In proportion as the students increased in the early days of the Tuskegee Institute, there came the urgent need for additional buildings and more money, both for providing these and for the general outlay. It was decided to put up a main building at a cost of L2000, and in order to raise money Booker Washington had to do a good deal of travelling as a collector. He found the rich quite willing to respond in a handsome way when his needs became known; but while the work has often been stimulated by large gifts, the more numerous small gifts of commonplace people have from the first been its mainstay. Practically he was introduced to the people of the Northern States by General Armstrong, who accompanied him on a collecting tour. On this and other occasions some striking adventures were met with, and all tended to show that hard work, perseverance and freedom from worry carried a man over a great deal of ground, while in a providential way all things seemed in the end to turn out for the best. Booker Washington had the gift of being able to impart some of his own energy and enthusiasm to his subordinates, and even to the students, who generally came round to see in what direction their best interests lay. A wholesome discipline was maintained throughout the institution, and thus, while being qualified to become instructors of their fellows of the coloured race, the students learned to love and to respect their leader. CHAPTER VIII SOME ACTUAL RESULTS--POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS In the ordinary sense, neither General Armstrong nor Booker Washington would have been put down as a statesman; but, of course, each had his own individual sentiments as a citizen of the Republic. Thus each was well aware that both the North and the South had to deal with a population problem of an exceptionally difficult kind. The North had an unceasing tide of foreign immigration; the South had its Black Belt and a negro population, which appeared to be competent to double itself in course of a generation. General Armstrong was as large-hearted a friend of the coloured race as could have been found, and he appears to have protested against "either coddling the blacks or hampering the whites" on the part of the North. In an article in _The International Monthly_ on the Southern question, Mr Edward P. Clark tells us that General Armstrong "opposed alike Federal Election Laws, designed and administered in the interest of the blacks, and Federal Education Laws, appropriating money for the South in the same interest. He urged that a negro could never become an ordinary citizen until he should cease to be the 'ward of the nation.'" Booker Washington appears to hold views on this matter which essentially are in close agreement with the policy of his late master. _E.g._:--