repair the wooden chimney that was exposed to the
fire, because water could be thrown on it when it was on fire. There was
no need to trouble about the payment of a debt to-day, for it could just
as well be paid next week or next year. Besides these conditions, the
whole South, at the close of the war, was without proper food, clothing,
and shelter,--was in need of habits of thrift and economy and of
something laid up for a rainy day.

To me it seemed perfectly plain that here was a condition of things that
could not be met by the ordinary process of education. At Tuskegee we
became convinced that the thing to do was to make a careful systematic
study of the condition and needs of the South, especially the Black
Belt, and to bend our efforts in the direction of meeting these needs,
whether we were following a well-beaten track, or were hewing out a new
path to meet conditions probably without a parallel in the world.
After fourteen years of experience and observation, what is the result?
Gradually but surely, we find that all through the South the disposition
to look upon labor as a disgrace is on the wane, and the parents who
themselves sought to escape work are so anxious to give their children
training in intelligent labor that every institution which gives
training in the handicrafts is crowded, and many (among them Tuskegee)
have to refuse admission to hundreds of applicants. The influence of
the Tuskegee system is shown again by the fact that almost every
little school at the remotest cross-roads is anxious to be known as
an industrial school, or, as some of the colored people call it, an
"industrus" school.

The social lines that were once sharply drawn between those who labored
with the hand and those who did not are disappearing. Those who formerly
sought to escape labor, now when they see that brains and skill rob
labor of the toil and drudgery once associated with it, instead of
trying to avoid it are willing to pay to be taught how to engage in it.
The South is beginning to see labor raised up, dignified and beautified,
and in this sees its salvation. In proportion as the love of labor
grows, the large idle class which has long been one of the curses of the
South disappears. As its members become absorbed in occupations, they
have less time to attend to everybody else's business, and more time for
their own.

The South is still an undeveloped and unsettled country, and for the
next half century and more