The majority of those who are thus educated become teachers of their own people, and in this service there are plenty of openings for them. The negroes seem to be as amenable to the civilising influences of education as any race with whom they might be compared, and in Nashville they are peculiarly fortunate in their teachers. You may meet with thriving negro business men whose honesty and tact are much commended by the whites. They see that the acquisition of property gives them a good standing in the world, so that they may sometimes need a little wholesome advice to check their excessive eagerness to become rich. Then the character of their well-furnished and comfortable houses shows how completely they have been raised from the squalid one-room life of their former cabins. "These well-kept houses," says one who visited a number of them in the town for purposes of inspection, "are not only the best proof of the progress in civilisation of the negro race, but they are also the best security for the welfare of the whites in property and in morals, and I have never had so much hope for the future of this region as since I learned these things. Granted that these may be the picked few, it is most hopeful that there is a picked few, whose example will inspire others to lift themselves up." In proportion as they advance they show commendable enthusiasm for embarking in philanthropic enterprise. Thus, as a writer in the _Century Magazine_ tells us:-- "The only negro church publishing-house in the world" is located at Nashville, a large building five storeys high. "It was purchased with the contributions of the children of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. A home for aged and indigent negroes is the latest enterprise, while a shop for teaching mechanical trades was opened.... The number of church societies is, of course, legion."