Before going to Tuskegee I had expected to find there a building
and all the necessary apparatus ready for me to begin teaching.
To my disappointment, I found nothing of the kind. I did find,
though, that which no costly building and apparatus can
supply,--hundreds of hungry, earnest souls who wanted to secure
knowledge.
Tuskegee seemed an ideal place for the school. It was in the
midst of the great bulk of the Negro population, and was rather
secluded, being five miles from the main line of railroad, with
which it was connected by a short line. During the days of
slavery, and since, the town had been a centre for the education
of the white people. This was an added advantage, for the reason
that I found the white people possessing a degree of culture and
education that is not surpassed by many localities. While the
coloured people were ignorant, they had not, as a rule, degraded
and weakened their bodies by vices such as are common to the
lower class of people in the large cities. In general, I found
the relations between the two races pleasant. For example, the
largest, and I think at that time the only hardware store in the
town was owned and operated jointly by a coloured man and a white
man. This copartnership continued until the death of the white
partner.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133