r that
was purchased by his forefathers at the price of two hundred and fifty
years of slavery. I would say to the black boy what I would say to the
white boy, Get all the mental development that your time and
pocket-book will allow of,--the more, the better; but the time has
come when a larger proportion--not all, for we need professional men
and women--of the educated coloured men and women should give
themselves to industrial or business life. The professional class will
be helped in so far as the rank and file have an industrial
foundation, so that they can pay for professional service. Whether
they receive the training of the hand while pursuing their academic
training or after their academic training is finished, or whether they
will get their literary training in an industrial school or college,
are questions which each individual must decide for himself. No
matter how or where educated, the educated men and women must come to
the rescue of the race in the effort to get and hold its industrial
footing. I would not have the standard of mental development lowered
one whit; for, with the Negro, as with all races, mental strength is
the basis of all progress. But I would have a large measure of this
mental strength reach the Negroes' actual needs through the medium of
the hand. Just now the need is not so much for the common carpenters,
brick masons, farmers, and laundry women as for industrial leaders
who, in addition to their practical knowledge, can draw plans, make
estimates, take contracts; those who understand the latest methods of
truck-gardening and the science underlying practical agriculture;
those who understand machinery to the extent that they can operate
steam and electric laundries, so that our women can hold on to the
laundry work in the South, that is so fast drifting into the hands of
others in the large cities and towns.

Having tried to show in previous chapters to what a condition the lack
of practical training has brought matters in the South, and by the
examples in this chapter where this state of things may go if allowed
to run its course, I wish now to show what practical training, even in
its infancy among us, has already accomplished.

I noticed, when I first went to Tuskegee to start the Tuskegee Normal
and Industrial Institute, that some of the white people about there
rather looked doubtfully at me; and I thought I could get their
influence by telling them how much algebra and history