ok and counted $7.50. Not one cent more had I, and
as I looked at the money with the thought that $7.50 represented the
entire savings of my life up to that time, gloom and despondency almost
overcame me.

The next morning I went to the Principal's office. From there I went to
be examined, and then again to see the Principal. Mr. Washington
explained that board was charged for at $8 per month, and that my books
would be sold to me at cost. He informed me further that if I entered
night-school I would be able to work out my board and accumulate each
month a balance to be used in paying my expenses when I entered
day-school. I was made to understand that this offer was on condition
that my work and conduct be in every way satisfactory. As the amount of
money I had did not justify me in entering day-school, I matriculated as
a night-school student. The blacksmith-shop being short of students, I
was assigned to this division of industry.

During the remaining part of the year, and the following summer, I
worked in the shop ten hours each day, except Sundays, and devoted about
two hours and a half at night to study and recitations. It is no easy
task, during warm weather in Alabama, for one to work ten hours a day
and spend two and a half hours at night studying in a room lighted by
several large lamps suspended from the ceiling. Yet this is what
hundreds of poor boys and girls have done at Tuskegee. Hundreds still
attend the night-school, but electric lights have taken the place of the
large oil-lamps. Tuskegee is now more modern than it was when I was a
student there. Barrels and boxes are no longer used in the raw state for
furniture, as was largely the case at that time. Day-students were
required to work one school-day each week and every other Saturday. I
was a student nearly five years, counting the time when I was a
night-student.

After I entered day-school it was necessary that I should work not only
on my regular work-days and two Saturdays each month, but whenever
there was work to be done and I could find time in which to do it.
During my entire life at Tuskegee I worked every Saturday except three.

I was not long at Tuskegee before an indescribable force began to have
its influence upon me. Whatever this power may be called, it was both
refining and energizing. People who know the school and have been there
and know of its influence, call this force "the Tuskegee spirit." This
spirit, to the student posses