No. 4.] THE COLORED RACE. 267 



:i long time in the study of chemistry." "Why don't yon 

 hike your knowledge of chemistry and go out and use it on 

 your father's farm?" The young man said: "I hadn't 

 thought of that : I hadn't thought of chemistry being good 

 for use on the farm." "When you were in college, didn't 

 you study mathematics?" The young man said : "Yes ; I 

 spent years in the study of mathematics." " Why don't 

 you take your mathematics and go out and use it in show- 

 ing your father how to lay out his land better for corn rais- 

 ing?" John said: "I can do that; I hadn't thought of 

 mathematics being good for laying out corn rows." " Didn't 

 you study botany when you were in college?" "Yes; I 

 studied botany when I was in college." "Why don't you 

 take your botany and go out and show your father how to 

 improve the plant growth on the farm?" The young man 

 said : " I can do that ; " and with this suggestion and advice 

 this young man went on to the old farm and put into it the 

 full force and power of his mathematics and his science ; 

 and to-day I can take you into the State of Kentucky and 

 show you one of the most prosperous farms to be found in 

 that State, all as the result of this young man being taught 

 to use the thing that he has got in his head. So at Tus- 

 kegee our problem is not only to put the thing into the 

 head of the young man, but to teach him that the thing in 

 his head is worthless except as he uses that thing in making 

 the world better, more useful and more happy. We try to 

 teach our students that an educated man standing on the 

 corners of the streets with his hands in his pockets is not 

 worth one whit more to society than the ignorant man 

 standing on the streets with his hands in his pockets. 



Now, it is not our idea to teach the negro to become a 

 producer in any line of industry by the old method that was 

 employed in slavery, but to teach them upon our farms and 

 in our twenty-seven other industries to labor up out of 

 drudgery and toil into an atmosphere where labor becomes 

 beautiful and productive. I confess, my friends, that if I 

 had to feel that I had to become a farmer in the south and to 

 follow an old blind mule through the fields the remainder 

 of my life, I should not have much enthusiasm about be- 



