This invitation I accepted, and spent
nearly three months in speaking in various parts of the state.
Charleston was successful in winning the prize, and is now the
permanent seat of government.
The reputation that I made as a speaker during this campaign
induced a number of persons to make an earnest effort to get me
to enter political life, but I refused, still believing that I
could find other service which would prove of more permanent
value to my race. Even then I had a strong feeling that what our
people most needed was to get a foundation in education,
industry, and property, and for this I felt that they could
better afford to strive than for political preferment. As for my
individual self, it appeared to me to be reasonably certain that
I could succeed in political life, but I had a feeling that it
would be a rather selfish kind of success--individual success at
the cost of failing to do my duty in assisting in laying a
foundation for the masses.
At this period in the progress of our race a very large
proportion of the young men who went to school or to college did
so with the expressed determination to prepare themselves to be
great lawyers, or Congressmen, and many of the women planned to
become music teachers; but I had a reasonably fixed idea, even at
that early period in my life, that there was a need for something
to be done to prepare the way for successful lawyers,
Congressmen, and music teachers.
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