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.
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