your attention to the enclosed pamphlet
"Public Taxation and Negro Schools."

I enclose herewith copy of my Last Annual Report, giving
information as to the various activities of the Institution.

Yours very truly,

[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

On October 25, 1915, a few weeks before he died, Mr. Washington
delivered an address before the delegates to the National Council of
Congregational Churches, in New Haven, Conn., in which he well
illustrated his belief already quoted, "that a large part of the
mission of both Hampton and Tuskegee is to keep the cause of Negro
education before the country." He said in part:

"There is sometimes much talk about the inferiority of the Negro. In
practice, however, the idea appears to be that he is a sort of
super-man. He is expected with about one-fifth or one-tenth of what
the whites receive for their education to make as much progress as
they are making. Taking the Southern States as a whole, about $10.23
per capita is spent in educating the average white boy or girl, and
the sum of $2.82 per capita in educating the average black child.

"In order to furnish the Negro with educational facilities so that the
2,000,000 children of school age now out of school and the 1,000,000
who are unable to read or write can have the proper chance in life _it
will be necessary to increase the $9,000,000 now being expended
annually for Negro public school education in the South_ to about
$25,000,000 or $30,000,000 annually."

And in conclusion he said: "At the present rate, it is taking not a
few days or a few years, but a century or more to get Negro education
on a plane at all similar to that on which the education of the whites
now is. To bring Negro education up where it ought to be will take the
combined and increased efforts of all the agencies now engaged in this
work. The North, the South, the religious associations, the
educational boards, white people and black people, all will have to
cooperate in a great effort for this common end."

These were the last words he ever spoke at a great public meeting.
They show his acute realization of the immensity of the task to which
he literally gave his life, and his dread lest what had been
accomplished be over-estimated with a consequent slackening of effort.

A very cordial friendship existed between Mr. Washington and his
Trustees. Every man among them was his selection and joined the Board
on his invitati