From Hampton and Tuskeegee and other large educational centres the idea of industrial education has spread throughout the South, and there are now scores of institutions that are giving this kind of training in a most effective and helpful manner; so that, in my opinion, the greatest thing that we have accomplished for the Negro race within the last twenty-five years has been to rid his mind of all idea of labor's being degrading. This has been no inconsiderable achievement. If I were asked to point out the greatest change accomplished for the Negro race, I would say that it was not a tangible, physical change, but a change of the spirit,--the new idea of our people with respect to Negro labor. Industrial education has had another value wherever it has been put into practice, that is in starting the Negro off in his new life in a natural, logical, sensible manner instead of allowing him to be led into temptation to begin life in an artificial atmosphere without any real foundation. All races that have reached success and have influenced the world for righteousness have laid their foundation at one stage of their career in the intelligent and successful cultivation of the soil; that is, have begun their free life by coming into contact with earth and wood and stone and minerals. Any people that begins on a natural foundation of this kind, rises slowly but naturally and gradually in the world. In my work at Tuskeegee and in what I have endeavored to accomplish in writing and in speaking before the public, I have always found it important to stick to nature as closely as possible, and the same policy should be followed with a race. If you will excuse my making a personal reference, just as often as I can when I am at home, I like to get my hoe and dig in my garden, to come into contact with real earth, or to touch my pigs and fowls. Whenever I want new material for an address or a magazine article, I follow the plan of getting away from the town with its artificial surroundings and getting back into the country, where I can sleep in a log cabin and eat the food of the farmer, go among the people at work on the plantations and hear them tell their experiences. I have gotten more material in this way than I have by reading books.