r animated discussion
between two boys in the dining room below. The discussion was over the
question as to whose turn it was to use the coffee-cup that morning. One
boy won the case by proving that for three mornings he had not had an
opportunity to use the cup at all.

But gradually, with patience and hard work, we brought order out of
chaos, just as will be true of any problem if we stick to it with
patience and wisdom and earnest effort.

As I look back now over that part of our struggle, I am glad to see
that we had it. I am glad that we endured all those discomforts and
inconveniences. I am glad that our students had to dig out the place for
their kitchen and dining room. I am glad that our first boarding-place
was in the dismal, ill-lighted, and damp basement. Had we started in a
fine, attractive, convenient room, I fear we would have "lost our heads"
and become "stuck up." It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a
foundation which one has made for one's self.

When our old students return to Tuskegee now, as they often do, and
go into our large, beautiful, well-ventilated, and well-lighted dining
room, and see tempting, well-cooked food--largely grown by the students
themselves--and see tables, neat tablecloths and napkins, and vases of
flowers upon the tables, and hear singing birds, and note that each meal
is served exactly upon the minute, with no disorder, and with almost no
complaint coming from the hundreds that now fill our dining room, they,
too, often say to me that they are glad that we started as we did,
and built ourselves up year by year, by a slow and natural process of
growth.

Chapter XI. Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them

A little later in the history of the school we had a visit from General
J.F.B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton Institute, who had had
faith enough to lend us the first two hundred and fifty dollars with
which to make a payment down on the farm. He remained with us a week,
and made a careful inspection of everything. He seemed well pleased
with our progress, and wrote back interesting and encouraging reports to
Hampton. A little later Miss Mary F. Mackie, the teacher who had given
me the "sweeping" examination when I entered Hampton, came to see us,
and still later General Armstrong himself came.

At the time of the visits of these Hampton friends the number of
teachers at Tuskegee had increased considerably, and the most of the new
teache