with a cordiality which his persistent and successful labors
in the cause of the education of the American Negro deserve,
especially at the hands of English men, whose difficulties
in many parts of the Empire have been helped toward a
solution by the results of his work.

Yours faithfully,

[Signed] H.H. ASQUITH.

While at home, no matter how pressed and driven with work, Booker
Washington snatched an hour or so every day for hunting or riding.
This daily exercise became a fetich with him which he clung to with
unreasonable obstinacy. He would frequently set off upon these hunts
or rides in so exhausted a condition that obviously their only effect
could be worse exhaustion. His intense admiration for Theodore
Roosevelt probably had its influence, conscious or unconscious, in
strengthening his devotion to violent outdoor exercise.

Whatever he was doing or wherever he was, his mind seemed constantly
at work along constructive lines. At the most unexpected times and
places he would suddenly call the inevitable stenographer and dictate
some idea for an article or address or some plan for the improvement
of Tuskegee or for the betterment of the whole race in this or that
particular. He would sometimes reduce his immediate subordinates to
the verge of despair by pouring out upon them in rapid succession
constructive suggestions each one of which meant hours, days, and even
weeks of time to work out, and then calling for the results of all
before even one could be fairly put into effect. This tendency became
particularly marked in his closing years when the consciousness of an
immense amount of work to be done and a short and constantly lessening
period in which to do it must have become an obsession and almost a
nightmare to him.

He would sometimes wound the feelings of acquaintances and friends,
particularly his teachers, by passing them on the street and even
looking at them without recognition. This naturally was not
intentional, nor was it because his mind was wool-gathering, but
merely because he was thinking out some idea with which the people and
events immediately about him had for the moment no connection and were
consequently totally obliterated from his consciousness.

Mr. Washington's strength of will and determination were never better
shown than in the closing hours of his life. When he was told by his
doctors at St. Luke's Hospital, New York, whither he had been tak