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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