Later on he added: "This disposition to pilfer was, to a large extent, a part of the history of slavery. It was rare when colored people who belonged to a white family where they served as cooks, butlers, or in some other form of household service, did not feel that everything belonging to the white family belonged equally to them. Thus, when freedom came, it was difficult to get the colored cook to feel that she was a mere employee, that in the wages she received by the week or month she was being paid for her services for cooking. It was very hard to get her away from the customs and practises of slavery, especially when receiving very small wages. "In many cases boys and girls have seen or have known that their mothers kept up this practice of pilfering from persons for whom they cooked. They have seen it going on day after day and year after year in their own homes and have observed that employers seem to expect it, wink at it, at any rate, put up with it. While they know, as their parents know, that it is wrong, they have nevertheless come to feel that it is one of the ways in which black folk and white folk get on together; one of the indirect ways, in other words, in which black people have learned to recompense themselves for disadvantages which they suffer in other directions." In conclusion he said: "Each one of you can do something toward solving the race problem, for example, by making, each for himself, a reputation for honesty in the community in which you live. If in the part of the country where you now live members of our race have a reputation for carelessness, looseness in regard to the ownership of property, you can help to solve the race problem, and make life here in the South more comfortable for every other member of the race if you will win for yourself a reputation for downright honesty and integrity in all your dealings with your neighbors, whether they be white or black." Mr. Washington once said, "In all my teaching I have watched carefully the influence of the toothbrush, and I am convinced that there are few single agencies of civilization that are more far-reaching." He made periodic tours of the students' rooms to find out what students if any were without toothbrushes. The possession and use of a toothbrush is one of the entrance requirements for Tuskegee. In this connection he used to tell with a chuckle the reply of the girl who in answer to his question as to whose toothbrush he found on the washstand said, "That is ours," referring to her roommate and herself. In his tours of inspection of the students' rooms he would also inquire how many nightgowns they owned. He insisted that every student should have at least two nightgowns. He was constantly impressing upon the students that decent, respectable people do not sleep in the garments in which they work during the day. In fact, he preached the gospel of the nightgown and the toothbrush as insistently as he did the gospel of work and simplicity.