e have used the church,
the Sunday-School, Bible classes and other religious societies that they
might feel; the class-rooms that they might know; the shops and farms
that they might handle and do. And so all of our material acquisitions
have been used to drive home one great end; social service, better men
and better women.

Now how well we have accomplished this end may be seen from the
following: Counting those who have finished the course of study and
others who have remained at the school long enough to catch its spirit
and be influenced by its teaching, we have sent out into various parts
of the South more than a thousand young men and women who are today
leading useful and helpful lives. They are farmers, blacksmiths,
wheelwrights, carpenters, housekeepers, dressmakers, printers, railway
postal clerks, letter carriers, teachers, preachers, domestic servants,
insurance agents, doctors, expressmen, contractors, timber-inspectors,
college students. In fact, they are to be found in every vocation known
to the South. Many of these young people have bought farms and homes of
their own, have erected neat and comfortable cottages; have influenced
their neighbors to buy land, to build better homes, better churches and
better school-houses. They have also been instrumental in securing a
higher type of teachers and preachers. They make a special effort
always to cultivate a friendly relation between the two races. In this
particular they have been remarkably successful. I shall speak more
directly about their work under the chapter on Graduates.

Perhaps I can in no way better show the effects of the school upon the
immediate community than by referring to an address given by me and
quoted in the appendix of this book.

It is the custom at Tuskegee to have each class reassemble at the school
twenty years after graduation. Some one of the class is chosen by the
school, to represent the class and is placed on the Commencement
program. It fell my lot to represent my class on this occasion.

Of course at the anniversary of each class, that class is expected to
make a donation to the school. Although this had been the custom for
several years, the class donations very seldom amounted to more than
$100. Sometimes they were as small as $25.00 or less. Somehow I have
always felt that the graduates of Tuskegee owed that institution a debt
of gratitude which they can never pay, and thought that they should make
the class annivers