At last the meal was over;
and it seemed the longest one that I had ever eaten. When we were
through, I decided to get myself out of the embarrassing
situation and go to the smoking-room, where most of the men were
by that time, to see how the land lay. In the meantime, however,
it had become known in some way throughout the car who I was.
When I went into the smoking-room I was never more surprised in
my life than when each man, nearly every one of them a citizen of
Georgia, came up and introduced himself to me and thanked me
earnestly for the work that I was trying to do for the whole
South. This was not flattery, because each one of these
individuals knew that he had nothing to gain by trying to flatter
me.
From the first I have sought to impress the students with the
idea that Tuskegee is not my institution, or that of the
officers, but that it is their institution, and that they have as
much interest in it as any of the trustees or instructors. I have
further sought to have them feel that I am at the institution as
their friend and adviser, and not as their overseer. It has been
my aim to have them speak with directness and frankness about
anything that concerns the life of the school. Two or three times
a year I ask the students to write me a letter criticising or
making complaints or suggestions about anything connected with
the institution.
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