INSTITUTE CHAPEL
INSTITUTE CHAPELMOST IMPOSING BUILDING ON SCHOOL GROUNDS BUILT BY STUDENTS
Ninth: Perhaps the most helpful religious meeting of all is the Friday evening prayer-meeting, where teachers and students gather, before retiring, as one large family, for informal worship; for it is themost home-like of all the services. Any one is at liberty to take part, without restraint, and at times so much interest is manifested that it often happens that two or more will be on their feet at the same time striving to get a hearing, or will raise hymns or begin to pray, or speak or repeat verses of Scripture at the same time. But the utmost courtesy and good nature prevail. These meetings are productive of much good. Many of the students date their conversion from the impulse received at these Friday evening meetings.
Tenth: The Week of Prayer is usually observed for two weeks, in January, every year, with more or less spiritual profit to the whole institution. The outward results from the meetings held during the present year are the hopeful and happy conversions of more than one hundred and fifty students, from all classes, post-graduates, special students, down through the preparatory grades. The most of these have received, and, after careful and prayerful consideration, have signed, in duplicate, the following pledge, keeping one copy and returning the other to the Chaplain:
MY PLEDGE.
I thank God that I was led by the Spirit to accept Christ. I am glad I am a Christian, and I promise:1. That, as soon as I can, I will join the church of my choice, and by word and deed help to build up the kingdom of Christ on earth.2. That I will, daily, think of, or read some portion of theBible, and will pray, in private each day of my life, closing each prayer with this verse:"Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole;I want Thee forever to live in my soul;Break down every idol, cast out every foe:Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."—Amen.Name _______________________________________P. O. address ______________________________________________________________________________
I thank God that I was led by the Spirit to accept Christ. I am glad I am a Christian, and I promise:
1. That, as soon as I can, I will join the church of my choice, and by word and deed help to build up the kingdom of Christ on earth.
2. That I will, daily, think of, or read some portion of theBible, and will pray, in private each day of my life, closing each prayer with this verse:
"Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole;I want Thee forever to live in my soul;Break down every idol, cast out every foe:Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."—Amen.
"Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole;I want Thee forever to live in my soul;Break down every idol, cast out every foe:Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."—Amen.
"Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole;I want Thee forever to live in my soul;Break down every idol, cast out every foe:Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."—Amen.
"Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole;
I want Thee forever to live in my soul;
Break down every idol, cast out every foe:
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."
—Amen.
Name _______________________________________
P. O. address ______________________________________________________________________________
The reclamation of many backsliders also, as well as the spiritual awakening of the teacher's, many of whom joined heartily in the work of soul-saving, were gratifying and encouraging results.
Eleventh: Last, but not least, is the wholesome influence the Bible Training School has on the entire Institute.
This school is a department of the Normal and Industrial Institute. It was founded some years ago by a lady living in New York, in order that poor young men and women might be enabled, on the Tuskegee plan, to fit themselves for the Christian ministry and other active religious work.
A night class is connected with the Bible School, to reach those who cannot attend during the day, but who are desirous of knowing more about the Bible. The members of this class are the farmers and other labouring men who live in the neighbourhood. They come twice a week for an hourand a half, some of them walking two, three, four, and five miles each way, and show the greatest interest in the lessons. Most of them are pastors and members of churches in their communities. The students of the Bible School are expected to spend their Sundays in religious work among the churches and mission stations in the surrounding country. Every Sunday morning they may be seen, in groups of two or more, starting out, after breakfast, to their various appointments, reaching from four to six miles into the country, and to the jail and the churches in the town of Tuskegee. If they do not find a place of labour, they are encouraged to begin in new fields, and to reach people who might otherwise be neglected. Several have started missions, and two, during the history of the Bible School, have organised and built churches, and turned them over to their respective denominational connections. The Bible students are required to make a weekly report of their outside work on the following blank:
WEEKLY REPORTOF THEReligious Work Done in Tuskegee and Vicinity,BY STUDENTS OFPHELPS HALL BIBLE TRAINING SCHOOL
☛ Please answer EVERY question, and return to E. J. Penny.
A volunteer prayer meeting is held daily, just after breakfast, in the Bible School building, under the guidance of the Bible students. This meeting is well attended by young men of all the classes, who take turns in leading the services.
Any one passing this building at that hour will hear songs of praise and earnest voices in prayer to God. All these societies, at Christmas andThanksgiving, unite in taking food and other comforts to the deserving poor and helpless.
All the young men and boys at Tuskegee are assigned to groups numbering twelve to fifteen, each group in charge of a teacher. There are eighty of these small companies formed that the boys may become better acquainted with one another, and grow in a spirit of mutual helpfulness. Every boy feels that he can go to the teacher who is in charge of his social unit for advice and comfort. This feature of the school life is under the general direction of the Chaplain, and has done much to make the students feel at home. Discipline has been more satisfactory since the plan was adopted. The young women students are organised in other ways to meet their own social and religious needs, and to bring them into personal relations with their teachers.
All these forces are working more and more for good, and the School is in an encouraging and healthy religious condition.
Since the founding of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, in 1881, the total enrollment of young men and women who have remained long enough to be helped, in any degree, is about six thousand. From the beginning, the school has sought to find out the chief occupations by which our people earn their living, and to train men and women to be of service in these callings. Those who go out follow the industries they have learned, or teach in public or private schools, teaching part of the year and farming or labouring the remainder of their time. Some follow house-keeping or other domestic service, while others enter professions, the Government service, or become merchants. Many of the teachers give instruction in agriculture, or in the industries. The professional men are largely physicians and the professional women are mostly trained nurses.
After diligent investigation I have been unable to find a dozen former students in idleness. They are busy in schoolroom, field, shop, home or church. They are busy because they have placed themselves in demand by learning to do that which the worldwants done, and because they have learned the disgrace of idleness, and the sweetness of labour. One of the greatest embarrassments which confronts our school at the present time is our inability to supply any large proportion of the demands for our students that are coming to us constantly from the people of both races, North and South. But, apart from their skill and training, that which has made Tuskegee men and women succeed is their spirit of unselfishness and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for others. In many cases while building up a struggling school in a community, they have worked for months without any fixed salary or promise of salary, because they have learned that helping some one else is the secret of happiness. Because of the demand for men and women trained at Tuskegee, it is difficult to keep a large proportion of the students in the school until they graduate. It is, therefore, not so easy to show the results of the work in concrete form as it would be if a larger number of the students finished. But the facts obtainable prove that the school is achieving its purpose in preparing its students to do what the world wants done.
Some years ago a young man named Williams came to Tuskegee from Mobile, Alabama. Before coming, he had nearly completed the public-school course of study at Mobile, and had been earning about fifty cents a day at various kinds of unskilledlabour. He wished to study further in the academic branches, with the object of combining this knowledge with the trade of brick-masonry. To take the full course in brick-masonry, including mechanical drawing, he should have remained three years. He remained for six months only. During this time, he got some rough knowledge of brick-masonry and advanced somewhat in his academic studies. When he returned to Mobile, it soon became known that he had been working at brick-masonry. At once he was dubbed a full-fledged mason. As there was unusual building activity in Mobile at that time, he found himself in great demand, and, instead of having to seek odd jobs, he soon saw that, in spite of his rather crude knowledge of the trade, he could earn one dollar and fifty cents per day, and have more work offered him than he could do. When the three months' vacation expired, Williams debated whether he ought to return to Tuskegee to finish his course or remain at home and try to purchase a home for his widowed mother. Hence, seeing an opportunity to make two dollars a dayat his trade, he decided not to return. As in hundreds of other cases, the Mobile man had unusual natural ability, and was able to get out of his six months at Tuskegee a mental, spiritual, and bodily awakening which fixed his purpose in life. Not only this, but he had made such a start in his trade that by close study and observation hewas able to improve from month to month in the quantity and quality of his work, and within a few months he ceased to work for other people by the day and began to make small contracts. At the present time, Mr. Williams is one of the most substantial coloured citizens of Mobile. He owns his home and is a reliable and successful contractor, doing important work for both races. In addition to being a successful brick-mason and contractor, he owns and operates a dairy business, and his class of patronage is not limited by any means to members of the Negro race.
The value, then, of the work of schools, where the trade or economic element enters in so largely as it does at Tuskegee, cannot be judged in any large degree by the number of students who finish the full course and receive diplomas. What is true of the course in brick-masonry is true in larger or smaller measure of all the other thirty-seven industrial divisions of the school.
Another example: Crawford D. Menafee came to Tuskegee about 1890, and began taking the agricultural and academic courses. He was older than the average student, and entered one of the lower classes. Because he had no money to pay any part of his expenses, he was given permission to enter the night school, which meant that he was to work on the farm ten hours a day, receiving, meanwhile, lessons in the principles of farming and devoting two hours atnight to the academic branches. He was never classed as a very bright student, and in the purely literary studies made such slow progress, after repeating several classes, that he left two years before completing either the agricultural or the academic course. It was noted, however, that, notwithstanding inability to grasp theoretical work, he manifested unusual enthusiasm and showed special ability in practical farm work. His ability was so marked that he was asked to take a place of responsibility as assistant to one of the school's farm managers. It soon became evident that he possessed extraordinary executive ability. He read constantly everything of value which he could secure upon agriculture, and soon began to show signs of considerable intellectual growth and the possession of a rarely systematic mind. Mr. Menafee was soon promoted to a higher position at Tuskegee.
TAKING AN AGRICULTURAL CLASS
TAKING AN AGRICULTURAL CLASS INTO THE FIELD
A few years later, there came a call for some one to introduce theoretical and practical agriculture into the State Normal College for coloured people at Tallahassee, Florida. Mr. Menafee was recommended. The students had no wish to learn agriculture. They were opposed to it in any form. By tact and patience, Mr. Menafee gradually won the students and made them see the importance of intelligent cultivation of the soil. Mr. Menafee has now been in charge of the agricultural department of the Florida school for three years, and has madethe study of theoretical and practical farming so effective that it is now one of the most popular branches in the school. Not only do the young men cultivate a large acreage each year, but a number of girls also receive instruction in gardening, dairying, and poultry raising. In a word, the whole attitude of the school toward agriculture has been revolutionised, and the department has been placed upon an effective and practical foundation.
There are hundreds of cases similar to those of Mr. Menafee and the Mobile brick-mason. These represent a class of students who have absorbed the spirit of the school as well as its methods, and who are doing far-reaching service, although they are not enrolled on our list of graduates. We have tried to give special attention to all forms of agricultural training at Tuskegee, because we believe that the Negro, like any other race in a similar stage of development, is better off when owning and cultivating the soil.
As I have explained elsewhere, the results of our agricultural work in the past have not been as manifest as they will be in the future, for the Institute has been compelled to give foremost place to the building trades in order to get under shelter. The task of erecting nearly seventy buildings, in which to house about seventeen hundred people, has not been easy. And yet what are some of the results of our lessons in farming? Notlong ago I drove through a section of Macon County, Alabama. My drive extended a distance of perhaps eight miles, and during this time I passed through or near the farms of A. H. Adams, Thomas Courrier, Frank McCay, Nathaniel Harris, Thomas Anderson, John Smith, and Dennis Upshaw. These seven men had attended the Tuskegee Institute for longer or shorter periods, and each had already paid for his farm or was buying it. All of these men had studied in the Phelps Hall Bible Training School in the morning, and had taken the agricultural course in the afternoon. When I visited their farms, I saw them actually at work, and it was most encouraging and interesting to note the air of cleanliness and system about their farms and homes. In every case they were not confining themselves to the raising of cotton, but had learned to diversify their crops. All were active in church and Sunday-school work, and were using their influence to get others to buy homes. The most prosperous farmer among them was Mr. Upshaw. He began farming with practically nothing. At present he owns one hundred and fifteen acres of land, which is cultivated by himself and family. On this land is a neat, attractive house, a barn and outbuildings, and a small sugar house for boiling syrup from the cane which he raises for his own use. His home and farm are models for other farmers. He raises not only cotton, but corn and oats, vegetables, fruit, live stock, and fowls.He has an unusually fine peach orchard. Mr. and Mrs. Upshaw are leaders in the County Farmers' Institute. Mrs. Upshaw is also a member of the Mothers' Meeting, which assembles regularly in the town of Tuskegee. While Mr. Upshaw's present house is better than the average farmhouse in that section, when I last visited this farm, I found lumber on the ground to be used in erecting a new and larger house. Hundreds of such examples could be cited.
I have given these seven examples because people who know absolutely nothing about the subject often make the statement that when a Negro gets any degree of education he will not work—especially as a farmer. As a rule, people who make these sweeping assertions against the Negro are blinded by prejudice. The judgment of any man, black or white, who is controlled by race prejudice is not to be trusted. With one exception, I did not know of the farming operations of these men before the drive referred to; but I was not at all surprised at what I saw, because my years of experience have brought me into unbroken contact with Tuskegee men and women all over the South, and wherever I have met them I have found that they had in some degree raised the level of life about them.
Another branch of Agriculture, to which we have for a number of years given special attention, is dairying. The demand from Southern white peoplefor trained dairymen is much greater than we have been able to supply.
In 1898, L. A. Smith finished the course of training in dairying and in the academic branches. He had been able to complete his course only by working during the day and attending school at night during the greater part of his time here. Soon after Smith graduated, we had a call for a well-trained dairyman from the Forest City Creamery Company, Rockford, Illinois. Smith was recommended. He has been holding an important position in the creamery for five years, and has several times been promoted with an increase of salary. Smith has paid for a neat and comfortable home, and he has the confidence and respect of the entire community. He looked so young and inexperienced in taking up his work that his ability was doubted, but it did not take him long to prove that he was fully equal to the occasion. The proprietor unhesitatingly said that he was one of the most proficient and valuable men in his employ, and that he had placed him in a very important and trying position—that of making butter cultures. This is a secret department in which no one except the employees operating it and the proprietor is permitted to enter. Mr. Smith also did some important chemical work in connection with a lawsuit supposed to involve the manufacture of spurious butter.
In Montgomery County, Alabama, Mr. N. N.Scott, a Southern white man, has operated for a number of years the largest and most successful dairy farm in his section. Mr. Scott has in his employ three Tuskegee men, with Scott Thomas in charge. Mr. Scott tells us that those men trained at our school are the most efficient helpers he can secure. He keeps a standing order with Mr. George W. Carver, our instructor in dairying, to the effect that he will employ any one that Mr. Carver recommends. Not far from Mr. Scott's dairy is a smaller one owned by Mr. E. J. Hughes, another white man. Some time ago Mr. Hughes secured Luther M. Jones, who had taken only a partial course in dairying at Tuskegee, to make butter and cheese for him. Such examples can be found in nearly every one of the Southern States.
From the beginning, the work of this institution has been closely related to the public school system of the South, for it must be clear to all that in the last analysis we must depend upon public schools for the general education of the masses, and it is important that the larger institutions for the education of the Negro keep in close and sympathetic touch with the school officials of the Southern States.
One way in which we assist the public school system of the South is by sending out men and women who become the teachers of teachers. One of the best examples of this is the case of Isaac Fisher, a young man who came to Tuskegee a number of yearsago, and earned his board by working during the day and going to school at night. Two years ago Mr. Fisher, upon my recommendation, was elected by the State officials of the State of Arkansas to the important position of Principal of the Branch Normal College of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the main institution for training coloured teachers for the public schools of that commonwealth. Mr. Fisher has associated with him a large force of teachers, two of whom also are Tuskegee graduates. In the school are students many of whom will become not only public-school teachers in the usual sense, but having been trained by Mr. Fisher in the industries, they will be able to introduce them gradually into their teaching. There is hardly a single Southern State where our men and women are not found in some of the larger schools for training teachers.
Our students at Tuskegee are instructed constantly in methods of building schoolhouses and prolonging the school term. It is safe to say that outside the larger Southern cities and towns in the rural district, one will find nine-tenths of the school buildings wholly unfit for use, and rarely is the public school session longer than five months—in most cases not more than four. These conditions exist largely because of the poverty of the States. One of the problems of our teachers is to show the people how through private effort they can build schoolhouses and extend the school term.
Milton Calloway left Tuskegee three years ago. In addition to taking the normal course, he learned the trade of tinsmithing. When he returned to his home at Union Spring, Bullock County, Alabama, he secured a school some distance in the country. The term was so short that Calloway found he could not live all the year by teaching during the three or four months of the session. Calloway's trade came to his rescue. Soon after he began teaching, he made an arrangement with a white man in the town by which he was to work in his shop on Saturdays and during his vacation months. By following this plan, the school is gradually being built up, the people are being taught to save their money, improve the schoolhouse, prolong the school term, and buy homes.
Moses P. Simmons, another one of our graduates in an adjoining county, has lengthened the term of the public school by teaching the children how to grow vegetables, which have been disposed of for school purposes.
During the latest session of our Negro Conference in February, one delegate from Conecuh County, Alabama, told how his people had nearly doubled the length of the school term by each family's agreeing to plant an extra half-acre which was designated as the "school half-acre." A number of Tuskegee men and women have put on foot some such scheme as this.
I asked one of the officials of the TuskegeeInstitute to canvass our nearest large city, Montgomery, Alabama, in order to obtain the name of every student there who had received a diploma or certificate from Tuskegee, or who had remained long enough to be in any degree influenced by its teaching, and to report to me exactly what he found after making a personal inspection. Here are a few of his reports:
"Perry, J. W., class of 1889, lives near the city. Is farming. He controls 150 acres, owns five head of cattle, and teaches school six months in the year.
"Davis, Joseph, who has been away from Tuskegee three years, I found at work on a four-story building in process of erection on Commerce Street. He was getting $2.50 a day. At work on the same job were William Fuller at $3.60 a day, and H. T. Wheat at $2.50. Last summer Fuller received $4 a day for four months, at Troy, Alabama.
"Moten, Pierce, is at work as drug clerk in the drug store of D. A. C. Dungee, at the corner of Court and Washington Streets. He graduated from Tuskegee in 1902. While at the school he worked in the hospital, and much of that time had charge of the drug room. He is studying medicine, and has already spent a session at Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tennessee.
"Campbell, Mrs. Berry N. (Miss Bowen), graduated in the class of 1887, and her home has been in Montgomery most of the time since then, although her work at times takes her away from the city. Sheis a trained nurse of excellent reputation and wide experience, and has frequently been employed at Hale's Infirmary. When I inquired for her she was taking care of a private case. She owns two good houses on Union Street and on High Street, both of which I saw. She also owns a vacant lot."
There were only three whose records were found to be uncertain or unsatisfactory. The same kind of investigation will reveal almost similar conditions existing in a greater or less degree in other Southern cities.
Now let me show their life in smaller towns: one containing between four and five thousand inhabitants. Some time ago Mr. Bedford, one of our trustees, made a personal investigation in Eufaula, Alabama. I quote directly from Mr. Bedford as to what he found:
"Sydney Murphy graduated in 1887. He went at once to Eufaula. For three years he taught and farmed in the country. He was then made principal of the coloured public schools of the city. He still holds this position, and is now serving his thirteenth year. He has a nice home in the city, three houses that he rents, and some vacant lots.
"John Jordan, 1901, a graduate in harness-making, opened a shop in Eufaula, September, 1901. He reached Eufaula with $16 and a very few tools. He paid $7 license, $3.50 in advance for a month's rent, and had $5.50 for board and other expenses.He curtained off a little space in his shop for a bedroom, and with an oilstove cooked his own meals. In this way he saved up $50, but lost it in the failure of the bank of Eufaula. He has gone right on with his business, and now has one of the best shops in the city. He has established the People's Library, which has more than 600 volumes in it. He has a reading-room and literary society over which he presides, and is superintendent of the A. M. E. Sunday-school."
After several years at the school, during which they worked upon the school farm, Frank and Dow L. Reid left Tuskegee at the completion of the B Middle Class. Frank, the older brother, left in the year 1888, and Dow in the year 1891. Before coming to Tuskegee, these young men had lived upon a rented farm with their father, but on returning home they decided to buy a farm of their own. They entered into an agreement to purchase a farm of 320 acres, four miles from the old homestead, and with little or no money, but with a determination to succeed, they began to cultivate the land. They agreed to pay $5.50 per acre for the place, and, regardless of the fact that they had little money at the time, they bought the farm, paying in a few years the whole amount, $1,760. In addition to this farm, the Reid brothers, as they are styled for miles around, have bought another farm of 225 acres at $10 per acre. This farm isabout two miles away from the place first mentioned. When the final payment upon this last purchase is made in the fall, after crops have been gathered and marketed, a total of $4,010 will have been made and expended for land by these young men since the younger one left Tuskegee some twelve years ago.
The stock and farming implements on these farms are far superior to those seen upon most of the plantations. On the farm of 320 acres are seventeen fine horses and mules, all large and in good condition; there are thirty well-bred cows and fifty fine, healthy looking hogs, besides a large number of chickens and guineas, which furnish plenty of eggs for the families' use. The farming implements, including plows, mowers, rakes, harrows, etc., are of the latest patterns. The four double wagons, the single top-buggy, the road wagon and go-cart are all in good order, and are kept under cover when not in use. We often find farmers in the South who, when the crop is made, leave the plows, the mower, the rake, in fact, all the farming implements, standing out in the field, exposed to wind and weather all through the winter months. A visitor to the Reid brothers' plantation will find that each piece of machinery on this plantation has a place under a shed built for the purpose, and is kept there when not in use.
There are eight dwelling-houses—a four-roomframe building in which the young men and their families live, and seven log cabins in which the farmhands live with their families. The first is rather old and uncomely in appearance from the outside, but the interior is more pleasing. The bedrooms are large and clean, with sufficient windows and doors to permit of necessary ventilation during the sleeping hours. The dining-room is well kept, and the whole interior of the house presents a neat, clean and attractive appearance. This house is to be replaced by a larger one, to be built during the winter.
A large cotton-gin, with an eighty-tooth saw, is owned and operated by these young men. Last year, besides ginning the 125 bales of cotton raised upon their own plantation, they ginned the cotton raised by nearly all the other farmers in the neighbourhood.
The post-office at Dawkins was formerly about four miles from its present location, but since the Reid brothers settled there and the community grew so rapidly the post-office was removed to their place, and the plantation was named Dawkins. The post-office is located in the general merchandise store of the Reids, and Mr. Frank Reid is postmaster. There was neither a church nor a schoolhouse in the community when these young men went to Dawkins. They purchased four acres of land nearby, and not only gave this land, but assistedin building a comfortable church, which has been used both as a church and a schoolhouse. Preaching services are held regularly in the church, and a flourishing school is taught from seven to nine months each year. Last year more than one hundred boys and girls were registered.
Mr. J. N. Calloway, who graduated from the Tuskegee Institute in 1892, is principal of the school, and has one assistant teacher. A new two-room schoolhouse is now being built through the efforts of Mr. Calloway, and will be completed at the time of the opening of the school the latter part of next October.
I am often asked to what extent we are able to supply domestic servants directly from this institution. I always answer, "Not to any large extent, notwithstanding the fact that women are trained here in everything relating to work in the home." When a woman finishes one of our courses, she is in demand at once at a salary three or four times as large as that paid in the average home. Aside from this, we are doing a larger service by sending out over a large extent of territory strong leaders who will go into local communities and teach the lessons of home-making than we could by trying to send a cook directly into each family who applies to us. The latter would be a never-ending process. Miss Annie Canty, for example, teaches cooking and other industries in the public schools of Columbus, Georgia.There is a little leaven that we hope will gradually help leaven the whole lump. Largely through the influence of our graduates, cooking and other industries are being taught in many of the public schools of the South. Another young woman, Miss Mary L. McCrary, is doing the same thing in the Industrial College for coloured people in Oklahoma.
Not a few of our men have become merchants, and they are generally patronised by both races and have high commercial rating. Two of the best examples of this class are Mr. A. J. Wilborn, who is a successful merchant in the town of Tuskegee, and Mr. A. J. Wood, of Benton, Alabama.
Last January, when in Los Angeles, California, I met by chance a young man who had taken a partial course in our nurse-training department. I asked him if he were reflecting credit upon the Tuskegee Institute? Without a word, he pulled out a bank-book and asked me to inspect it. I found a substantial sum recorded to his credit. Before I was through with the inspection of the first bank-book, he handed me a second which showed an amount to his credit at another bank. I found that Mrs. Barre, another of our graduates, is one of the leading trained nurses of the same city.
One of the questions most frequently asked me is, To what extent are Tuskegee graduates able to reproduce the work of the parent institution? Just as the Tuskegee Institute is an outgrowth of the Hampton Institute, so other smaller schools have grown out of the Tuskegee Institute in various parts of the country. There are at present sixteen schools of some size which have grown out of the Tuskegee Institute or have been organised by Tuskegee men and women. In all instances, these schools have become large enough to be chartered under the laws of the State.
The Vorhees Industrial School at Denmark, South Carolina, for example, was founded by Elizabeth E. Wright, class of 1894. It is now in its seventh year. Miss Wright was greatly opposed at first by both the white and coloured people, but she persevered, and has at length overcome all opposition. She has 300 acres of land, all paid for. A large central building has been erected at a cost of $3,000. This contains offices, class rooms, and a chapel that will seat 600. This building is paid for, and a girls'dormitory, to cost $4,000, the money for which is in the treasury, is in process of erection. The plans for both of these buildings were drawn by a Tuskegee student. A barn to cost $800 is nearly completed, and there are several other small buildings. Miss Wright is assisted by three Tuskegee graduates, one as the farm superintendent, one as treasurer and bookkeeper, and the other as carpenter and teacher of drawing. The day and boarding students number more than 300. Farming in its various branches is the principal work of the students, but they are also taught shoemaking, carpentry, cooking, sewing, housekeeping, and laundering, while printing and blacksmithing are soon to be added to the course. The school spent $9,000 last year in current expenses, building expenses, and the purchase of land.
Another of our graduates, Mr. V. Chambliss, has charge of the farming operations of the Southern Land Improvement Company. About forty Negro families have settled upon land controlled by this organisation, and the number is increasing each year. These families are being given the opportunity to buy their homes through their own labour and under the guidance of Mr. Chambliss. Mr. Chambliss does not use the hoe himself, for he finds it more economical to utilise his time directing the work. When the world wants cotton or corn, it cares little whether the man uses his pen or his hoe. What it desires are results. Some men have the ability to produce fiftytimes as much cotton with the pen as with the hoe. Another example will show how our students succeed when working directly under others. The letter which follows is to the point:
Professor Booker T. Washington.Dear Sir: The students from your school who have been at work here during the vacation expect to return to Tuskegee to-morrow, and we want to say to you that these boys have demonstrated to our company the wonderful benefit of your teaching. These young men have taken hold of their work in a steady and businesslike way, and have worked uncomplainingly during the severe heat of the past summer. We would like, if it is possible, to induce a number of your students to purchase their homes about our works in North Birmingham and become regular workmen in our different shops. We have a letter before us now, written by one of your students, John Davis, which would reflect credit on the masters of Yale or Harvard. Please accept our best wishes for the success of the grand work you have undertaken.Dimmick Pipe Works Company,Birmingham, Alabama.
Professor Booker T. Washington.
Dear Sir: The students from your school who have been at work here during the vacation expect to return to Tuskegee to-morrow, and we want to say to you that these boys have demonstrated to our company the wonderful benefit of your teaching. These young men have taken hold of their work in a steady and businesslike way, and have worked uncomplainingly during the severe heat of the past summer. We would like, if it is possible, to induce a number of your students to purchase their homes about our works in North Birmingham and become regular workmen in our different shops. We have a letter before us now, written by one of your students, John Davis, which would reflect credit on the masters of Yale or Harvard. Please accept our best wishes for the success of the grand work you have undertaken.
Dimmick Pipe Works Company,Birmingham, Alabama.
A conspicuous example of a Tuskegee graduate who is using his knowledge of stock-raising in a practical way is that of William Johnson Shoals, of Clear Creek, Indian Territory. Shoals owns and operates his own stock farm, one of the largest in the Territory, and has been successful from the very beginning.
The following letter indicates one of the ways in which we are able to assist the public-school system from time to time:
Ethelville, Alabama, June, 1903.Professor B. T. Washington.I am very anxious to afford the coloured teachers of this county the best instruction possible, and so I write to ask if you cannot send us one of your teachers to conduct a Normal Institute, to be held at Carrollton, June 29th to July 4th—a teacher whom you can recommend. I am sorry to say the county has no money it can spend on this matter.Yours truly,W. H. Storey,County Superintendent of Education.
Ethelville, Alabama, June, 1903.
Professor B. T. Washington.
I am very anxious to afford the coloured teachers of this county the best instruction possible, and so I write to ask if you cannot send us one of your teachers to conduct a Normal Institute, to be held at Carrollton, June 29th to July 4th—a teacher whom you can recommend. I am sorry to say the county has no money it can spend on this matter.
Yours truly,W. H. Storey,County Superintendent of Education.
The following institutions have grown out of the Tuskegee Institute and have been chartered under the laws of their respective States. Not only have they been founded by Tuskegee graduates, but the officers and in many cases the entire faculty are from Tuskegee:
Mt. Meigs Institute, Waugh, Alabama; Snow Hill Institute, Snow Hill, Alabama; Vorhees Industrial School, Denmark, South Carolina; East Tennessee Normal and Industrial Institute, Harriman, Tennessee; Robert Hungerford Industrial Institute, Eatonville, Florida; Topeka Educational and Industrial Institute, Topeka, Kansas; Allengreene Normal and Industrial Institute, Ruston, Louisiana; Utica Normal and Industrial Institute, Mississippi; Christianburg Institute, Cambria, Virginia.
The story of struggle, sacrifice and hard work connected with the founding of some of these schools is more akin to romance than to reality.
A FURNITURE AND REPAIR SHOP
A FURNITURE AND REPAIR SHOP AT SNOW HILL
Snow Hill Institute, Snow Hill, Alabama, by wayof illustration, was founded by William J. Edwards, of the class of 1893. This school is now in its tenth year, and was started in a one-room cabin. Soon after the school was established, Honourable R. O. Simpson, a wealthy white resident of the community, was so impressed with its good effect upon the Negroes of the vicinity that he gave the school forty acres of land. This has been added to, until the school now owns 160 acres, and property to the value of $30,000.
Last year it expended $20,000 in its operations. It has about 400 students, 200 of them being boarding students. The following trades are taught: Farming, carpentry, wheelwrighting, blacksmithing, painting, brickmaking, printing, sewing, cooking, housekeeping. About twenty teachers and instructors are employed, nearly all graduates or former students of Tuskegee. Snow Hill has sent out twenty-five graduates. All are required to pass the State teachers' examination before graduating. Six of them are teachers in the Institute. The school not only has the support and the sympathy of Mr. R. O. Simpson, but of all the best white people in the county.
A little more than a year ago one of our graduates, Mr. Charles P. Adams, established a small school at Ruston, Louisiana. At present the school owns twenty-five acres of land, on which a schoolhouse costing $1,200 has been built and paid for. The schoolterm has been extended from three to eight months, with three teachers—all Tuskegee graduates—and 110 pupils. In connection with the class-room work the students are taught agriculture and housekeeping. All this has been done in a little more than one year with money and labour contributed by the people of both races in the community. In regard to Mr. Adams's work, Honourable B. F. Thompson, the Mayor of Ruston, says, "Professor Adams deserves credit for what he has accomplished." Honourable S. D. Pearce, the representative of the parish in the State Legislature, says, "The school is doing fine work for the education of the coloured youth of this section of the State, and Professor Adams is making a vigorous struggle for its advancement." Mr. W. E. Redwine, Superintendent of Public Instruction for the parish, says, "Professor Adams is doing work in the right direction for the betterment of his race." Mr. A. J. Bell, the editor of the local newspaper, says, "His work in this section has been productive of incalculable good."
As to the work of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute, Utica, Mississippi, I will let Mr. W. H. Holtzclaw, the principal, tell in his own words:
A SEWING-CLASS AT SNOW HILL
A SEWING-CLASS AT SNOW HILL
"I came here from Snow Hill, Alabama, last October, without a cent (I left my wife behind because of lack of means to bring her, and I walked part of the way through a wild and unfrequented part of this State), and started this work under a tree. Nowwe have two horses, forty acres of land, one cow and a calf, a farm planted and growing, more than 200 students, seven teachers, and a building going up. In all my efforts I have had the wise counsel and constant assistance of Mrs. Holtzclaw, without which I could not have made much progress."
Harriman Industrial Institute, Harriman, Tennessee, was established five years ago by J. W. Oveltrea, of the class of 1893. The school has thirty acres of land in the suburbs of Harriman. Mr. Oveltrea and his wife are both graduates of Tuskegee, and they have been aided in their work by Tuskegee graduates and students. The school has four buildings and about one hundred students. Several trades are taught.
The Robert Hungerford Institute, in Eatonville, Florida, was founded by R. C. Calhoun, of the class of 1896. Eatonville is about six miles from Orlando. Mr. Calhoun had nothing to begin with but the little public school. He has secured 200 acres of land, clear of debt, and a year ago dedicated Booker T. Washington Hall, a dormitory and class-room building, with chapel. This building, the plans of which were drawn by a Tuskegee graduate, cost $3,000. The trades taught are farming, wheelwrighting, painting, carpentry, sewing, cooking and laundering.
Miss Nathalie Lord, one of my early teachers at Hampton, is a trustee of this school. The school isnow in its fourth year. It has forty boarding students and nearly one hundred day students. Mrs. Calhoun, who is her husband's assistant, was a student at Tuskegee, as was also the man who has charge of the blacksmith and wheelwright shops.
Nearly three years ago, three of our graduates, under the leadership of one of our teachers, Mr. J. N. Calloway, went to Africa under the auspices of the German government, to introduce cotton-raising among the natives. At the end of the second year the German officials were so pleased that they employed three other students. At the end of the fourth year the experiment was successful to the extent that a hundred bales of cotton have been shipped from the colony of Togo, Africa, to Berlin. Only a few months ago the German officials were kind enough to send me several pairs of hose made from cotton raised by our students.
Since beginning this experiment, we have received applications from both English and Belgian cotton-raising companies that wish to secure Tuskegee men to introduce cotton-raising in their African possessions. The Porto Rican Government makes an annual appropriation for the purpose of maintaining eighteen students at Tuskegee in order that they may learn our methods. The Haytian Government has recently arranged to send a number of young men here, mainly with the view of their being trained in farming. Besides, we have students present fromthe West Indies, Africa, and several South American countries.
While speaking of the Tuskegee missionary spirit, it is interesting to note the effect that the industrial training given by our graduates has had upon the morals and manner of living among the natives of Africa in Togoland. Missionaries have been working among these people for many years, and very effectively, and yet training in carpentry and cotton-raising had results that the academic and religious teaching had not accomplished. When the natives are taught the Bible, and the heart and the head are educated, the tendency is for them to become teachers or traders. In the latter case, their learning brings them too frequently into contact with unscrupulous European traders from whom they acquire habits of gambling, cheating, drinking, etc. In addition to this, when they beginmerchandising, the natives find that it is to their advantage to have more than one wife, since their wives are able to help them in selling in the markets and through the country districts. The young people who went to Africa from Tuskegee found that this problem greatly perplexed the missionaries, but wherever these natives were given work on the plantations, and employed their muscles as well as their brains, a change for the better was soon apparent.
It is usually true that when a native is kept employed in one place, he will begin to build a home,consisting of a number of huts; he will clear a farm or plantation, and stock it with cattle, sheep, pigs and fowls. He will plant vegetables, corn, cassava, yams, etc. This happened among the Africans who were employed on the plantations cultivated by our graduates. The wives and children of these labourers were given work on the farms, and it has been found that few of them gamble, steal and cheat, as do those who wander to and fro without employment. Such natives as these cotton-growers are more easily reached by missionary effort, and when they are converted to the Christian religion, if they remain on the farms, they seldom fall back into paganism.
I have been informed that it is a general opinion among the missionaries in Togoland that industrial education will be a main-stay in future effort, and that such teaching will be introduced in the missionary institutions as rapidly as possible. Since the young men went out from Tuskegee, a decided change has been noticed in the sanitation and mode of living in the towns near which they are located. Much of this betterment has been the direct result of the lessons learned by the natives from seeing our carpenter build houses, and observing our graduates' habits of life. The natives seemed anxious to learn, and the Tuskegee colony received many applications from the women to have their daughters come and live with the American women in order that theymight learn the new customs, especially the art of sewing, cooking, and doing housework.
Few of the huts had shutters or doors when our graduates first went to the colony—bedsteads were unknown; but now many of the huts have outside shutters, and their inmates have learned how to construct comfortable beds for themselves. Many who formerly bathed in streams now have bath-houses back of their huts. On Sunday, all work on the plantations of the Tuskegee party was suspended, except caring for the stock and other necessary duties, and this, too, had its effect on the natives, who were inclined to accept our religious observance of the day. Many now dress in holiday attire on Sunday, and go to the nearest mission.
The Tuskegee party settled about sixty miles from the coast, where no wagons or carts were used for conveying produce or material. The native men and women carried all freight in sixty-pound loads on their heads, and were able to travel fifteen to twenty miles a day. On these round trips of ten days, the women carried their small children with them, and during their frequent halts came into contact with the rough and demoralising element of the trading-post, and with other degrading influences. This mode of transportation seemed very unsatisfactory to the Tuskegee young men, who introduced carts and wagons drawn by men. This allowed the women and children to remain at home and lookafter the farms and their household duties, while the men made the trips to the coast.
Young girls, just growing into womanhood, are no longer compelled to meet the many bad influences formerly encountered on the trips to the coast. The use of farm machinery in the colony has relieved the women and girls of much drudgery. They used to prepare the land with the crudest hoes and plows. This is now done with improved American implements. The Germans have been so strongly impressed with these effects of industrial training upon the natives, that they have decided to introduce into all the schools of that colony a system for the training of boys in hand work. With the assistance of the chiefs, improved methods of agriculture and handicraft will be spread among the tribes of that region.
I do not wish my readers to get the impression that all of Tuskegee's men and women have succeeded, because they have not. A few have failed miserably, much to our regret, but the percentage of failures is so small that they are more than overshadowed by those who have been, in the fullest sense of the word, successful.
Despite all that I have said, the work has merely begun. I believe we have found the way. Our endeavour will be to continue to pursue it faithfully, actively, bravely, honestly. With sufficient means, such work as I have indicated could be greatly increased.
Several persons holding high official position have said recently that it does not pay, from any point of view, to educate the Negro; and that all attempts at his education have so far failed to accomplish any good results. The Southern States, which out of their poverty are contributing rather liberally for the education of all the people, as does individual and organised philanthropy throughout the country, have a right to know whether the Negro is responding to the efforts they have made to place him upon a higher plane of civilisation.
Will it pay to invest further money in this direction? In seeking to answer this question, it is hardly fair to compare the progress of the American Negro with that of the American white man, who, in some unexplained way, got thousand of years ahead of the Negro in the arts and sciences of civilisation. But to get at the real facts and the real capability of the black man, compare for a moment the American Negro with the Negro in Africa, or the black man with the black man. In South Africa alone there are five million black people who have neverbeen brought, through school or other agencies, into contact with a higher civilisation in a way to have their minds or their ambitions strengthened or awakened. As a result, the industries of South Africa languish and refuse to prosper for lack of labour. The native black man refuses to labour because he has been neglected. He has few wants and little ambition, and these can be satisfied by labouring one or two days out of the seven. In the southern part of the United States there are more than eight millions of my race who, both by contact with the whites and by education in the home, in school, in church, have had their minds awakened and strengthened—have thus had their wants increased and multiplied many times. Hence, instead of a people in idleness, we have in the South a people who are anxious to work because they want education for their children; they want land and houses, and churches, books, and papers. In a word, they want the highest and best in our civilisation. Looked at, then, from the most material and selfish point of view, it has paid to awaken the Negro's mind, and there should be no limit placed upon the development of that mind.
Does the American Negro take advantage of opportunities to secure education? Practically no schoolhouse has been opened for the Negro since the war that has not been filled. Often hungry and in rags, making heroic sacrifices, the Negro youth has beendetermined to annihilate his mental darkness. With all his disadvantages, the Negro, according to official records, has blotted out 55.5 per cent. of his illiteracy since he became a free man, while practically 95 per cent. of the native Africans are illiterate. After years of civilisation and opportunity, in Spain, 68 per cent. of the population are illiterate; in Italy, 38 per cent. In the average South American country about 80 per cent. are illiterate, while after forty years the American Negro has only 44.5 per cent. of illiteracy to his debit. I have thus compared the progress of my race, not with the highest civilised nations, for the reason that, in passing judgment upon us, the world too often forgets that, either consciously or otherwise, because of geographical or physical proximity to the American white man, we are being compared with the very highest civilisation that exists. But when compared with the most advanced and enlightened white people of the South, we find 12 per cent. of illiteracy for them and only 44 per cent. for our race.
Having seen that the American Negro takes advantage of every opportunity to secure an education, I think it will surprise some to learn to what an extent the race contributes toward its own education and works in sympathetic touch with the whites at the South. In emphasising this fact, I use the testimony of the best Southern white men. Says the State Superintendent of Education ofFlorida in one of his recent official reports: "The following figures are given to show that the education of the Negroes of Middle Florida (the Black Belt of Florida) does not cost the white people of that section one cent." In those eight Black Belt counties, the total cost of the Negro schools is $19,457. The total contributed by the Negro in direct and indirect taxes amounted to $23,984, thus leaving a difference of $4,527, which, according to the Superintendent, went into the white schools. In Mississippi, for the year ending in 1899, according to an eminent authority, the Negroes had expended on their schools about 20 per cent. of the total school fund, or a total of about $250,000. During the same year they paid toward their own education, in poll taxes, State, county and city taxes, and indirect taxes, about $280,000, or a surplus of about $30,000. So that, looked at from any point of view, it would seem that the Negroes in that State are in a large measure paying for their own education.