kegee graduates in every part of the South. We
keep it constantly in the minds of our students and graduates that
the industrial or material condition of the masses of our people must
be improved, as well as the intellectual, before there can be any
permanent change in their moral and religious life. We find it a
pretty hard thing to make a good Christian of a hungry man. No matter
how much our people "get happy" and "shout" in church, if they go home
at night from church hungry, they are tempted to find something to eat
before morning. This is a principle of human nature, and is not
confined alone to the Negro. The Negro has within him immense power
for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide him
and stimulate his energies.

The recognition of this power led us to organise, five years ago, what
is known as the Tuskegee Negro Conference,--a gathering that
meets every February, and is composed of about eight hundred
representatives, coloured men and women, from all sections of the
Black Belt. They come in ox-carts, mule-carts, buggies, on muleback
and horseback, on foot, by railroad. Some travel all night in order to
be present. The matters considered at the conference are those that
the coloured people have it in their own power to control,--such as
the evils of the mortgage system, the one-room cabin, buying on
credit, the importance of owning a home and of putting money in the
bank, how to build school-houses and prolong the school term, and to
improve their moral and religious condition. As a single example of
the results, one delegate reported that since the conference was
started, seven years ago, eleven people in his neighbourhood had
bought homes, fourteen had gotten out of debt, and a number had
stopped mortgaging their crops. Moreover, a school-house had been
built by the people themselves, and the school term had been extended
from three to six months; and, with a look of triumph, he exclaimed,
"We's done libin' in de ashes."

Besides this Negro Conference for the masses of the people, we now
have a gathering at the same time known as the Tuskegee Workers'
Conference, composed of the officers and instructors of the leading
coloured schools in the South. After listening to the story of the
conditions and needs from the people themselves, the Workers'
Conference finds much food for thought and discussion. Let me repeat,
from its beginning, this institution has kept in mind the giving of
th