Education
THE chief educational work to be done among the colored troops overseas was that of teaching them to read and write, as large numbers were unable to sign the payroll. These men were drafted into the army often without regard to age or physical fitness. One man from Texas, upon delivering a company of men to a lieutenant whom he thought to be white, remarked that he had brought him a good bunch of Negroes, and had plenty more down there if he wanted them. At first, he said, they took all the men who had just purchased little farms, so that the property would soon return to the original owners, and then they just went out through the country and gathered them up everywhere, so that they could get their full quota without sending their white boys. Of course, he said, the Negroes didn’t know any better and just thought they had to come.
This shows the dense ignorance that existed in no small degree among them, and many of them knew only one name, didn’t know when nor where they were born, and couldn’t tell the time of day. This ignorance was not all confined to the colored men, however. One white captain remarked publicly that he had white men in his battalion who were equally ignorant, and that upon asking one man where he was born, his reply was “Toons County,” which was the limit of his knowledge concerning the matter.
In Camp Lusitania, St. Nazaire, France, there were 9,000 colored stevedores, and out of this number 1,100 could not write their names, and a large per cent. of the remainder had only mediocre training. On the other hand, some were college graduates and undergraduates, and were of great value to those who undertook the task of teaching the large number of illiterates. They readily volunteered their assistance, and took great pains with their unfortunate comrades, helping them in school and out to get the amount of training that the limited facilities offered.
The writer, during her nine months’ period of service at Camp Lusitania, gave most of her time to this kind of work, and while it was difficult, the gratitude of the men fully compensated her for all the trouble. Upon first entering the camp, there was no provision made to assist in reaching these men, or ascertaining who they were. The Y. M. C. A. had furnished a large number of books, which were piled away in the hut unused. These books were taken and a request made at the cinema for all who desired training in English to manifest it by remaining in their seats at the close of the show. In this way we were able to reach a large number, and through them others could be reached, so that in time the work grew until the writer’s entire time was consumed in teaching and directing the work.
One man told how his parents had died when he was quite young, and that he was afterwards bound out to a white family to herd cattle for fifty centsa week. He wanted to go to school so badly that he slipped off and went two days, when the man for whom he worked found it out and beat him so that he never went back any more. He said he had a wife from whom he had not heard since he had been in France, but that he couldn’t read her letters anyway, and he was not expecting her to write. He worked very hard, however, and in time was able to write well and read third grade reading matter. One day he came in joyfully and said he had written his wife a letter and had gotten a reply. This, no doubt, was a wonderful day in his life, when he had acquired sufficient knowledge to make himself understood in a written communication. At times their gratitude was most pathetic, and one man had tears in his eyes as he told the writer how he had been so anxious to learn, but had been ashamed to let her know that he couldn’t write his name, and had hesitated a long time before he finally decided to come.
To learn to write one’s name seems an easy matter, but some of these men would try patiently for an hour or so and the letters would have no form, nor resemble in any way the characters they were trying to make. Then the instructor would take each great rough hand in her own and help the soldier to trace the form of the letter so that he would get an idea of how to go about making the first curve of his initial. When he would finally master the first initial of his name he would be so delighted that he would go to his barracks and make all the boys whom he knew give himassistance, so that in a day or two one could realize that he was making splendid progress.
This kind of work went on without much difficulty until the Armistice was signed; at this time every soldier became doubly sure that he was going home “toute de suite” (at once); and to add impetus to an already bad situation, their colonel got up in the auditorium and told them that they would all eat Christmas dinner at home. This completely demoralized the work until after the holidays. By this time they had all concluded that they were going to remain in France a while anyway, and some began to say that they would be glad if they were able to eat dinner at home the next Christmas.
By the beginning of the new year the army decided to take a hand in the educational work, and through its chaplains force all illiterates to attend school. This brought the entire 1,100 at Camp Lusitania to the Y. M. C. A. hut to receive instruction. All of them could not be reached at one time, but two or three hundred could be crowded into the class rooms twice a day, so that every two days the entire number would be reached. The writer would teach them en masse, first from the blackboard, having them follow her in sounding the letters, pronouncing the words, and giving the diacritical markings; then from a small booklet called “English Reading Lessons,” provided by the Educational Commission of the Army and Navy Y. M. C. A. These booklets, containing twenty lessons drawn from the soldiers’ experiencein routine camp life and drilling, would be furnished by the hundreds, free, so that every man could have a book. After they had all read the lesson in concert, the volunteer teachers, about twenty-five all told, would each address himself to a group of the men, and hear them read individually. In this way each man could get a small amount of individual attention.
One day, by some means, Mr. Ferguson, the hut secretary, found a French mimeograph machine at the Y. M. C. A. warehouse. It was the only one, it seemed, in the entire section. The writer, after many trials and failures, learned to use it, and with the assistance of Private Stokes and one or two others, was able to make a large number of copies of written sentences. These would be taken by Chaplains Hodges, Jefferson, and their assistants, including Reverend McCoomer, whom the army had appointed to do educational and religious work. They would be distributed among the men in the class room, pencils given them free, and every man would labor earnestly to learn to write; then the men would be permitted to take the copies to their barracks, where they would practice during their leisure moments.
The mimeograph was also used to furnish problems in numbers to the men who were learning to make figures, add and subtract. After having a lesson from the blackboard, they would take the papers to their barracks, solve their problems, and bring them in the next day for correction. Mr. Julius Rosenwald visited Camp Lusitania duringthe year, and left two hundred dollars to be used for the benefit of the soldiers there. An automobile school was finally established and a number of the soldiers took advantage of the training. In the white camps much industrial training was introduced, and no small amount of attention given to higher education as well.
The Y. M. C. A. made ample provision for the purpose of giving the soldiers the opportunity to learn French. French professors were employed to visit each hut at stipulated hours, where the men would be taught en masse, the rudiments of conversational French. Small books published for the express purpose were put without cost into the hands of each man who had a desire to learn, and very few of them could be found after a few lessons and a little contact with the French people, who could not readily make themselves understood with regard to small matters that concerned their everyday life.