It is an interesting thought that this kind of education, started thirty-five years ago for the education of the Negro, has spread throughout the United States, in the North and West, and has taken hold upon the people who once enslaved the Negro in our Southern states. When industrial schools were first established in the South for the education of members of my race, stubborn objection was raised against them on the part of black people. This was the experience of Hampton, and this in later years was the experience of the Tuskeegee Institute. I remember that for a number of years after the founding of the Tuskeegee Institute, objection on the part of parents and on the part of students poured in upon me from day to day. The parents said that they wanted their children taught "the book," but they did not want them taught anything concerning farming or household duties. It was curious to note how most of the people worshiped "the book." The parent did not care what was inside the book; the harder and the longer the name of it, the better it satisfied the parent every time, and the more books you could require the child to purchase, the better teacher you were. His reputation as a first-class pedagogue was added to very largely in that section if the teacher required the child to buy a long string of books each year and each month. I found some white people who had the same idea. They reminded me further that the Negro for two hundred and fifty years as a slave had been worked, and now that the race was free they contended that their children ought not to be taught to work and especially while in school. In answer to these objections I said to them that it was true that the race had been worked in slavery, but the great lesson which we wanted to learn in freedom was to work. I explained to them that there was a vast difference between being worked and working. I said to them that being worked meant degradation, that working meant civilization. We have gone on at Tuskeegee from that day until this, emphasizing the difference between being worked and working, until, I am glad to say, every sign of opposition against any form of industrial education has completely disappeared from among parents and students; and I but state the truth when I say that industrial education, whether on the farm or in the carpenter shop or in the cooking class, is even more sought after at Tuskeegee than is training in purely academic branches. It has been ten years since I have had a single application for other than a form of industrial training. On the contrary, this kind of training is so popular among them that we have many applications from other students who live in other states who wish to devote themselves wholly to the industrial side of education.