o the
Negro race. For days I could talk of nothing else with my mother
except my ambitions to be a great man, a great colored man, to reflect
credit on the race and gain fame for myself. It was not until years
after that I formulated a definite and feasible plan for realizing my
dreams.

I entered the high school with my class, and still continued my study
of the piano, the pipe organ, and the theory of music. I had to
drop out of the boys' choir on account of a changing voice; this
I regretted very much. As I grew older, my love for reading grew
stronger. I read with studious interest everything I could find
relating to colored men who had gained prominence. My heroes had
been King David, then Robert the Bruce; now Frederick Douglass was
enshrined in the place of honor. When I learned that Alexandre Dumas
was a colored man, I re-read _Monte Cristo_ and _The Three Guardsmen_
with magnified pleasure. I lived between my music and books, on the
whole a rather unwholesome life for a boy to lead. I dwelt in a world
of imagination, of dreams and air castles--the kind of atmosphere
that sometimes nourishes a genius, more often men unfitted for the
practical struggles of life. I never played a game of ball, never went
fishing or learned to swim; in fact, the only outdoor exercise in
which I took any interest was skating. Nevertheless, though slender,
I grew well formed and in perfect health. After I entered the high
school, I began to notice the change in my mother's health, which I
suppose had been going on for some years. She began to complain a
little and to cough a great deal; she tried several remedies, and
finally went to see a doctor; but though she was failing in health,
she kept her spirits up. She still did a great deal of sewing, and
in the busy seasons hired two women to help her. The purpose she had
formed of having me go through college without financial worries kept
her at work when she was not fit for it. I was so fortunate as to be
able to organize a class of eight or ten beginners on the piano,
and so start a separate little fund of my own. As the time for my
graduation from the high school grew nearer, the plans for my college
career became the chief subject of our talks. I sent for catalogues
of all the prominent schools in the East and eagerly gathered all the
information I could concerning them from different sources. My mother
told me that my father wanted me to go to Harvard or Yale; she herself
had a