. . .
Our next effort was in the direction of increasing the cultivation of
the land, so as to secure some return from it, and at the same time
give the students training in agriculture. All the industries at
Tuskegee have been started in natural and logical order, growing out of
the needs of a community settlement. We began with farming, because we
wanted something to eat.
Many of the students, also, were able to remain in school but a few
weeks at a time, because they had so little money with which to pay
their board. Thus another object which made it desirable to get an
industrial system started was in order to make it available as a means
of helping the students to earn money enough so that they might be able
to remain in school during the nine months' session of the school
year. . . .
From the very beginning, at Tuskegee, I was determined to have the
students do not only the agricultural and domestic work, but to have
them erect their own building. My plan was to have them, while
performing this service, taught the latest and best methods of labour,
so that the school would not only get the benefit of their efforts, but
the students themselves would be taught to see not only utility in
labour, but beauty and dignity would be taught, in fact, how to lift
labour up from mere drudgery and toil, and would learn to love work for
its own sake.
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