cal things most necessary. Improvement
soon follows, however.

We do some outside "extension work," in addition to what has been
enumerated: a cooking class in the town of Tuskegee for those unable to
attend the school at all, and classes for the children at the Children's
House, the model training-school of the institution, where they are
given understandable lessons in cooking and housekeeping. A bedroom, a
dining-room, a bathroom, and a kitchen are also provided in connection
with the Children's House.

I am happy in the thought that I have a part in this fundamental,
home-building part of the instruction being given the girls who come
from thirty-six States and territories of the Union, and from Cuba and
Porto Rico and other foreign countries, to attend this famous school, of
which I am myself a graduate.

When the girls are fitted to make better homes, a better people are the
result. To have some part in this work was a fond wish while a student,
and is a prized privilege now that I have the opportunity to render some
slight service in return for all that Tuskegee has done for me.

IX

A WOMAN'S WORK

BY CORNELIA BOWEN

Of myself and the work I have done there is not a great deal to say. I
was born at Tuskegee, Ala., on a part of the very ground now occupied by
the famous Tuskegee Institute. The building first used by the school as
an industrial building for girls was the house in which I was born. That
old building (and two others, as well) is carefully preserved by the
institution as an old landmark, and never do I go to Tuskegee that I do
not search it out among the more imposing and pretentious buildings
which have come during the later years of the school's history. This
building and the two other small ones were on the property when it was
acquired by Principal Washington.

My mother lived the greater part of her life at this place as the slave
of Colonel William Bowen, who owned the plot of ground upon which the
Tuskegee Institute now stands. The birthplace of my mother was
Baltimore, Md. She was taught to read by her master's daughter in
Baltimore, and was never forbidden to read by those who owned her in
Alabama.

When a child, I could never understand why she read so well and could
not write. I was very sorry at times that she could read and was not
like other children's mothers whom I knew. She always knew when I did
not get my lessons, and often the hours of play that were dear to me