tribute to the well-being of the community into
which he has gone; something that has made the community feel that, in
a degree, it is indebted to him, and perhaps, to a certain extent,
dependent upon him. In this way pleasant relations between the races
have been simulated.

My experience is that there is something in human nature which always
makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter under what
colour of skin merit is found. I have found, too, that it is the
visible, the tangible, that goes a long ways in softening prejudices.
The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten
times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought
to build, or perhaps could build.

The same principle of industrial education has been carried out in the
building of our own wagons, carts, and buggies, from the first. We now
own and use on our farm and about the school dozens of these vehicles,
and every one of them has been built by the hands of the students. Aside
from this, we help supply the local market with these vehicles. The
supplying of them to the people in the community has had the same effect
as the supplying of bricks, and the man who learns at Tuskegee to build
and repair wagons and carts is regarded as a benefactor by both races in
the community where he goes. The people with whom he lives and works are
going to think twice before they part with such a man.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will,
in the end, make his way regardless of race. One man may go into a
community prepared to supply the people there with an analysis of Greek
sentences. The community may not at the time be prepared for, or feel
the need of, Greek analysis, but it may feel its need of bricks and
houses and wagons. If the man can supply the need for those, then, it
will lead eventually to a demand for the first product, and with the
demand will come the ability to appreciate it and to profit by it.

About the time that we succeeded in burning our first kiln of bricks
we began facing in an emphasized form the objection of the students
to being taught to work. By this time it had gotten to be pretty well
advertised throughout the state that every student who came to Tuskegee,
no matter what his financial ability might be, must learn some industry.
Quite a number of letters came from parents protesting against their
children engaging in labour while they were in the school.