the dark corners were as thoroughly cleaned as the most visible parts, and accepted him on the strength of that observation.”

We were now in the boot- and harness-making division of the Trade School building. Pursuing 122the theme of thoroughness suggested by the anecdote of Booker Washington, Dr. Turner continued—

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“We insist that every student shall become highly skilled in whatever trade or pursuit he takes up; but we allow him to acquire a partial and rough-and-ready knowledge of other crafts subsidiary to his own. For instance, it is found that the individual harness-maker cannot compete with factory work, so that few students now take a complete course in that craft; but a boy who becomes a thoroughly skilled shoemaker also learns so much of harness-making as to render him an efficient repairer. In the same way our thoroughly trained carpenters also acquire a certain amount of skill in bricklaying, plastering, painting, and tinsmithing; and the girls, in addition to complete instruction in house-work, laundry-work, dressmaking and cooking, also learn something of simple carpentry, paper-hanging, painting, and the repairing of tinware, shoes, etc. In small villages and country districts it is very important to know something of everything as well as everything of something.”

“And where, amid all this, does academic study come in?”

“Students in their first year who are working for wages attend the night-school only. After that, if they are training for teachers, they enter the day-school, and devote only a minor portion 123of their time to manual work. But we take care that those who are mainly engaged in handicrafts and agriculture do not neglect their mental development on the academic side; and we find, with scarcely an exception, that the boy who does the best work in the classroom does the best work at the bench. The annual cost of academic training (apart from board, etc.), is seventy dollars, or £14, of industrial training, thirty dollars, or £6. To many of our students, in accordance with their abilities and their necessities, we are able to allot scholarships which cover these fees; but we are greatly in need of more such scholarships. For the general needs of the institution an endowment fund of three million dollars is required; but as yet we have been able to raise only about half that sum. The United States Government pays a small sum for each of the Indians whom it sends to the Institute; but it does not cover their expenses.”

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