Miss Smith looked disheartened.

"Robert, here you are almost finished, and my heart is set on your going
to Atlanta University and finishing college. With your fine voice and
talent for drawing--"

A dogged look settled on Robert's young bright face, and the speaker
paused.

"What's the use, Miss Smith--what opening is there for a--a nigger with
an education?"

Miss Smith was shocked.

"Why--why, every chance," she protested, "and where there's none _make_
a chance!"

"Miss Taylor says"--Miss Smith's heart sank; how often had she heard
that deadening phrase in the last year!--"that there's no use. That
farming is the only thing we ought to try to do, and I reckon she thinks
there ain't much chance even there."

"Robert, farming is a noble calling. Whether you're suited to it or not,
I don't yet know, but I'd like nothing better than to see you settled
here in a decent home with a family, running a farm. But, Robert,
farming doesn't call for less intelligence than other things; it calls
for more. It is because the world thinks any training good enough for a
farmer that the Southern farmer is today practically at the mercy of his
keener and more intelligent fellows. And of all people, Robert, your
people need trained intelligence to cope with this problem of farming