, by staying in one place, by getting a good
teacher and a good preacher, by building a good school and church, by
letting your wife be your partner in all you do, by keeping out of
debt, by cultivating friendly relations with your neighbors both white
and black."

Mr. Washington was constantly bringing up in the Tuskegee faculty
meetings cases of distress among the colored people of the county,
which he had personally discovered while off hunting or riding, and
planning ways and means to relieve them. Apparently it never occurred
to him that technically, at least, the fate of these poor persons was
not his affair nor that of his school. At one such meeting he told of
having come upon while hunting a tumbledown cabin in the woods, within
it a half-paralyzed old Negro obviously unable to care for his simple
wants. Mr. Washington had stopped, built a fire in his stove, and
otherwise made him comfortable temporarily, but some provision for the
old man's care must be made at once. One of the teachers knew about
the old man and stated that he had such an ugly temper that he had
driven off his wife, son, and daughter who had until recently lived
with him and taken care of him. The young teacher seemed to feel that
the old man had brought his troubles upon his own head and so deserved
little sympathy. Mr. Washington would not for a moment agree to this.
He replied that if the old fellow was so unfortunate as to have a bad
temper as well as his physical infirmities that was no reason why he
should be allowed to suffer privation. He delegated one of the
teachers to look up the old man's family at once and see if they
could be prevailed upon to support him and to report at the next
meeting what had been arranged. In the meantime he would send some one
out to the cabin daily to take him food and attend to his wants.

At another faculty meeting he brought up the plight of an old woman
who was about to be evicted from her little shack on the outskirts of
the town because of her inability to pay the nominal rent which she
was charged. He arranged to have her rent paid out of a sum of money
which he always had included in the school budget for the relief of
such cases. In such ways he was constantly impressing upon his
associates the idea that was ever a mainspring of his own
life--namely, that it was always and everywhere the duty of the more
fortunate to help the less fortunate.

While he was sometimes severe with his more prospe