He

bee, so he put his ax over his shoulder and led us to the woods and put us to work cutting the trees and clearing the land. went right in and worked harder and faster and handled his ax better than any of us. After a while we found that a chopping bee, as he called it, was no different from just plain cutting down trees and clearing the land. There wasn't anything new about that -we all had had all we wanted of it. Some of the boys said they didn't come to school to cut down trees and clear land, but they couldn't say they were too good for that kind of work when Mr. Washington himself was at it harder than any of them. So he kept

at us for some days, till everybody had his idea. He then went off to do something more important.

"Now in those days he used to go off every Saturday morning, and he wouldn't come back till Monday morning. He'd travel all round the county drumming up students. for the school and telling the people to send their children. And on Sunday he'd get the preachers to let him get up in their pulpits and tell the people about the school after they had finished preaching. And even the preachers who were warning their people against him and his school because they said it wasn't Methodist, and it wasn't Baptist, and it wasn't Presbyterian, and it wasn't Episcopalian, and it wasn't Christian, would let him speak from their pulpits. They had told the people to keep their children away from that godless man and his school, but when he came along and asked to speak to the people they had to leave him, just as everybody always did-let him do just what he wanted to do. And when they heard him-the people-they didn't pay any attention to the preachers; they just sent their children as fast as they could contrive it.

"Now in those days Mr. Washington didn't have a horse, nor a mule, nor a wagon, and he wanted to cover more country on those trips than he could afoot, so he'd just go out in the middle of the road and when some old black man would come along driving his mule wagon he'd stop him and talk with him, and tell him about the school and what it was going to do for the black folks, and then he'd say: 'Now, uncle, you can help by bringing your wagon and mule around at nine o'clock Saturday morning for me to go off round the country telling the people about the school. Now, remember, Uncle Jake, please be here promptly at nine.' And the

old man would say, 'Yes, boss, I sure will be here.' That was how he did it-when he needed anything he'd go out and put his hand on it. First, he could put his hand on anything he wanted round the town; then he could put his hand on anything he wanted all over the county; then he could put his hand on anything he wanted all over the State; and at last, they tell me, he could put his hand on anything he wanted away up to New York.

"In those days, after we came to live here on the plantation,' I used to take the wheelbarrow and go round to the office when Mr. Washington opened up the mail in the morning, and if there was money in the mail then I could go 'long to the town with the wheelbarrow and get provisions, and if there was no money then there was no occasion to go to town. We'd just eat what we had left. Most of the white storekeepers wouldn't give us credit, and they didn't want a nigger school' here, anyhow. Times have changed. Now those storekeepers get a large proportion of their trade here at the Institute, and if there should be any talk of moving they'd just get up and fight to the last to keep us here and keep our trade.

And in those days the Negro preachers, or the most of them, and the white folks, or the most of them, were always trying to dispute with Mr. Washington and quarrel with him, but he just kept his mouth shut and went ahead. He kept pleasant, and he wouldn't dispute with them nor argue with them nor quarrel with them. When the white folks would come round and tell him he was 'spoiling good niggers by education,' he would just ask them to wait patiently and give him time to show them what the right kind of education would do. And when the colored preachers would come round and tell him he was no Christian and his school had no religion, he would ask them to just wait and see if the boys and girls were any less Christian because of the education they were getting. But, whoever came along and whatever happened, Mr. Washington just kept his mouth shut and went ahead.

"After two years of school I went out and rented some land and planted cotton, and just about time to harvest my crop Mr. Washington sent for me one Saturday and said: 'I need you. I want you to come back and work for the school on the farm. I want you to start in Monday morning.' When I told him about my cotton crop, just ready to

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of Tuskegee. Next he went about the surrounding countryside, found out exactly un-der what conditions the people were living and what their needs were, and advertised the school among the class of people whom he wanted to have attend it.

By experience and through acquaintance with the actual conditions under which his people were living he became more convinced than ever that little could be done for them by mere book-learning. Agriculturai training must be the basis of their education, just as agriculture was the basis of their livelihood. In order to give such training he must have land. About that time an old plantation near the town came onto the market. Borrowing personally the $250 required as a cash first payment, he bought it and moved the school onto it.

He

And as soon as they were established in their new quarters he organized the "chopping bee" already described, and cleared some of the land so that it could be used for crops. He did not clear and plant this land to give his students vocational training. did it for the purpose that all land was originally cleared and planted-to get food. He, of course, realized that the educational content of this work was great-greater than any possible text-book exercises in the classroom. He then and there began the long and difficult task of teaching his people that physical work, and particularly farm work, if rightly done, was education, and that education was work. To secure the acceptance of this truth by a race only recently emancipated from over two hundred years of unrequited toil-a race that had always regarded freedom from the necessity for work as an indication of superiority-was not a hopeful task. To them education was the antithesis of work. It was the magic elixir which emancipated all those fortunate enough to drink of it from the necessity for work.

He also began to emphasize at this time his familiar dictum that learning to do the common things of life in an uncommon way was an essential part of real education. Probably the reverse of this dictum-namely, learning to do the uncommon things of life in a common way-would have more nearly corresponded to the popular conception of education among most Negroes and many whites.

After the land was secured the next most pressing necessity was a boarding department so that the students might be influenced

throughout the twenty-four hours of the day -so that they might be taught the manners, customs, and amenities of decent and orderly living.

As Mr. Washington says in "Up from Slavery," "We had nothing but the students and their appetites with which to begin a boarding department." As soon as this boarding department was established each student was required to have and to use a tooth-brush. Mr. Washington later observed that, in his opinion, the tooth-brush is the most potent single instrument of civilization. Then, too, it was possible for him to begin to enforce this injunction taken from one of his now well-known Sunday night talks: "Make a study of the preparation of food. See to it that a certain ceremony, a certain importance, be attached to the partaking of the food." This exhortation sounds so commonplace as to be scarcely noticed by the average reader, but just put yourself in the place of one of these boys or girls who came from a one-room cabin, and realize what a profoundly revolutionary, even sensational injunction it is! To the boy or girl who had snatched a morsel of food here and there when prompted by the gnawings of hunger, who had never sat down to a regular meal, who had never partaken of a meal placed upon a table with or without ceremonyimagine what it meant to such a boy or girl "to see to it that a certain ceremony, a certain importance, be attached to the partaking of the food"-not on special occasions but at each one of the three meals of each day!

Finally, it came about that this school which had started with a paltry $2,000 a year, a great need, and the invincible determination

of one man, came to have land, buildings, teachers, students, and even a boarding department. But in Mr. Washington's view there was still a great fundamental lack in their work. They were doing nothing directly to help those less fortunate than themselves -those about them who could not come and enjoy the advantages of the school. Mr. Washington held that as soon as an individual got hold of anything as useful and desirable as education he should take immediate means to hand it on to the greatest possible number of those who needed it. He had no patience with those persons who would climb the tree of knowledge and then pull the ladder up after them.

He and his teachers then began to go out on Sundays and give the people homely talks on how to improve their living conditions. They encouraged the farmers to come to the school farm and learn how to grow a variety of crops to supplement the cotton crop, which was their sole reliance. They relieved the distress of individual families. Mrs. Washington gathered together in an old loft the farmers' wives and daughters who were in the habit of loafing about the village of Tuskegee on Saturday afternoons and formed them into a woman's club for the improvement of the living conditions in their homes and communities. Mr. Washington and his teachers went right onto the farms and into the homes, and into the churches and the schools, and everywhere showed, for the most part by concrete object-lessons, how the Negroes could make their farms more productive, their homes more comfortable, their schools more useful, and their church services more inspiring.

I

F we watch a very little child in his play, we shall see that his pleasure is purely a result of the motions that he makes. He pushes his little arms and kicks his feet and gurgles with glee; he likes the feel of it. As he gets a little older he runs after nothing just for the fun of running. He leaps and turns somersaults, and, while other elements of pleasure enter in later, for a number of years the predominant joy is the thrill of movement. This is what we call an elemental pleasure, and it should persist through life. There is no reason why a healthy grown person should not experience a sensation of pure pleasure from the mere swing of his walk, the play of his muscles, in their perfect response to the nervous impulse. It should be exquisite. In this sense a person should "enjoy himself."

Analogous is the sheer joy in mental activity, the delight of thinking faster and faster, of disentangling a hazy web until the lines of thought lie straight and clear. Puzzles appeal to this instinct in children. It likewise should remain a joy while the power of thinking lasts.

This kind of joy is the hidden spring which can freshen monotonous tasks. A broom may be made to move rhythmically with as fine a swing as a conjurer's wand. To dust a room properly requires a great many poses of the body, and to do it in a reasonable length of time requires that they be taken quickly. Thus the whole exercise may be conceived of as a gymnastic performance. The open windows complete the conditions; cap, apron, and gloves make as right a suit as other things do. The fact that a clean and beautiful room will result need not detract from the exhilaration of physical activity. There are other kinds of work in which the motions are simpler and more monotonous. But we may get a certain "feel of any motion, however simple, by thinking

I For other articles in this series see The Outlook for August 23 and 30, and September 6.-THE EDITORS.

about it when we make it. And you have no idea until you try it what that "feel" adds to the interest. Many motions may be made rhythmical, and most of them can be accelerated by attention.

Whether work requires much or little mental activity, it always requires some. And that mental action is a perfectly safe investment, which may be made to yield a constant income of interest and pleasure. The rule for realizing the most on this investment is this: Put the maximum of thought into whatever you do. If the task is simple, the tendency is to let the mind wander. That takes the fun out of it. The girl at the ribbon counter who measures off the ribbon with a far-away look in her eyes and hands out the change in a state of coma is a poor clerk-but that is another question. The comment significant to our discussion is that she is throwing away opportunities for a really interesting time. Human nature is a fascinating study, and those lengths of ribbon are a more efficient aid in its pursuit than a social function would be. She may sharpen her wits by learning different ways of best serving different types of people, how to speak the right word and how to be silent at the right moment. Any worker may test by trial the wide opportunities for mental life afforded him by his work.

The statement that a particular kind of work is devoid of interest will usually be found to suffer by investigation. We Christians assume that the maker of the worlds, the Supreme Intelligence, is interested in everything. The farther we go his way intellectually, unquestionably the more interesting things will become. To know all about anything and how to do it best is a splendid achievement, and to even start on a thorough investigation of the subject of one's work is a healthy mental stimulant. No artificial stimulant, such as is afforded by amusements, can compare with it for genuine interest and the exhilaration of real play.

I have been a praying man all the fifty-two years of my life. I observe stated daily times of prayer; but, far more than that, I have for years sought to maintain an attitude of prayer, by which I mean that I consciously make an effort to open my mind and spirit to any impression which the divine Spirit may be willing to make upon me.

Many of the things about which I have prayed have come to pass, but never in such a way that I could trace the relation of cause and effect and say that so and so has come to pass because I prayed. As far as I can see, the value of prayer has been altogether subjective. As far as the practical events of life are concerned, they would have come to pass as they have whether or not I have prayed. In fact, the same holds true largely in what is commonly called the spiritual sphere. And there is the whole problem of intercessory prayer! When one prays for the safety or, for that matter, for the spiritual enlightenment of some one else, is any relation between what follows and the intercessory prayer provable? P. S.

In this little volume Dr. Fosdick notes the distinction between the two prayers of the Prodigal Son, "Give me " and "Make me."

And he said, A certain man had two sons: and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of thy substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country; and there he wasted his substance with riotous living. . . . But when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called

The Meaning of Prayer. By Harry Emerson Fosdick. Young Men's Christian Association Press.

thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

The father in the parable gave the son what he asked for: "He divided unto them his living." But when the son returned the father made him what he had not asked for. He asked to be made a hired servant; he Iwas made a son: "This my son was dead, and is alive again."

The Bible contains many illustrations of these two kinds of prayer. Jacob, fleeing in exile from his home, where he has cheated his aged father and robbed his twin brother, sees in his sleep a ladder reaching from earth to heaven and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. The vision does not suggest to him that heaven and earth are one, and that the celestial spirit may be carried into earthly affairs. It only suggests to him that perhaps he can get the aid of celestial powers to win for him the successful achievement of his sordid ambitions, and he makes a vow, saying:

If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, and Jehovah will be my God, then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

Contrast with this Paul's prayer for his fellow-Christians in Ephesus :

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inward man, that ye may be filled

with all the fullness of God.

Jacob's prayer is, Give me; Paul's prayer is, Make me.

Paul himself illustrates both kinds of prayer: the prayer for physical succor from pain; the prayer for spiritual wisdom and strength to gain a larger life through the ministry of pain. Tormented by a thorn in the flesh, he prayed earnestly that it might depart from him. Give me, was his cry, and the relief he asked was not given. Then he changed his prayer