inest
specimens which scientific agriculture has produced on the farm and
mechanical skill has turned out in the shops. The pumpkin, potatoes,
corn, cotton, and other agricultural products predominate, because
agriculture is the chief industry at Tuskegee just as it is among the
Negro people of the South.

This form of commencement exercise is one of Booker Washington's
contributions to education which has been widely copied by schools for
whites as well as blacks. That it appeals to his own people is
eloquently attested by the people themselves who come in ever-greater
numbers as the commencement days recur. At three o'clock in the
morning of this great day vehicles of every description, each loaded
to capacity with men, women, and children, begin to roll in in an
unbroken line which sometimes extends along the road for three miles.
Some of the teachers at times objected to turning a large area of the
Institute grounds into a hitching-post station for the horses and
mules of this great multitude, but to all such objections Mr.
Washington replied, "This place belongs to the people and not to us."
Less than a third of these eight to nine thousand people are able
to crowd into the chapel to see the actual graduation exercises, but
all can see the graduation procession as it marches through the
grounds to the chapel and all are shown through the shops and over the
farm and through the special agricultural exhibits, and even through
the offices, including that of the principal. It is significant of the
respect in which the people hold the Institute, and in which they held
Booker Washington, that in all these years there has never been on
these occasions a single instance of drunkenness or disorderly
conduct.

[Illustration: Showing some of the teams of farmers attending the
Annual Tuskegee Negro Conference.]

In his annual report to the trustees for 1914 Mr. Washington said of
these commencement exercises: "One of the problems that constantly
confronts us is that of making the school of real service to these
people on this one day when they come in such large numbers. For many
of them it is the one day in the year when they go to school, and we
ought to find a way to make the day of additional value to them. I
very much hope that in the near future we shall find it possible to
erect some kind of a large pavilion which shall serve the purpose of
letting these thousands see something of our exercises and be helped
by the