e school if it had been put in
operation. I remained at the school during the summer of 1894, the
school very kindly arranging each summer to keep a large number of
students and providing work for them. It was to me an advantage to
remain. I had no money for railroad fare, and I was sure of securing a
trade, wheelwrighting, at the beginning of the next term. I had desired
to go into the blacksmith-shop, but it was so crowded that there was no
reasonable assurance that I should be able to secure entrance thereto.

At the beginning of the fall term, 1894, I entered the wheelwright-shop,
at the same time, of course, carrying my academic work; I had been
successively each year promoted to the next higher class. I not only
worked all of that school year in the wheelwrighting-shop, but remained
the summer of 1895.

Shortly after the new school year began, my instructor, Mr. M. T.
Driver, was selected to take charge of the school's elaborate exhibit at
the Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta, Ga., at the
opening of which Principal Washington had spoken so effectively and
powerfully for the Negro people of the country. I had made such
substantial progress that Mr. J. H. Washington, then serving as director
of mechanical industries, notified me that I had been selected to manage
the shop during Mr. Driver's six months' absence.

I was not very much inclined to take the responsibility, but at Tuskegee
polite notification of selection to do a thing is a command. I accepted
the work and did my very best. There were about twenty young men in the
shop when I took charge, some older, some younger than I, but most of
whom had been there longer than I had. I had no serious complaints as to
the quality of work turned out by me during the instructor's absence.

I now had to my credit more than enough money to carry me through the
remaining two years. The next year I entered the day-school. I had
become in most respects a new person. I had gone to Tuskegee
country-bred, raw, ignorant. The school's transforming influence I was
able to note in my carriage, and, of course, in my conversation, in my
care for neatness and order, and in the ideals I was forming and trying
to live up to. During the summer I returned home for the first time. I
worked at my trade during the vacation and earned enough money to buy
clothing and other necessaries. I did not return to school until
December 28, 1897, as I needed the money I was earnin