No. 4.] THE COLORED KACE. 261 



and we had not only to teach them to make bricks, but 

 to educate them so they would not only build our own 

 buildings, but go out and scatter that lesson in every sec- 

 tion of the south. Wc got in some way about twenty-five 

 thousand bricks, — pretty bad-looking bricks, I confess, — 

 made by the labor of these students; and in some way we 

 got them built into a kiln and the kiln about half up, and 

 when it was about half done, by reason of some defect it 

 fell. People said: "I told you so. You can't do it." I 

 said: " AYe are going to try again." Wc pitched in and 

 got about forty thousand bricks made the next time, and 

 got the kiln nearly completed so far as the building was 

 concerned, and there was some defect, and that fell. Peo- 

 ple said : "I told 3011 so." I said : " We are going to try 

 again." Then we got a third kiln to the point where it was 

 nearly half burned, and that fell. People said: "I told 

 you so." Still I said : " AYe are going to try again." At 

 that time we did not have any money. I have heard about 

 making bricks without straw, but I will tell you, my friends, 

 something harder than making bricks without straw, and 

 that is, making bricks without money. You give me the 

 money, and I will get the straw and make the bricks some 

 kind of way. I had no money, but I did have a watch 

 which a friend had kindly given me. I got on the train 

 and went to Montgomery, Ala., a place forty miles distant, 

 and sold the watch to a pawnbroker, and when I returned I 

 had nine dollars ; and 1 put this nine dollars into making 

 the fourth brick kiln, and that time we succeeded ; and we 

 have made bricks from that time until the present, and the 

 past season our students manufactured with their own hands 

 a million and a half of as good bricks as I believe you have 

 in the State of Massachusetts. What is better than that, 

 we send out into every section of the south dozens of men 

 eveiy year who go out with a knowledge and skill which 

 enables them to become first-class brickmakers in nearly 

 every State in the south. 



AYe must remember, my friends, as I have said, that 

 eighty-five per cent of our people in the south live by 

 agriculture in some form. Since that is true, it seems to 



