The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.5, page 276, Dec. 1899, U. of Illinois Press

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The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers Porto Rico, Africa and England. Beginning to teach in a shanty his institute has now forty-two buildings, the most of which have been put up by the students themselves. Its property is valued at $300,000, and the school farms comprise snore than Mono acres of land. In the school colored students over fourteen are given a practical, industrial education. They have thorough mental and religious training, but at the same time are taught such trades and professions as will make them self-supporting. The students pay a large part of their expenses in labor. Last year they made more than one million bricks, more than three hundred thousand garments were washed in the college laundries, and seventy cows were milked daily in the dairy division. The students are being taught all sorts of trades, such as farming, blacksmithing, masonry, carpentering and carriage making. There are departments of cooking, dairying and drawing, plastering, plumbing and painting, shoemaking, stock raising, tailoring and tinning, and in fact, all sorts of trades which will make men self-supporting. The school has done wonders for the race in Alabama. Branch colleges have been established, and in the future there will probably be similar institutes throughout the South. PORTO Rho AND PHILIPPINE VIEWS My conversation with Booker T. Washington began with the discussion of the improvement of the natives of Porto Rico and the Philippines. I asked him whether institutes like this would not do much to make these people good American citizens. He replied: ''I doubt whether any other method can be adopted which will so soon accomplish the desired results. There is only one solution of the race problem, and that is to show the people how they can support themselves, to educate their hands, as well as their heads; to give them mental and religious culture, and at the same time industrial training. We must teach them first how to make a living, make them independent and show them that labor is both manly and profitable.'' ''Have you had any experience with the Cubans and Porto Ricans, Prof. Washington?'' I asked. ''Yes, we have a number of them in our school. They do fairly well, and I can not see why they should not be educated into being 276