TUSKEGEE GRADUATES IN SOUTHWEST AFRICA.
WE sometimes ask what the negro is doing for the negro. Tuskegee is doing an unlooked-for bit of missionary work in West Africa. Three or four years ago the German Government applied to Dr. Booker Washington for Tuskegee graduates to teach the people of the Togoland colony to raise cotton. The Togo Negroes had not only to be taught, but to be coaxed to try cotton planting. The Togo cotton, too, had run wild so long that none of its three varieties were worth much, while American seed will not endure that climate. The Tuskegee men have changed all this. By judicious crossing they have originated a new cotton plant that flourishes in Togoland and is of good, long staple. They have also disarmed suspicion among the natives and aroused enthusiasm that the crop of 1905 will be about 1,000 bales. They have also started an industrial school, where forty-five picked Togo boys are being taught some of the energy of their Japanese namesake and its application to scientific agriculture. All these achievements have conquered the skepticism of the German colonial officials as to the profits of improving the condition of the natives. The import of this unforeseen influence of Tuskegee upon blacks in Africa can not yet be measured.—Christian Work.