The National Negro Funeral Directors' Association, The National Negro Press Association, The National Negro Bar Association, The National Negro Retail Merchants' Association, The National Association of Negro Insurance Men. Booker Washington was able to speak with assurance and authority to the business men of his race because he practised what he preached. The business methods which he employed in conducting the business, in distinction from the educational affairs, of Tuskegee Institute, compare favorably with those of the best-managed industrial corporations. He may even have appeared to be over-insistent upon business accuracy, system, and efficiency, so anxious was he to belie the popular notion that Negroes must of necessity, because they are Negroes, be slipshod and unsystematic. In refutation of this familiar accusation he built up an institution almost as large as Harvard University which runs like clockwork without a single white man or woman having any part in its actual administration. Tuskegee itself is the most notable example of its founder's method of argument. No person knowing the facts about Tuskegee can ever again honestly say that Negroes are always and necessarily slipshod and unsystematic in their business methods. CHAPTER NINE BOOKER WASHINGTON AMONG HIS STUDENTS In spite of his absorption in guiding the destinies of his race Booker Washington never lost interest in individuals however humble or in their individual affairs however small. This was strikingly shown in his relations to his students. He never wearied in his efforts to help in the solution of the life problems of the hundreds of raw boys and girls who each year flocked to Tuskegee and to Booker Washington with little but hope and ambition upon which to build their careers. With many of these newcomers he not infrequently had his initial talk before they knew who he was. This was made easy by his simple and unassuming manner, which was the exact opposite to what these unsophisticated youths expected in a great man. One of the graduates of Tuskegee in the book, "Tuskegee and Its People," thus describes his first meeting with Booker Washington. His experience was almost identical with that of many another entering student. He says: