TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE AND ITS PRESIDENT. 603 



classes better under way, the tide is setting out, and Tuskegee 

 yearly turns out teachers of trades, both men and women, who are 

 eagerly sought by other institutions which are coming to see the 

 value of industrial training. In many cases these teachers go to 

 such positions at lower wages than they might hope to earn if they 

 went to work at their trades, but they do this because they feel 

 they have a duty to the institute and to the friends who have sus- 

 tained it, to help extend its influence as widely as lies within their 

 power. The question is often asked if a negro having learned a 

 trade can find w^ork at it. I do not think that the Tuskegee stu- 

 dents who have thoroughly fitted themselves feel any anxiety about 

 this. I remember speaking on this subject to the teacher in the 

 harness-making and saddlery department, a good workman and a 

 superb physical specimen of a man. He told me that during the 

 long summer vacations he had left Tuskegee, and had never had 

 any trouble in getting work and keeping it in shops in Montgomery 

 and other towns of the State. 



Among the buildings at Tuskegee is a foundry and machine 

 shop, which is always full of work, especially in the way of repairs 

 upon agricultural machinery for the farmers about Tuskegee, be- 



iF Tailors. 



cause there is no other shop of the kind within thirty miles at least 

 which has facilities for doing such heavy work as this. Printing, 

 tailoring, blacksmithing, and painting are taught. Since a large 

 proportion of the students at Tuskegee are young women, arrange- 

 ments are made to furnish opportunities for them also to learn 

 to work. They do all the work of taking care of the dormitories 



