally. At Hampton it was a standing rule
that, while the institution would be responsible for securing some one
to pay the tuition for the students, the men and women themselves must
provide for their own board, books, clothing, and room wholly by work,
or partly by work and partly in cash. At the institution at which I
now was, I found that a large portion of the students by some means
had their personal expenses paid for them. At Hampton the student was
constantly making the effort through the industries to help himself,
and that very effort was of immense value in character-building. The
students at the other school seemed to be less self-dependent. They
seemed to give more attention to mere outward appearances. In a word,
they did not appear to me to be beginning at the bottom, on a real,
solid foundation, to the extent that they were at Hampton. They knew
more about Latin and Greek when