By means of very hard work he managed to save enough money to start him on the road to the school, which was known as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. After many hardships and bitter experiences, he arrived there, but when he presented himself before the head teacher she hesitated about taking him in. He was tired after the long, weary journey, and his clothes were worn threadbare. He looked like a worthless tramp. After some hesitation the teacher gave him a broom, and told him to sweep a room. Did he sweep that room clean? He never tackled anything with so much delight. He swept it, then dusted it four times. He rubbed every piece of furniture in that room until it shone. He felt that his future depended upon the way he cleaned that room. When he had finished the head teacher came and examined his work. She couldn't find a particle of dust anywhere. "I guess you will do to enter this institution," she said. He spent three years at Hampton. They were hard years in many ways, for he had little money, and besides, he had to learn everything, almost from the beginning. But he was sheer grit, and things which would have discouraged others only made him more determined. He soon gained a grasp of his studies, and, by very hard grinding, worked his way to the front in his classes. After his course was completed he was made a teacher in the institution, and put in charge of a group of Indians, with whom he did remarkably well. Then a great opportunity opened up for him. A normal school for coloured people was to be opened in Tuskegee, Alabama. A great many schools for coloured children had been opened since the abolition of slavery, but most of the teachers themselves were not educated, and this normal school was instituted for their benefit. Booker T. Washington was asked if he would take charge of it, and he gladly did so. He began his work in a disused shanty with about thirty pupils, practically all of whom had been trying to teach school. Soon the shanty became too small for those who came, and Booker Washington saw a large, old disused plantation house, which he decided to purchase and use as a school. He succeeded in raising the necessary five hundred dollars, and soon the whole school moved into the larger premises. Under his leadership the school grew by leaps and bounds. The coloured people were so thankful for the institution that they brought live cattle, as they could afford it, and these animals were used to maintain the institution, and as a means to train the negroes for farming. Very soon the school owned two hundred horses, colts, mules, oxen, calves, and over seven hundred pigs, sheep and goats. It became necessary to add to the buildings, and soon the work of Tuskegee Institute became known the whole world over. After a few years the school which Booker Washington began in an old shanty, had grown to be an institution with eleven hundred pupils and a staff of eighty-six officers and teachers.