ing
to flatter me.

From the first I have sought to impress the students with the idea that
Tuskegee is not my institution, or that of the officers, but that it is
their institution, and that they have as much interest in it as any of
the trustees or instructors. I have further sought to have them feel
that I am at the institution as their friend and adviser, and not as
their overseer. It has been my aim to have them speak with directness
and frankness about anything that concerns the life of the school.
Two or three times a year I ask the students to write me a letter
criticising or making complaints or suggestions about anything connected
with the institution. When this is not done, I have them meet me in the
chapel for a heart-to-heart talk about the conduct of the school. There
are no meetings with our students that I enjoy more than these, and none
are more helpful to me in planning for the future. These meetings, it
seems to me, enable me to get at the very heart of all that concerns the
school. Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility
upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. When I have read of
labour troubles between employers and employees, I have often thought
that many strikes and similar disturbances might be avoided if
the employers would cultivate the habit of getting nearer to their
employees, of consulting and advising with them, and letting them feel
that the interests of the two are the same. Every individual responds to
confidence, and this is not more true of any race than of the Negroes.
Let them once understand that you are unselfishly interested in them,
and you can lead them to any extent.

It was my aim from the first at Tuskegee to not only have the buildings
erected by the students themselves, but to have them make their own
furniture as far as was possible. I now marvel at the patience of the
students while sleeping upon the floor while waiting for some kind of a
bedstead to be constructed, or at their sleeping without any kind of a
mattress while waiting for something that looked like a mattress to be
made.

In the early days we had very few students who had been used to handling
carpenters' tools, and the bedsteads made by the students then were very
rough and very weak. Not unfrequently when I went into the students'
rooms in the morning I would find at least two bedsteads lying about on
the floor. The problem of providing mattresses was a difficult one t