The people with whom he lives and works
are going to think twice before they part with such a man.
The individual who can do something that the world wants done
will, in the end, make his way regardless of race. One man may go
into a community prepared to supply the people there with an
analysis of Greek sentences. The community may not at the time be
prepared for, or feel the need of, Greek analysis, but it may
feel its need of bricks and houses and wagons. If the man can
supply the need for those, then, it will lead eventually to a
demand for the first product, and with the demand will come the
ability to appreciate it and to profit by it.
About the time that we succeeded in burning our first kiln of
bricks we began facing in an emphasized form the objection of the
students to being taught to work. By this time it had gotten to
be pretty well advertised throughout the state that every student
who came to Tuskegee, no matter what his financial ability might
be, must learn some industry. Quite a number of letters came from
parents protesting against their children engaging in labour
while they were in the school. Other parents came to the school
to protest in person. Most of the new students brought a written
or a verbal request from their parents to the effect that they
wanted their children taught nothing but books.
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