n America supplies the
best quality of actinic ray?

And I answer, Tuskegee is the place, and Booker Washington is the man.

"What!" you exclaim. "The Ideal School a school for Negroes, instituted
by a Negro, where only Negroes teach, and only Negroes are allowed to
enter as students?"

And the answer is, "Exactly so."

At Tuskegee there are nearly two thousand students, and over one hundred
fifty teachers. There are two classes of students--"day-school" and
"night-school" students. The night-school students work all day at any
kind of task they are called upon to do. They receive their board,
clothing and a home--they pay no tuition, but are paid for their labor,
the amount being placed to their credit, so when fifty dollars is
accumulated they can enter as "day students."

The "day students" make up the bulk of the scholars. Each pays fifty
dollars a year. These all work every other day at manual labor or some
useful trade.

Tuskegee has fully twice as many applicants as it can accommodate; but
there is one kind of applicant who never receives any favor. This is the
man who says he has the money to pay his way, and wishes to take the
academic course only. The answer always is: "Please go elsewhere--there
are plenty of schools that want your money. The fact that you have money
will not exempt you here from useful labor."

This is exactly what every college in the world should say.

The Tuskegee farm consists of about three thousand acres. There are four
hundred head of cattle, about five hundred hogs, two hundred horses,
great flocks of chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, and many swarms of
bees. It is the intention to raise all the food that is consumed on the
place, and to manufacture all supplies. There are wagon-shops, a
sawmill, a harness-shop, a shoe-shop, a tailor-shop, a printing-plant, a
model laundry, a canning establishment. Finer fruit and vegetables I
have never seen, and the thousands of peach, plum and apple trees, and
the vast acreage of berries that have been planted, will surely some day
be a goodly source of revenue.

The place is religious, but not dogmatically so--the religion being
merely the natural safety-valve for emotion. At Tuskegee there is no
lacrimose appeal to confess your sins--they do better--they forget them.

I never heard more inspiring congregational singing, and the use of the
piano, organ, orchestra and brass band are important factors in the
curriculum. In the chapel