than ever, after spending
this month in seeing the actual life of the coloured people, and that
was that, in order to lift them up, something must be done more than
merely to imitate New England education as it then existed. I saw more
clearly than ever the wisdom of the system which General Armstrong had
inaugurated at Hampton. To take the children of such people as I had
been among for a month, and each day give them a few hours of mere book
education, I felt would be almost a waste of time.

After consultation with the citizens of Tuskegee, I set July 4, 1881,
as the day for the opening of the school in the little shanty and church
which had been secured for its accommodation. The white people, as well
as the coloured, were greatly interested in the starting of the new
school, and the opening day was looked forward to with much earnest
discussion. There were not a few white people in the vicinity of
Tuskegee who looked with some disfavour upon the project. They
questioned its value to the coloured people, and had a fear that it
might result in bringing about trouble between the races. Some had the
feeling that in proportion as the Negro received education, in the same
proportion would his value decrease as an economic factor in the state.
These people feared the result of education would be that the Negroes
would leave the farms, and that it would be difficult to secure them for
domestic service.

The white people who questioned the wisdom of starting this new school
had in their minds pictures of what was called an educated Negro, with a
high hat, imitation gold eye-glasses, a showy walking-stick, kid gloves,
fancy boots, and what not--in a word, a man who was determined to live
by his wits. It was difficult for these people to see how education
would produce any other kind of a coloured man.

In the midst of all the difficulties which I encountered in getting
the little school started, and since then through a period of nineteen
years, there are two men among all the many friends of the school in
Tuskegee upon whom I have depended constantly for advice and guidance;
and the success of the undertaking is largely due to these men, from
whom I have never sought anything in vain. I mention them simply as
types. One is a white man and an ex-slaveholder, Mr. George W. Campbell;
the other is a black man and an ex-slave, Mr. Lewis Adams. These were
the men who wrote to General Armstrong for a teacher.

Mr. Campbell is