hese
boys or girls who came from a one-room cabin and realize what a
profoundly revolutionary, even sensational, injunction it is! To the
boy or girl who had snatched a morsel of food here, there, or anywhere
when prompted by the gnawings of hunger, who had never sat down to a
regular meal, who had never partaken of a meal placed upon a table
with or without ceremony--imagine what it meant to such a boy or girl
"to see to it that a certain ceremony, a certain importance, be
attached to the partaking of the food"--not on special occasions but
at each one of the three meals of each day!

Finally it came about that this school which had started with a paltry
$2,000 a year, a great need, and the invincible determination of one
man, came to have land, buildings, teachers, students, and even a
boarding department. But in Mr. Washington's view there was still a
great fundamental lack in their work. They were doing nothing directly
to help those less fortunate than themselves--those about them who
could not come and enjoy the advantages of the school. Mr. Washington
held that as soon as an individual got hold of anything as useful
and desirable as education he should take immediate means to hand
it on to the greatest possible number of those who needed it. He had
no patience with those persons who would climb the tree of knowledge
and then pull the ladder up after them.

[Illustration: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

"His influence, like that of his school, was at first community wide,
then county wide, then state wide, and finally nation wide."]

He and his teachers then began to go out on Sundays and give the
people homely talks on how to improve their living conditions. They
encouraged the farmers to come to the school farm and learn how to
grow a variety of crops to supplement the cotton crop which was their
sole reliance. They relieved the distress of individual families. Mrs.
Washington gathered together in an old loft the farmers' wives and
daughters who were in the habit of loafing about the village of
Tuskegee on Saturday afternoons and formed them into a woman's club
for the improvement of the living conditions in their homes and
communities. Mr. Washington and his teachers went right on to the
farms and into the homes, and into the churches and the schools, and
everywhere showed, for the most part by concrete object-lessons, how
they could make their farms more productive, their homes more
comfortable, their schools more