at Tuskegee.

I have often been asked how I began the practice of public speaking.
In answer I would say that I never planned to give any large part of my
life to speaking in public. I have always had more of an ambition to DO
things than merely to talk ABOUT doing them. It seems that when I went
North with General Armstrong to speak at the series of public meetings
to which I have referred, the President of the National Educational
Association, the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, was present at one of
those meetings and heard me speak. A few days afterward he sent me an
invitation to deliver an address at the next meeting of the Educational
Association. This meeting was to be held in Madison, Wis. I accepted the
invitation. This was, in a sense, the beginning of my public-speaking
career.

On the evening that I spoke before the Association there must have been
not far from four thousand persons present. Without my knowing it, there
were a large number of people present from Alabama, and some from the
town of Tuskegee. These white people afterward frankly told me that they
went to this meeting expecting to hear the South roundly abused, but
were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no word of abuse in
my address. On the contrary, the South was given credit for all the
praiseworthy things that it had done. A white lady who was teacher in
a college in Tuskegee wrote back to the local paper that she was
gratified, as well as surprised, to note the credit which I gave the
white people of Tuskegee for their help in getting the school started.
This address at Madison was the first that I had delivered that in any
large measure dealt with the general problem of the races. Those who
heard it seemed to be pleased with what I said and with the general
position that I took.

When I first came to Tuskegee, I determined that I would make it my
home, that I would take as much pride in the right actions of the people
of the town as any white man could do, and that I would, at the same
time, deplore the wrong-doing of the people as much as any white man. I
determined never to say anything in a public address in the North that
I would not be willing to say in the South. I early learned that it is
a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this
is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy
actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.

While pursuing this policy I