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When I reached Tuskegee, the only thing that had been done toward the starting of a school was the securing of the $2,000. There was no land, building, or apparatus. I opened the school, however, on the 4th of July, 1881, in an old church and a little shanty that was almost ready to fall down from decay. On the first day there was an attendance of thirty students, mainly those who had been engaged in teaching in the public schools of that vicinity. I remember that, during the first months I taught in this little shanty, it was in such a dilapidated condition that, whenever it rained, one of the larger pupils would very kindly cease his lessons and hold the umbrella over me while I heard the recitations. But these little buildings, as inadequate as they were, were most gladly furnished by the colored people, who from the first day that I went to Tuskegee to the present time have done everything within their power to further the interests of the school.

One curious thing that happened in connection with the students was, as additional pupils began to come in, some of them had been attending schools taught by some of those who came to the Tuskegee school, and, in several cases, it happened that former pupils entered higher classes than their former teachers.