I spoke to an audience so attentive, so alert,
so receptive, so filled with animation, that the whole place looked like
a vast advertisement for Sozodont.

No prohibitive signs are seen at Tuskegee. All is affirmative, yet it is
understood that some things are tabu--tobacco, for instance, and strong
drink, of course.

We have all heard of Harvard Beer and Yale Mixture, but be it said in
sober justice, Harvard runs no brewery, and Yale has no official brand
of tobacco. Yet Harvard men consume much beer, and many men at Yale
smoke. And if you want to see the cigarette-fiend on his native heath,
you'll find him like the locust on the campus at Cambridge and New
Haven. But if you want to see the acme of all cigarette-bazaars, just
ride out of Boylston Street, Boston, any day at noon, and watch the boys
coming out of the Institute of Technology.

I once asked a Tech Professor if cigarette-smoking was compulsory in his
institution. "Yes," he replied; "but the rule is not strictly enforced,
as I know three students who do not smoke."

Tuskegee stands for order, system, cleanliness, industry, courtesy and
usefulness. There are no sink-holes around the place, no "back yards."
Everything is beautiful, wholesome and sanitary. All trades are
represented. The day is crammed so full of work from sunrise to sunset
that there is no time for complaining, misery or faultfinding--three
things that are usually born of idleness. At Tuskegee there are
no servants. All of the work is done by the students and
teachers--everybody works--everybody is a student, and all are teachers.

We are all teachers, whether we will it or not--we teach by example, and
all students who do good work are good teachers.

When the Negro is able to do skilled work, he ceases to be a problem--he
is a man. The fact that Alexandre Dumas was a Negro does not count
against him in the world's assize.

The old-time academic college, that cultivated the cerebrum and gave a
man his exercise in an indoor gymnasium, or not at all, has ruined its
tens of thousands. To have top--head and no lungs--is not wholly
desirable. The student was made exempt from every useful thing, just as
the freshly freed slave hoped and expected to be, and after four years
it was often impossible for him to take up the practical lessons of
life. He had gotten used to the idea of one set of men doing all the
work and another set of men having the culture. To a large degree he
came to regard