Soon after beginning our third year’s work we were surprised to receive money from three special sources, and up to the present time we have continued to receive help from them.  First, the State Legislature of Alabama increased its annual appropriation from two thousand dollars to three thousand dollars; I might add that still later it increased this sum to four thousand five hundred dollars a year.  The effort to secure this increase was led by the Hon. M.F.  Foster, the member of the Legislature from Tuskegee.  Second, we received one thousand dollars from the John F. Slater Fund.  Our work seemed to please the trustees of this fund, as they soon began increasing their annual grant.  This has been added to from time to time until at present we receive eleven thousand dollars annually from the Fund.  The other help to which I have referred came in the shape of an allowance from the Peabody Fund.  This was at first five hundred dollars, but it has since been increased to fifteen hundred dollars.

The effort to secure help from the Slater and Peabody Funds brought me into contact with two rare men—­men who have had much to do in shaping the policy for the education of the Negro.  I refer to the Hon. J.L.M.  Curry, of Washington, who is the general agent for these two funds, and Mr. Morris K. Jessup, of New York.  Dr. Curry is a native of the South, an ex-Confederate soldier, yet I do not believe there is any man in the country who is more deeply interest in the highest welfare of the Negro than Dr. Curry, or one who is more free from race prejudice.  He enjoys the unique distinction of possessing to an equal degree of confidence of the black man and the Southern white man.  I shall never forget the first time I met him.  It was in Richmond, Va., where he was then living.  I had heard much about him.  When I first went into his presence, trembling because of my youth and inexperience, he took me by the hand so cordially, and spoke such encouraging words, and gave me such helpful advice regarding the proper course to pursue, that I came to know him then, as I have known him ever since, as a high example of one who is constantly and unselfishly at work for the betterment of humanity.

Mr. Morris K. Jessup, the treasurer of the Slater Fund, I refer to because I know of no man of wealth and large and complication business responsibilities who gives not only money but his time and thought to the subject of the proper method of elevating the Negro to the extent that is true of Mr. Jessup.  It is very largely through this effort and influence that during the last few years the subject of industrial education has assumed the importance that it has, and been placed on its present footing.

Chapter XIII.  Two Thousand Miles For A Five-Minute Speech

Soon after the opening of our boarding department, quite a number of students who evidently were worthy, but who were so poor that they did not have any money to pay even the small charges at the school, began applying for admission.  This class was composed of both men and women.  It was a great trial to refuse admission to these applicants, and in 1884 we established a night-school to accommodate a few of them.