Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-23

tute In every congressional district, or even
ore or two in every southern state, the
negro problem, which perpleXes so many
people would soon solve itself.
There are now 1,426 young cOlored men
ard women engaged in learning trades and
obtaining the rudiments of an education at
Tuskegee. There have been about 1,SO0 al
together in the school since last September
in the academic, normal and industrial de-
partments and in the night school which IS
provided for those who are compelled to
pay their own expenses, but many have
had to drop out The number of graduates
last year was 197 and about 300 who had
spent several terms did not return this year
because they could not continue to pay the
expenses or for other reasons, making the
output of more or less educated workers for
1DOi about 500. This Is the largest number
on record.
Since the institution was founded in 1881
IL has had altogether about 5000 students,
and every one of them, 1t is safe to say is
very much better for having been here.
From the beginning the purpose of Mr..
Washington and his associates has been.
first to build up character, to make useful
citizens out of the heterogeneous and some
times hopeless raw material which comes
here; and, in the second place, to train
teachers In all the useful trades and in
dustries to extend the work and enlarge
the influence of the school; to start other
schools, be they ever so humble. for the
same object that this institution is trying
to accomplish. Therefore Tuskegee has
been nor only normal school for the train
ms of teachers of book learning" bnt
teachers of agriculture dairying, cooking,
sewing. dressmaking and millinery, laun-
dering, nursing, stock raising. poultry
farming fruit raising. canning, brickmak
ing. masonry, carpentering shoemaking
and all the other mechanical trades book
keeping. stenography and typewliting also.
Aim of the School.
1t is the purpose here to educate men and
women that they cannot only better their
own condition, but better the condition of
other people, and almost everything Is
taught except law, medicine and theology.
There is a Undertaking department, how
ever running nine months in the year, in
charge of Rev. E. j. Penny, a grandson of
OsceOla, the famous Seminole chieftain.
He has about sixty students, mostly clergy
men of limited education, who come here
10 learn the meaning of the word of God.
There Is night Bible class of thrty-two
grown men who live in the neighborhood
and some of them drive ten miles twice a
week to attend il.
THE Tuskegee formal and Industrial In
stitute" which is the full legal name, was
started In 1881 in little shanty with thirty
students. and Lewis Adams was its founder
He may be seen today about the place
"a venerable cOlored man with white hair
and bent with years, going light work a
sort of pensioner. He was slave before
the war IN Tuskegee-a plantation man of
all work. He had genius for tinkering. He
could mend a clock, Shingle roof or re-
pair an engine or do job of plumbing
There was very little that Adams could not
do, and when he was emancipated he set up
q shop In Tuskegee where he made tin work
and tinkered in various trades, with num-