I had occasion to write to him, and I addressed him as "The Rev.Booker T.
Washington." In his reply there was no mention of my addressing him as a clergyman.

But when I had occasion to write to him again, and persisted in making him a preacher, his second letter brought a postscript: "I have no claim to 'Rev.'" I knew most of the coloured men who at that time had become prominent as leaders of their race, but I had not then known one who was neither a politician nor a preacher; and I had not heard of the head of an important coloured school who was not a preacher.

"A new kind of man in the coloured world," I said to myself--"a new kind of man surely if he looks upon his task as an economic one instead of a theological one." I wrote him an apology for mistaking him for a preacher.
The first time that I went to Tuskegee I was asked to make an address to the school on Sunday evening.

I sat upon the platform of the large chapel and looked forth on a thousand coloured faces, and the choir of a hundred or more behind me sang a familiar religious melody, and the whole company joined in the chorus with unction.

I was the only white man under the roof, and the scene and the songs made an impression on me that I shall never forget.