256 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



institution, and I shall never forget the first experience I 

 had in attempting to enter that institution. I had been 

 without proper clothing, without proper bathing, without 

 food, for so long a time that when I presented myself to the 

 teacher in charge of that agricultural school I did not pre- 

 sent a very encouraging specimen ; and the teacher began 

 to look me over, — looked at my head, looked at my face, 

 looked at my clothing ; then she began to look at my feet. 

 That was the last place 1 wanted her to look, because every 

 toe that I had was out of the shoes that I had on. I kept 

 trying to hide my feet behind the desk, and the more I 

 tried to hide them the more closely she looked at them. 

 I seemed to be all feet that morning. But after a while I 

 got her to the point where she said to me, "You take this 

 broom and sweep the next recitation room." Well, I took 

 that broom and I swept that room over three times, and 

 then I got hold of a dusting cloth, and I dusted that room 

 four times. After I was through with the dusting, this 

 woman, who was in charge, who happened to be one of 

 these New England Yankees who knew just where to find 

 dirt every time, took a handkerchief and came in and 

 put it on the benches and tables, and she could not find an 

 iota of dust in that whole room. She said, "I think you 

 will do to enter this institution.*' That was the college ex- 

 amination that I passed. 



I remained in Hampton for four years, working my way 

 through that institution. While I was there I said if God 

 would permit me to finish the course of training there, I 

 would go into the far south and I would give my life in 

 whatever humble manner I could, trying to teach my people 

 there the lessons of industry, of thrift, of economy, that 

 were taught to me at Hampton. 



In 1881 I went to the black belt of Alabama, and started, 

 in a little shanty, with one teacher and thirty students, 

 what is now known as the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial 

 Institute. This shanty in which I began to teach was in 

 such a condition that, during the first weeks I taught in it, 

 whenever it was rainy one of the largest students would 

 very kindly cease his lessons and hold an umbrella over me 



