TRUCK GARDENING, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE ] He wanted the children to study practical things; the things they needed. He thought, therefore, that the school ought to be very closely related to life. His idea was that that school was best which turned out students who could earn their own living at once; who had the ability to take care of themselves in whatever environment they happened to be; and who had genuine character. “My experience has taught me,” he says, “that the surest way to success in education, and in any other line for that matter, is to stick close to the common and familiar things—things that concern the greater part of the people the greater part of the time.”[26] It was this belief in the close relation between school and life that caused him to have his students, at the beginning of the building of Tuskegee, cut down the trees, plant the crops, make the bricks, build the buildings, cook the food, care for the dormitories, look after the live stock, and do everything that was to be done about the place. He wanted his students to learn to do well all these tasks that they would face in later life. And he also wanted them to learn that it was a perfectly honorable and dignified and sensible thing to labor, to work, to do anything that was honest and useful. Perhaps there is no better way of understanding Washington’s ideas of education and just what he was striving to do at Tuskegee than to describe the commencement exercises at this school. “On the platform before the audience is a miniature engine to which steam has been piped, a miniature frame house in course of construction, and a piece of brick wall in process of erection. A young man in jumpers comes on the platform, starts the engine and blows the whistle. Whereupon young men and women come hurrying from all directions, and each turns to his or her appointed task. A young carpenter completes the little house, a young mason finishes the laying of the brick wall, a young farmer leads forth a cow and milks her in full view of the audience, a sturdy blacksmith shoes a horse, and, after this patient, educative animal has been shod, he is turned over to a representative of the veterinary division to have his teeth filed. At the same time, on the opposite side of the platform one of the girl students is having a dress fitted by one of her classmates, who is a dressmaker. She at length walks proudly from the platform in her completed new gown, while the young dressmaker looks anxiously after to make sure that it ‘hangs right behind.’ Other girls are doing washing and ironing with the drudgery removed in accordance with advanced Tuskegee methods. Still others are hard at work on hats, mats, and dresses, while boys from the tailoring department sit cross-legged working on suits and uniforms. In the background are arranged the finest specimens which scientific agriculture has produced on the farm and mechanical skill has turned out in the shop.