ich he employed in conducting the business, in
distinction from the educational affairs, of Tuskegee Institute,
compare favorably with those of the best-managed industrial
corporations. He may even have appeared to be over-insistent upon
business accuracy, system, and efficiency, so anxious was he to belie
the popular notion that Negroes must of necessity, because they are
Negroes, be slipshod and unsystematic. In refutation of this familiar
accusation he built up an institution almost as large as Harvard
University which runs like clockwork without a single white man or
woman having any part in its actual administration. Tuskegee itself is
the most notable example of its founder's method of argument. No
person knowing the facts about Tuskegee can ever again honestly say
that Negroes are always and necessarily slipshod and unsystematic in
their business methods.

CHAPTER NINE

BOOKER WASHINGTON AMONG HIS STUDENTS

In spite of his absorption in guiding the destinies of his race Booker
Washington never lost interest in individuals however humble or in
their individual affairs however small. This was strikingly shown in
his relations to his students. He never wearied in his efforts to help
in the solution of the life problems of the hundreds of raw boys and
girls who each year flocked to Tuskegee and to Booker Washington with
little but hope and ambition upon which to build their careers. With
many of these newcomers he not infrequently had his initial talk
before they knew who he was. This was made easy by his simple and
unassuming manner, which was the exact opposite to what these
unsophisticated youths expected in a great man. One of the graduates
of Tuskegee in the book, "Tuskegee and Its People," thus describes his
first meeting with Booker Washington. His experience was almost
identical with that of many another entering student. He says:

"My first glimpse of Mr. Washington was had in the depot at
Montgomery, Ala., where a friend and I, on our way to Tuskegee, had
changed cars for the Tuskegee train. Two gentlemen came into the
waiting-room where we were seated, one a man of splendid appearance
and address, the other a most ordinary appearing individual, we
thought. The latter, addressing us, inquired our destination. Upon
being told that we were going to Tuskegee, he remarked that he had
heard that Tuskegee was a very hard place--a place where students were
given too much to do, and where the food was