l parts of the South and change
these conditions."

I will now try to give an account of my stewardship. I hail from Snow
Hill, which is located in the heart of the Black Belt of this State, in
a section where the colored people outnumber the white seven to one, and
in the center of a colored population of more than 200,000. When we
started work there twenty-five years ago the people as a whole were
poor, ignorant, superstitious and greatly in debt. They had no special
love for industrial training and not much general love for any kind of
education. The so-called public schools were then running three months
in the year and paying the teachers nine and ten dollars per month. We
started work in a dilapidated one-room log cabin with three students and
fifty cents in money. There was no state appropriation, neither was any
church or society responsible for one dollar of its expenses.

Today we have an institution of more than four hundred students and
twenty-two teachers and officers. We have 1940 acres of land,
twenty-four buildings, counting large and small, and fourteen industries
in constant operation. Being in a farming section, however, we are
putting more stress upon agriculture.

It is the aim of our institution to teach the beauty and dignity of all
labor and inculcate a love for the soil and for agricultural life. In
spite of the denial of political rights and of the poor educational
opportunities, and many other unjust discriminations, the South, just
now, is the best place in this country for the Negro, and especially the
agricultural section. We might as well recognize this fact and teach our
people to act accordingly.

Again, we aim to train leaders for the masses of our people; for this
purpose we need young men and young women imbued with the spirit of
sacrifice and service who will go into these rural sections and teach
our people how to live, how not to die; teach them how to live
economically, to pay their debts, to buy land, to build better homes,
better schools, better churches, and above all, how to lead pure and
upright lives and become useful and helpful citizens in the community in
which they live. Finally, we aim to train a high class of domestic
servants. There need be no fear or uneasiness for we have an abundance
of material for each class. But the worth of an institution is not
determined by the acquisition of houses and land, neither by the bare
statement of its aims, but by its actual po