TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE AND ITS PRESIDENT. 607 



farming. These men and women are the parents of the generation 

 which is at school at Tuskegee and similar institutions. These 

 fathers and mothers lived " too soon " to be able to profit by such 

 advantages. Few of them can read or write, and nearly all of them 

 know by experience what slavery was. They see their children 

 learning so much which was unattainable for them that they ask, 

 "Is there no chance for us?" The conference is Tuskegee's at- 

 tempt to answer that cry. As one grizzled old negro preacher, 

 whom I heard make the opening prayer one year, said, " O Lawd, 



DELEGATES TO THE TUSKEGEE NEGRO CONFERENCE. 



we wants ter tank de for dis, our one day ob schoolin' in de whole 

 year." 



Beginning with this year the conferences will be held in the 

 new church, which will comfortably seat all the delegates. Until 

 this church was completed, though, there was no audience room at 

 the institute which would begin to accommodate all who came, and 

 the sessions were held in a rude temporary building, which was also 

 utilized for chapel and graduation exercises. Convenient as the 

 new church is in every way, I shall always miss the unique gather- 

 ing in that old pavilion. Imagine a broad, low building of un- 

 planed boards, its floor the earth, and its seats backless benches- 



