We do some outside "extension work," in addition to what has been enumerated: a cooking class in the town of Tuskegee for those unable to attend the school at all, and classes for the children at the Children's House, the model training-school of the institution, where they are given understandable lessons in cooking and housekeeping. A bedroom, a dining-room, a bathroom, and a kitchen are also provided in connection with the Children's House. I am happy in the thought that I have a part in this fundamental, home-building part of the instruction being given the girls who come from thirty-six States and territories of the Union, and from Cuba and Porto Rico and other foreign countries, to attend this famous school, of which I am myself a graduate. When the girls are fitted to make better homes, a better people are the result. To have some part in this work was a fond wish while a student, and is a prized privilege now that I have the opportunity to render some slight service in return for all that Tuskegee has done for me. IX A WOMAN'S WORK BY CORNELIA BOWEN Of myself and the work I have done there is not a great deal to say. I was born at Tuskegee, Ala., on a part of the very ground now occupied by the famous Tuskegee Institute. The building first used by the school as an industrial building for girls was the house in which I was born. That old building (and two others, as well) is carefully preserved by the institution as an old landmark, and never do I go to Tuskegee that I do not search it out among the more imposing and pretentious buildings which have come during the later years of the school's history. This building and the two other small ones were on the property when it was acquired by Principal Washington. My mother lived the greater part of her life at this place as the slave of Colonel William Bowen, who owned the plot of ground upon which the Tuskegee Institute now stands. The birthplace of my mother was Baltimore, Md. She was taught to read by her master's daughter in Baltimore, and was never forbidden to read by those who owned her in Alabama. When a child, I could never understand why she read so well and could not write. I was very sorry at times that she could read and was not like other children's mothers whom I knew. She always knew when I did not get my lessons, and often the hours of play that were dear to me were taken away until my reading lesson was learned. Sundays, with my sisters gathered about her knees, we would sit for hours listening as mother would read church hymns for us. These days were days of freedom, as I do not remember, and know nothing of, those of slavery. My mother always refrained from telling her children frightful stories of the awful sufferings of the slave days. She occupied the position of seamstress and house-servant in her mistress's home, and was never allowed to mingle with plantation slaves.