The next morning I went to the Principal's office. From there I went to be examined, and then again to see the Principal. Mr. Washington explained that board was charged for at $8 per month, and that my books would be sold to me at cost. He informed me further that if I entered night-school I would be able to work out my board and accumulate each month a balance to be used in paying my expenses when I entered day-school. I was made to understand that this offer was on condition that my work and conduct be in every way satisfactory. As the amount of money I had did not justify me in entering day-school, I matriculated as a night-school student. The blacksmith-shop being short of students, I was assigned to this division of industry.
During the remaining part of the year, and the following summer, I worked in the shop ten hours each day, except Sundays, and devoted about two hours and a half at night to study and recitations. It is no easy task, during warm weather in Alabama, for one to work ten hours a day and spend two and a half hours at night studying in a room lighted by several large lamps suspended from the ceiling. Yet this is what hundreds of poor boys and girls have done at Tuskegee. Hundreds still attend the night-school, but electric lights have taken the place of the large oil-lamps. Tuskegee is now more modern than it was when I was a student there. Barrels and boxes are no longer used in the raw state for furniture, as was largely the case at that time. Day-students were required to work one school-day each week and every other Saturday. I was a student nearly five years, counting the time when I was a night-student.
After I entered day-school it was necessary that I should work not only on my regular work-days and two Saturdays each month, but whenever there was work to be done and I could find time in which to do it. During my entire life at Tuskegee I worked every Saturday except three.
I was not long at Tuskegee before an indescribable force began to have its influence upon me. Whatever this power may be called, it was both refining and energizing. People who know the school and have been there and know of its influence, call this force "the Tuskegee spirit." This spirit, to the student possessing a spark of manhood, is irresistible. The change in a student at Tuskegee is not sudden, nor is it wrought by any one element. Things that may seem small when taken separately, are invaluable when considered in the aggregate.
At Tuskegee one's attention is constantly called to little things. It was a habit of mine, I regret to say, to give little or no thought to my hat being on my head when I was in any of the boys' dormitories, or when passing through the halls of the buildings containing the class-rooms. My attention was finally called to this habit by one of the lady teachers. Passing me one day in the hall, she said: "Canty, you have a habit of wearing your hat through the halls. It is a very bad habit." When I entered Tuskegee I had not worn a night-shirt since I was a child. Here it was soon impressed upon me that sleeping in a night-shirt was a sign of cleanliness, of civilization. If there is any place where cleanliness is regarded and practised as one of God's first laws, that place is Tuskegee.
One day Mr. Washington sent for me to come to his office. I received the message with fear and trembling. I had, before this time, had but one opportunity to speak to Mr. Washington, and then only for a few minutes upon the day following my arrival. On my way to the office I wondered if any rule of the institution had been violated by me. Though I had been there only three or four weeks, I knew a request for a student to report at the Principal's office meant that he was to be given notice of imminent punishment, or consulted upon some matter of vital interest.
When I entered the office, Mr. Washington asked me to write to two or three worthy young men at my home and inquire if they desired a chance to work their way through school. Several days had passed when I received an answer from one of the young men to whom I wrote. It so happened that on the day the letter was received I met Mr. Washington on his way to his office, and said, "Mr. Washington [drawing the letter from my pocket], I have received a letter from—" Here my first sentence was cut short by Mr. Washington forcibly gesticulating and saying, "Come to the office; come to the office and see me there." That one lecture on business methods impressed me in a way that a chapter of this length could not have done.
One day I closed a door with considerable force, which attracted the attention of one of the teachers. The teacher, in my presence, again opened the door and gently closed it, noiselessly and without a word. I have never since forgotten the proper way in which to open and close doors. Little details are big essentials in the rounding out of character. They show the influence of the "Tuskegee spirit." But, after all, this spirit would not be so irresistible in its influence for good if the teachers and officers of the institution were not the embodiment and living example of it. Here, as elsewhere and everywhere, example is more potent than precept.
Every institution has policies peculiarly its own. It is necessary that every teacher and officer support that policy to make it effective. Each instructor has a distinct individuality that becomes a part of the student, in smaller or greater degree, and at the same time gives force and strength to the policies of the institution. Though I felt the influence of every one of the thirty-odd teachers then at Tuskegee, the individuality of some of these made a very great impression on me. I remember Mr. W. D. Wilson as a very quiet and effective disciplinarian. Mr. Warren Logan, the treasurer, has the ability to teach the student the value of a dollar by making him sacrifice almost beyond the point of endurance. At the same time, with a smile and a cheerful disposition, he would make the student feel that his burden was light. Through the kindness and special interest manifested in me by Mr. M. T. Driver, who was in charge of wheelwrighting and blacksmithing, I made rapid progress at my trade. Miss Adella H. Hunt, who has since become the wife of Treasurer Logan, was then a teacher who had the faculty of touching a responsive chord in a student. Mrs. Booker T. Washington, then Miss Margaret J. Murray, impressed me very much. Strong and resourceful in dealing with students, she always won the best that was in them. My student-days were almost at an end when she came to Tuskegee.