t Hampton I found the
opportunity--in the way of buildings, teachers, and industries provided
by the generous--to get training in the class-room and by practical
touch with industrial life, to learn thrift, economy, and push. I was
surrounded by an atmosphere of business, Christian influence, and a
spirit of self-help that seemed to have awakened every faculty in me,
and caused me for the first time to realize what it meant to be a man
instead of a piece of property.

While there I resolved that when I had finished the course of training I
would go into the far South, into the Black Belt of the South, and give
my life to providing the same kind of opportunity for self-reliance
and self-awakening that I had found provided for me at Hampton. My work
began at Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881, in a small shanty and church, with
one teacher and thirty students, without a dollar's worth of property.
The spirit of work and of industrial thrift, with aid from the State and
generosity from the North, has enabled us to develop an institution of
eight hundred students gathered from nineteen States, with seventy-nine
instructors, fourteen hundred acres of land, and thirty buildings,
including large and small; in all, property valued at $280,000.
Twenty-five industries have been organized, and the whole work is
carried on at an annual cost of about $80,000 in cash; two fifths of the
annual expense so far has gone into permanent plant.

What is the object of all this outlay? First, it must be borne in mind
that we have in the South a peculiar and unprecedented state of things.
It is of the utmost importance that our energy be given to meeting
conditions that exist right about us rather than conditions that existed
centuries ago or that exist in countries a thousand miles away. What
are the cardinal needs among the seven millions of colored people in the
South, most of whom are to be found on the plantations? Roughly, these
needs may be stated as food, clothing, shelter, education, proper
habits, and a settlement of race relations. The seven millions of
colored people of the South cannot be reached directly by any missionary
agency, but they can be reached by sending out among them strong
selected young men and women, with the proper training of head, hand,
and heart, who will live among these masses and show them how to lift
themselves up.

The problem that the Tuskegee Institute keeps before itself constantly
is how to prepare these le