amed are, with two exceptions, among the pioneers in the building of
the school.

Mr. Booker T. Washington's personality is the great thing at Tuskegee,
and every student who goes there feels the strength of the man's rugged
individuality. "Mr. B. T." is an affectionate term used by the students,
but it springs from an indescribable, spontaneous feeling of love and
veneration. His Sunday evening talks to the students are to me like the
Book of Proverbs, always timely, encouraging, and applicable to the
affairs of every-day life. It is from these family talks that the
students learn, as they never have before, the beauty that lies in real,
every-day Christianity, and in living a real and simple life. It is
from these talks that the students learn so much of the great heart and
center of the institution. Mr. Washington still delivers Sunday evening
talks when at school, and they are published in the school's weekly
paper, The Tuskegee Student. Graduates throughout the country eagerly
read these talks with the same interest and pleasure with which they
listened to them while in school.

Mr. Washington taught then, as he teaches now, psychology to the Senior
class. The student has not become intimately acquainted with Mr.
Washington until he becomes a Senior. It is here that the members of the
Senior class talk of their past and future lives and receive the
outpourings of a great but simple soul. Mr. Washington's long and
frequent absences from the school are no less regretted by the teachers
than by the students.

Soon after entering school I began to think of what I should do after
graduating. My inclination led me to feel that success would be found
along mercantile lines. In spite of this I applied myself zealously to
my trade. During my last two years in school I did what teaching in
blacksmithing my literary work permitted, the school being without an
instructor in this industry for a short while. There was then no course
in engineering or in machinery, so I did all the pipe-work and kept the
machinery of the school in repair. In this way I learned something of
machinery without an instructor. With some pride I recall the fact that
I "ironed" the first farm-wagons, the first two-seated spring-wagon, and
the first buggy made at Tuskegee. I also "piped" the school's first
bathroom for girls.

In May of my Senior year I was very much surprised to receive a note
from Principal Booker T. Washington intimating that he d