The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.4, page 483, Oct. 1898, U. of Illinois Press

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O C T O B. E R · ~ 8 9 8 the community, and in this way you will put yourself on your feet and become a helpful and useful citizen. When a young man does this, goes out into one of these Southern cities and makes a reputation for himself, that person wins a reputation that is going to give him a standing position. And when the children of that successful brickmaker come along, they will be able to take a higher position in life; the grand children will be able to take a still higher position. And it all will be traced back to that grandfather who, by his great success as a brickmaker, laid a foundation that was of the right kind. If you are learning to be a brickmason, make up your minds that you are going to make a success of it. Don't make a ''stepping stone'' out of the work, saying that next week you are going to' take up something better. You make that your profession; succeed in it, learn all there is to be learned about brickmasonry; stick to it until you have learned all there is to be learned about the trade, or as much as anybody can learn about it; and then when you have made a successful mason or contractor of yourself you will be able to build for yourself a fine house and have all the comforts of a refined, cultured home. You can do this by taking this most important industry and making a success of it. What I have said about these two trades can be applied with equal force to the trades followed by women. Take the matter of millinery; there is no good reason why there should not be in each principal city in the South at least three or four competent colored women in charge of millinery establishments. But what is the trouble? Instead of making the most of our opportunities along these lines the temptation is to be music teachers, teachers of elocution, or something else that nobody has any money to pay for, or have not the opportunity to earn money to pay for simply because there is no foundation. But when the colored people as a mass become successful brickmakers or brickmasons and contractors, they will then be able to put their daughters under the direction of music teachers and elocutionists. And now, what I have said about these important industries is especially true of the important industry of agriculture. We are living in a country where, if we are going to succeed at all we are going to do so by what we raise out of the soil, and the people in those countries to which I have referred have failed to give attention to the cultivation of the soil, to the invention and use of improved agricultural implements and machinery. Without this no people can succeed. No race which fails to put brains into agriculture can succeed; and if you want 483