I had to summon a good deal of courage to take a student who had been studying cube root and “banking and discount,” and explain to him that the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughly master the multiplication table.

The number of pupils increased each week, until by the end of the first month there were nearly fifty.  Many of them, however, said that, as they could remain only for two or three months, they wanted to enter a high class and get a diploma the first year if possible.

At the end of the first six weeks a new and rare face entered the school as a co-teacher.  This was Miss Olivia A. Davidson, who later became my wife.  Miss Davidson was born in Ohio, and received her preparatory education in the public schools of that state.  When little more than a girl, she heard of the need of teachers in the South.  She went to the state of Mississippi and began teaching there.  Later she taught in the city of Memphis.  While teaching in Mississippi, one of her pupils became ill with smallpox.  Every one in the community was so frightened that no one would nurse the boy.  Miss Davidson closed her school and remained by the bedside of the boy night and day until he recovered.  While she was at her Ohio home on her vacation, the worst epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Memphis, Tenn., that perhaps has ever occurred in the South.  When she heard of this, she at once telegraphed the Mayor of Memphis, offering her services as a yellow-fever nurse, although she had never had the disease.

Miss Davidon’s experience in the South showed her that the people needed something more than mere book-learning.  She heard of the Hampton system of education, and decided that this was what she wanted in order to prepare herself for better work in the South.  The attention of Mrs. Mary Hemenway, of Boston, was attracted to her rare ability.  Through Mrs. Hemenway’s kindness and generosity, Miss Davidson, after graduating at Hampton, received an opportunity to complete a two years’ course of training at the Massachusetts State Normal School at Framingham.

Before she went to Framingham, some one suggested to Miss Davidson that, since she was so very light in colour, she might find it more comfortable not to be known as a coloured women in this school in Massachusetts.  She at once replied that under no circumstances and for no considerations would she consent to deceive any one in regard to her racial identity.

Soon after her graduation from the Framingham institution, Miss Davidson came to Tuskegee, bringing into the school many valuable and fresh ideas as to the best methods of teaching, as well as a rare moral character and a life of unselfishness that I think has seldom been equalled.  No single individual did more toward laying the foundations of the Tuskegee Institute so as to insure the successful work that has been done there than Olivia A. Davidson.