such an
education in farming, dairying, stock-raising, horticulture, etc., as
will enable him to become a model in these respects and place him near
the top in these industries, and the race problem would in a large
part be settled, or at least stripped of many of its most perplexing
elements. This policy would also tend to keep the Negro in the country
and smaller towns, where he succeeds best, and stop the influx into
the large cities, where he does not succeed so well. The race, like
the individual, that produces something of superior worth that has a
common human interest, makes a permanent place for itself, and is
bound to be recognised.

At a county fair in the South not long ago I saw a Negro awarded the
first prize by a jury of white men, over white competitors, for the
production of the best specimen of Indian corn. Every white man at
this fair seemed to be pleased and proud of the achievement of this
Negro, because it was apparent that he had done something that would
add to the wealth and comfort of the people of both races in that
county. At the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama we
have a department devoted to training men in the science of
agriculture; but what we are doing is small when compared with what
should be done at Tuskegee and at other educational centres. In a
material sense the South is still an undeveloped country. While race
prejudice is strongly exhibited in many directions, in the matter of
business, of commercial and industrial development, there is very
little obstacle in the Negro's way. A Negro who produces or has for
sale something that the community wants finds customers among white
people as well as black people. A Negro can borrow money at the bank
with equal security as readily as a white man can. A bank in
Birmingham, Alabama, that has now existed ten years, is officered and
controlled wholly by Negroes. This bank has white borrowers and white
depositors. A graduate of the Tuskegee Institute keeps a
well-appointed grocery store in Tuskegee, and he tells me that he
sells about as many goods to the one race as to the other. What I have
said of the opening that awaits the Negro in the direction of
agriculture is almost equally true of mechanics, manufacturing, and
all the domestic arts. The field is before him and right about him.
Will he occupy it? Will he "cast down his bucket where he is"? Will
his friends North and South encourage him and prepare him to occupy