ork, skill, and
achievement, there is an unseen, persistent groping after the higher
ideals of life and living. No one can remain long on the grounds as an
intelligent observer of all that is to be here seen and felt, without
recognizing that the things that are not written in the catalogue and
not a part of the daily program of activities are real, vital, and of
far-reaching importance.

Principal Booker T. Washington and the men and women who have helped him
to build Tuskegee Institute are constantly looking beyond the present to
a future filled with the evidences of a better living for all those who
have felt the transforming spirit of the hidden forces at work.

How the perspective widens and deepens! Far, far beyond the confines of
the Tuskegee Institute community the light of this new life is seen and
felt and has its salutary effect. The stagnant life of centuries has
awakened, and is casting off its bonds. A new term, "intelligent
thrift," has come into its possession. Wherever this term has gone and
taken root, there has gone with it the thought that unless the idea make
for character, as well as for more cotton or corn, it is not of much
value.

The Tuskegee Idea always asks one question, and that is, "What are you?"
and not, "What have you?" The man who does not rise superior to his
possessions does not measure up to the Tuskegee idea of manhood.

[Illustration: EMMETT J. SCOTT.

Mr. Washington's Executive Secretary.]

In other words, character-building is the Alpha and Omega of all that
Tuskegee stands for. From the moment the new student comes on the
grounds until he leaves, he is appealed to in ways innumerable to regard
life as more than bread or meat, as more than mere mental equipment.
Cleanliness, decorum, promptness, truthfulness--these are old-fashioned
virtues, and are more properly taught in the home, but in Tuskegee they
mean everything. Tuskegee not only acts as a teacher, but assumes the
role of parent, and lays emphasis on the importance of these virtues
every moment of the time from the entrance of the student until
Commencement Day. The "cleanliness that is next to godliness" is one of
the Tuskegee ideals, and a student can scarcely commit a more serious
misdemeanor than to appear slovenly, either in dress or manners. The
facilities and requirements for bathing are quite as complete and
exacting as the equipments in the laboratories and recitation-rooms. The
result is that Tuskegee