CHAPTER VIII.

THE HISTORY OF TUSKEGEE FROM 1884 TO 1894.

Growth in Number of Students, Teachers and Officers, and Buildings during the Early Years of This Period--Hard Work of Raising Money with which to Meet the Increasing Demands--Some Providential Ways Whereby the School Was Helped Out of Tight Places Financially--Financial Assistance Rendered the School by the Citizens and Banks of Tuskegee--First Donation from the Peabody Fund--Dr. Curry Reasons That the School That Makes Extra Effort to Secure Funds is the School to be Helped--Some Statistics in Regard to the Money Raised for Tuskegee during This Period--Our Financial Embarrassment during the Fourth Year--Gen. Armstrong Comes to Our Relief by Lending Us Nearly all the Money He Possessed--Author’s Fourth Annual Report, Extracts--Generosity of Gen. J. F. B. Marshall Enables Tuskegee to Start a Sawmill--The Opening of the Night School--The Advantages it Affords Needy Students--Full Description of the Seventh Commencement or Anniversary of the School Indicating its Growth to that Time--Tuskegee’s Daily Program in Force in 1886--The Death of Mrs. Olivia Davidson Washington--An Estimate of Her Character and Worth to Tuskegee by Rev. R. C. Bedford--Further Growth of the School in Number of Students--The Visit of the Hon. Frederick Douglass to Tuskegee--His Views in Regard to Industrial Education and Other Matters Affecting the Negro Race--His Letter to Mrs. Harriett Beecher Stowe in 1853, Pleading for an Industrial College for Negroes--Author’s Marriage to Miss Maggie James Murray--Her Interest in and Labors Towards the Advancement of the Work at Tuskegee.