Whatever he was doing or wherever he was, his mind seemed constantly at work along constructive lines. At the most unexpected times and places he would suddenly call the inevitable stenographer and dictate some idea for an article or address or some plan for the improvement of Tuskegee or for the betterment of the whole race in this or that particular. He would sometimes reduce his immediate subordinates to the verge of despair by pouring out upon them in rapid succession constructive suggestions each one of which meant hours, days, and even weeks of time to work out, and then calling for the results of all before even one could be fairly put into effect. This tendency became particularly marked in his closing years when the consciousness of an immense amount of work to be done and a short and constantly lessening period in which to do it must have become an obsession and almost a nightmare to him. He would sometimes wound the feelings of acquaintances and friends, particularly his teachers, by passing them on the street and even looking at them without recognition. This naturally was not intentional, nor was it because his mind was wool-gathering, but merely because he was thinking out some idea with which the people and events immediately about him had for the moment no connection and were consequently totally obliterated from his consciousness. Mr. Washington's strength of will and determination were never better shown than in the closing hours of his life. When he was told by his doctors at St. Luke's Hospital, New York, whither he had been taken by the New York trustees of the Institute after his final collapse, that he had but a few hours to live, he insisted upon starting for home at once. His physicians expostulated and warned him that in his condition he could not reasonably expect to survive the journey. He insisted that he must go and be true to his oft-repeated assertion, "I was born in the South, I have lived and labored in the South, and I expect to die and be buried in the South." This remark, when sent out in the Associated Press dispatches announcing his death, touched the South as nothing else could have. No Negro was ever eulogized in the Southern press as he was. Long accounts of his career and death with sympathetic and appreciative editorial comments appeared in most of the Southern papers.