Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

When I have read of labour troubles between employers and employees, I have often thought that many strikes and similar disturbances might be avoided if the employers would cultivate the habit of getting nearer to their employees, of consulting and advising with them, and letting them feel that the interests of the two are the same.

Every individual responds to confidence, and this is not more true of any race than of the Negroes.
Let them once understand that you are unselfishly interested in them, and you can lead them to any extent.
It was my aim from the first at Tuskegee to not only have the buildings erected by the students themselves, but to have them make their own furniture as far as was possible.

I now marvel at the patience of the students while sleeping upon the floor while waiting for some kind of a bedstead to be constructed, or at their sleeping without any kind of a mattress while waiting for something that looked like a mattress to be made.
In the early days we had very few students who had been used to handling carpenters' tools, and the bedsteads made by the students then were very rough and very weak.

Not unfrequently when I went into the students' rooms in the morning I would find at least two bedsteads lying about on the floor.