The school teaching commenced just after midsummer, 1881; and the number of the students who came was at once as many as could be accommodated, and their eagerness to learn testified to the earnest desire for education which was common among the coloured race. Had all been taken who wished to come, the school would have been a very large one at the outset; but at first the plan was to take only those who were not mere children and who had already acquired some learning. Some who sat in the classes were even approaching middle-age. Perhaps a chief drawback was that the aims of the teacher and the expectations of the learners did not generally agree. As Mr Speed tells us, Booker Washington's capital originally consisted of "nothing but ideas, ambition and a few friends, none of whom could do much in the way of contributions." His ideas were worth more than gold, however; while his friends were of sterling quality, one being an ex-slaveholder, who had done more than anyone else in originating the school. It may seem to be strange that some of the best and shrewdest friends of negroes in the Southern States at the present time are ex-slave-owners. Others among the white people would have preferred that the old-time hewers of wood and drawers of water for the superior race should remain illiterate, thinking that their coming in contact with books would have the effect of marring their capacity for field service. Not a few, especially at that time, in common with the coloured people themselves, entirely misapprehended in what an effective education consisted. It was too often supposed that it meant mere book-learning that would release its possessors from hard, manual labour. To General Armstrong and Booker Washington education would be of value to negroes because it would enable them to do more effectively the labour connected with a number of important industries to which they were called. This obvious truth is far better understood than it was a quarter of a century ago. The work done at Hampton, at Tuskegee, and at the many schools on a similar basis which have since sprung up in the Southern States, has not only demonstrated that the negro race may be made to become a source of vast good or profit to the Republic, it has revolutionised public opinion.