their white-robed daughter transformed from the girl they
brought here clad in the homespun of the old days, and receiving her
certificate, the tears come unchecked, and the moving lips no doubt form
a whispered prayer.

In a recent class there was graduated a young woman of twenty-five. She
came to the school in her eighteenth year from the "piney woods" of
Alabama. She entered the lowest preparatory class in night-school and
was assigned to work in the laundry. She was earnest and faithful in
work and study. She passed on from class to class, remaining at school
to work during the vacation. After two years in the laundry she was
given an opportunity to learn plain sewing in that division. She was
promoted to the Dressmaking Division at the end of the year, and
received her certificate at the close of two years, after working every
day and attending night-school. She spent the last two years of her
school life in the Millinery Division, and received her certificate from
that division with one from the Academic Department on her graduation.
During these two years she taught the sewing-classes in the night-school
of the town of Tuskegee. At the outset she bought the materials used
with $1, left over from the sales of the previous year. From this small
nest-egg as a starter, seventeen girls were supplied with work. But so
efficient and frugal was the young teacher that she sold articles,
bought supplies for her class, and ended the year with $3.45 in the
treasury.

This is just a leaf from the history of one girl. Of the 520 girls
entering the institution during this year (1903-'04), 458 have remained
for the full scholastic year. About 50 per cent came from country
districts all over the United States. A large majority of them asked to
enter the Dressmaking Division to learn that trade; but, after the field
of industries was opened to their view, they were scattered about in the
different divisions, a very large per cent still leaning to the side of
dressmaking and millinery.

Taking into account the number of girls working their way through at
their trades by day and attending night-school, they were distributed as
follows: Horticulture, 4; training-kitchen, 13; housekeeping, 38;
dining-room, 29; hospital, 20; kitchen-gardening, 8; poultry-raising, 7;
tailoring, 14; dairying, 10; printing, 6; broom-making, 26;
mattress-making, 18; upholstering, 18; laundering, 54; plain sewing, 72;
millinery, 51; dressmaking, 69. All