We usually do just about what people expect of us. If they think we are going to succeed, it helps us to succeed. If they think we are going to fail, it makes attainment of success harder for us. Booker Washington said: “I will succeed. I will show these people that these Indians can be educated.” So for an entire year he worked with them. He soon won their confidence and respect. That they all liked him was evident, for they did everything they could to satisfy him and please him. He found them ready to work hard and intelligent enough to be taught. They learned the different kinds of trades just about as well as the negroes did. At the end of the year everybody was willing to admit that Washington had made a success of teaching the Indians. Ever since then Indians have been going to Hampton, and many of them are students there to-day. Washington says his hardest task was to get them to give up some of their old habits and customs. They did not want to part with their long hair; they did not want to quit wearing blankets or quit smoking. However, since these customs were not customs at Hampton, they all agreed to do as the others did there. Now came another very important work for Washington. After he had worked with the Indians for a year, General Armstrong said, “I have another hard job for you.” “Show it to me,” Washington replied. A great many people who did not have any money were trying to enter Hampton; they were as poor as Washington was when he entered. General Armstrong did not want to turn them away. He finally determined that he would arrange it so these people could work all day at some trade or other line of work and thus pay their living expenses and have something left over to go into the treasurer’s office to their account. They had to work ten hours a day to do this. Then they went to school two hours at night. After a year or two they would have enough money saved up from their work to enable them to enter the day school. This plan proved to be a very fine one, and many of the best students from Hampton began in the night school. It was this night school that General Armstrong wanted Washington to teach. He took charge of it and made a great success of it. There were about twelve in the class to begin with. The boys worked in the sawmill in the daytime, and the girls in the laundry. They were such good workers that he named them the “Plucky Class.” After a boy or a girl had been in this class long enough to show that he or she meant business and was going to stick to the job, Washington would give a certificate that read as follows: “This is to certify that James Smith is a member of the Plucky Class of the Hampton Institute and is in good and regular standing.”[9]