wishes and policy regarding the dovetailing of the
academic work into the industrial work.

I am quite convinced that the matter is taken up in rather a
spasmodic way; that is, so long as you are on hand and can
give the matter personal attention, it is followed, but when
you cease to give personal attention to it or are away,
matters go back to the old rut, or nearly so.

In some way we must all get together and help you to
organize your department so that this will not be true.

There are two elements of weakness in the academic work:
First, I very much fear that we take into it every year too
many green teachers, who know nothing about your methods.
This pulls the whole tone of the academic work down before
you can train them into your methods. I am quite sure that
though you might not get teachers who have had so much book
training, that it would be worth your considering to employ
a larger number of Hampton graduates or Tuskegee graduates,
who have had in a measure the methods which you believe in
instilled into them.

In my opinion, the time has come when you must consider
seriously the getting rid of, or shifting, some of your
older teachers. You have teachers in your department who
have been here a good many years, and experience proves that
they do not adapt themselves readily and systematically to
your methods. I think it would be far better for the school
to find employment for them outside of the Academic
Department, or to let them take some clerical work in your
department, than for them to occupy positions of importance
and influence, which they are not filling satisfactorily and
where they have an influence in hurting the character of the
whole teaching.

All these matters I hope you will consider very carefully.
I am sure that the time has come when definite and serious
action is needed.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Principal.

First and last on these apparently aimless strolls with a stenographer
he visited not only the classrooms and shops but every corner of the
great institution. He would return to his office with a notebook full
of memoranda of matters to be followed up or changed, and of people to
be commended or censured for their efficient or inefficient handling
of this, that, or the other piece of work. Once after writing