My plan was not to teach them to work in the old
way, but to show them how to make the forces of nature -- air, water,
steam, electricity, horse-power -- assist them in their labour.
At first many advised against the experiment of having the
buildings erected by the labour of the students, but I was determined
to stick to it. I told those who doubted the wisdom of the plan that
I knew that our first buildings would not be so comfortable or so
complete in their finish as buildings erected by the experienced hands
of outside workmen, but that in the teaching of civilization, self-
help, and self-reliance, the erection of buildings by the students
themselves would more than compensate for any lack of comfort or fine
finish.
I further told those who doubted the wisdom of this plan, that the
majority of our students came to us in poverty, from the cabins of the
cotton, sugar, and rice plantations of the South, and that while I
knew it would please the students very much to place them at once in
finely constructed buildings, I felt that it would be following out a
more natural process of development to teach them how to construct
their own buildings. Mistakes I knew would be made, but these
mistakes would teach us valuable lessons for the future.
During the now nineteen years' existence of the Tuskegee school,
the plan of having the buildings erected by student labour has been
adhered to.
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