Working With the Hands / Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee

by Booker T. Washington

THE TAILOR SHOP

Dear Sir: I received your kind circulars some days ago, and I was more than glad to hear as I did. I would have wrote before now, but thinking I could come soon, I waited. Though times is so hard, of course a poor boy that has no one to help him has a hard time, but by the help of the Lord, I am going to make a man of myself. I want to come as soon as I can. I am going to bring every one that will come with me. I want to stay there and work until I can master a trade.

Dear Sir: I takes great pleasure in writing to you a few lines, and hopes this will find you well. I want to complete the full course of education, and am not exactly able to bear my expenses through. I would like to know whether you will give me a position to work to pay my expenses through. If you will, it will be a great favour and consolation to me. Write soon, and let me hear from you, and please send me full particulars.

Dear Sir: After reading and hearing so much talk of your school, I made it up in my mind that I would like to attend your school, as I have been trying to get an education for the last two years. I attended school here in Texas for six months this term, but owing to my money running short I had to quit school and go to work. I am a poor boy, and I desire to get an education. Do you think that you could give me work to pay my school? I want an industrial education, and am not able to pay for it, and I will do any work I can get to pay for my lesson.

"I would like to attend your school, but being poor I can't enter as a day student. I write to know if I can enter as a work student. I would like to enter soon enough so that I can work during the summer months. Mr. Washington, I am anxious to get a good training. Being poor and fatherless, I have had few advantages, and that is why I have applied to you as I have. If you will or will not receive me, please let me know as soon as possible."

"I received your circular and was carefully reading the terms. There is some few more hints I would like to ask you. If I arrive there with forty dollars, could I attend the whole nine months of a school year? My occupation has been for the last four years cooking. Before then it was farming, but I can do a little laundry work also. In these four years I have attended school two terms in public school. I am very anxious for an industrial education, so therefore I desire to attend your school. The industrial studies I would like to learn are carriage-trimming and laundry work. My studies are United States History, Arithmetic, English, and Geography. If you think I can stay the whole term on forty dollars let me know, and I will be there in August. I am twenty-two years of age."

"Please let me know whether you can furnish girls work enough to support them in school. I see in the 'Voice of Missions' where you will give ministers work to support themselves. Is there any chance for a girl who wants an education? I have read of your school, and would like so well to come there, but I live so far away, until I would not be able to pay my fare from New Orleans and then pay my school expenses. Please let me know the cheapest that I could enter school, also the distance and cost from New Orleans. I would like to enter next season without fail. Please write me by return mail without fail."

Dear Sir: During your recent lecturing tour you stopped here and I was determined to hear you, and when I heard you I was fired with the ambition to go to school. I tried to get an audience with you, but owing to so many others who were as enthusiastic as I, I could only speak a few words with you. Do you remember the young man who spoke to you about going to your school? As I said before, I did not have time to explain it all to you. I am unable to pay my way through your school, but I am more than willing to work my way through. You told me that I could when I spoke to you about it.