SCHOOL DAYS AT HAMPTON
At the close of the Civil War one of the most important needs of the
country was to provide some kind of education for the negroes. They had
never had any schools. If they were to become good citizens, they must
have the proper training. A great many good men in the North and in the
South recognized this fact, and set to work to establish schools. Among
these men was General Samuel C. Armstrong. The General’s parents had
been missionaries to Hawaii. He had been educated in the United States,
had entered the army as soon as the war began, and had made such a
brilliant record as a soldier that, when the war was over, he had risen
to the rank of general.
He had seen a great deal of the negro as a soldier during the war. He
knew about the conditions in the South, and he felt that the greatest
service he could render would be to give his life to the cause of
education. He went to work at once, and, through the aid of a number of
Southern men, he established a school for negro boys and girls at
Hampton, Virginia, and called it Hampton Institute.
His main purpose was to give negro boys and girls an opportunity to
learn some useful trade. He believed that people must first learn to
make a good living before they could make much progress in any other
direction. He wanted the negroes to have good food and good clothes and
good homes. He wanted them to be able to earn these things. Likewise, he
wanted them to be good farmers, good carpenters, good brick masons, good
mechanics, and good workmen in all kinds of trades. He wanted these
trades taught in the schools. Then, as the race progressed, he wished to
have the higher branches of study given, such as Latin, mathematics, and
literature.
[Illustration:
CABINETMAKING AT TUSKEGEE
]
[Illustration:
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AS A HAMPTON GRADUATE (1875)
]
Thus was begun one of the greatest schools in America. Every negro boy
knows about Hampton. Thousands of the best negroes in the country were
trained there. General Armstrong was president of the school and did a
wonderful work. He seemed to inspire every student who entered to become
a good and useful citizen. Too much cannot be said in praise of him and
the great school he founded.
It was here that Booker arrived in the fall of 1872, with a little
satchel of clothes, fifty cents in his pocket, a happy heart, and a
determination to succeed.
Just as soon as he was able to get an interview, he went to the head
teacher, Mary F. Mackie, and told her that he wanted to enter school.
She stared at him. He was dirty after his long and hard journey. His
clothes were soiled. He realized at once that he was making a bad
impression, and it was not his fault. Miss Mackie would not say whether
she would admit him or not. She made him wait. He was worried. All he
wanted was a chance to show her that he meant business. Then a very
interesting thing happened. Booker Washington tells the story himself.
He called it his examination.
“After some time had passed,” he says, “the head teacher said: ‘The
adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it.’
“It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. Never did I receive
an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner
had thoroughly taught me how to do that when I lived with her.
“I swept the recitation room three times. Then I got a dusting-cloth and
I dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench,
table, and desk, I went over four times with my dusting-cloth. Besides,
every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner in
the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that in a large
measure my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher
in the cleaning of that room.
“When I was through, I rapped on the door, and reported to the teacher.
She was a ‘Yankee’ woman who knew just where to look for dirt. She went
into the room and inspected the floor and closets; then she took her
handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls, and over the
table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the
floor, or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly
remarked, ‘I guess you will do to enter this institution.’
“I was one of the happiest souls on earth. The sweeping of that room was
my college examination, and never did any youth pass an entrance
examination into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine
satisfaction. I have passed several examinations since then, but I have
always felt that this one was the best one I ever passed.”[7]
As a result of his sweeping the room, he was permitted to enter his
classes and was also given a job as janitor, and his college career
began. It was a new, strange life. He sat down at a table, which had a
cloth on it, to eat his meals. He slept in a bed that had sheets on it.
These sheets gave him trouble. The first night he slept under both of
them. He didn’t think that was right, so the next night he slept on top
of both of them. The third night he watched his roommates,—there were
seven of them in the same room,—and he saw how the thing was done. After
that, he did as the others did and slept between the sheets.
“I sometimes feel,” he says, “that almost the most valuable lesson I got
at Hampton Institute was in the use and value of a bath. I learned
there, for the first time, some of its value was not only in keeping the
body healthy, but in inspiring selfrespect and promoting virtue. In all
my travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton Institute, I
have always in some way sought my daily bath. To get it sometimes when I
have been the guest of my own people in a single-roomed cabin has not
been easy to do except by slipping away to some stream in the woods. I
have always tried to teach my people that some provision for bathing
should be a part of every house.”[8]
For some time he had only one pair of socks. He had a time of it with
these socks. When they were too soiled to wear, he would wash them out
at night, hang them by the fire and dry them out, and put them on the
next morning. He also had a hard time with his clothes. They had
inspection every morning. The students were lined up, and General
Armstrong passed along the lines and carefully examined every one. If a
button was off, or if the clothes were torn or soiled in any way, the
General would see it. Booker had a hard time keeping his clothes in such
a condition that they would pass muster.
His work as janitor was very hard. He often had to work late at night,
for he had many rooms to clean. He always got up at four o’clock in the
morning to build his fires and do some of his studying. He had a hard
time working and making expenses too. He usually borrowed his books from
other students. He soon got some more clothing from the barrels of
clothing sent to the school by people from the North. Board was ten
dollars a month, part of which he could pay by his work as janitor, but
a part of it he was supposed to pay in cash, and he had no cash. His
work was so satisfactory, however, that in a short while he was told
that his work would pay all of his board. S. Griffitts Morgan, of New
Bedford, Massachusetts, paid his tuition. At the end of the year he owed
the college only sixteen dollars.
When the college closed at the end of the term, all the students went
home. Booker could not go. It was too far, and he had no money. He
wanted to get away and get a job, so that he could pay the sixteen
dollars he owed. He had an extra secondhand coat; so he decided to sell
that to get money to go away on. He cleaned and pressed the coat, and
then let it be known that it was for sale. After a while a man came to
see it. He looked at it and asked the price. Booker told him three
dollars. The man said, “Well, I think I will take it. I will tell you
what I will do. I will pay you five cents cash, and the rest as soon as
I can get it.” How do you suppose Booker felt about that?
He finally got a job as a waiter in a restaurant at Fortress Monroe.
They did not pay him enough for him to save anything. One day when he
was cleaning up the place, he found a nice, crisp ten-dollar bill under
a table. He was very happy. Now he could pay back the money he owed at
Hampton. However, he thought he ought to tell the proprietor about
finding the ten dollars. He did so, and the proprietor coolly took the
ten-dollar bill, saying that, since the place belonged to him,
everything that was found in it naturally belonged to him.
After vacation was over, he returned to Hampton and was told that he
could have as long to pay the sixteen dollars as he wanted, and that he
could have a job as janitor again. So, his second year passed much the
same as the first. He devoted much of his time this year and the next to
the debating societies. He says that he never missed a single meeting
while he was at Hampton. He also organized a new society. He had twenty
minutes every night after supper before work began. Most of the
students, he observed, wasted this time. He proposed that good use be
made of this period in reading and speaking, and he organized a society
for that purpose. He says that no time he spent in college was more
valuable than this.
After the close of his second year, he went home to Malden to spend his
vacation. His brother John had sent him some money, and he had earned
some extra money. So he had enough to take him home. Everybody was
delighted to see him, but most of all, his mother. All the neighbors
insisted on his visiting them and taking a meal with them and telling
all about his college days. He also spoke at Sunday schools, at the day
school, and at churches, telling about his life at Hampton.
This was all very nice, but he wanted some work, so that he could earn
enough to take him back to Hampton in the fall. He was unable to find
any work because the salt furnaces and the coal mines were closed. One
day he went further than usual looking for something to do but without
success. On his way home he became so tired that he went into a deserted
cabin by the road to spend the night. About three o’clock some one woke
him up. It was his brother John, who told him that their mother had just
died.
This was a terrible shock to Booker. He had had no idea his mother was
so ill. He had always wanted to be with her and care for her. He had
looked forward to the time when he might make enough money for her to
live in comfort. He loved her very dearly, and her death was the hardest
blow he had ever received.
It was not long after this that he got some work and saved enough money
to take him back to Hampton. During his third year at college he worked
harder than ever. He was still working as janitor, but every single
minute he had after his work was done he spent on his studies. College
boys in those days did not have time to play football, baseball, and
tennis. They did not have time to go on picnics or have dances.
[Illustration:
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S CLASS (1875) AT HAMPTON INSTITUTE
Washington is the second from the left in the front row. Miss Mary
Mackie is the first on the left in the row of women. General
Armstrong is standing directly behind Miss Mackie.
]
The highest honor at Hampton was to be selected as commencement speaker.
This honor Booker was anxious to win. He worked very hard for it, and,
when commencement day came in June, 1875, he sat on the platform among
the honor men of his class as one of the orators. He was given his
diploma, and his college days were over.
He had done a good job. He had done the kind of work that makes real
men. He had trained his mind and his hands. He had built character. He
was not ashamed. He could hold his head up and look the world in the
face. He had learned to help himself. He was independent and had gained
self-confidence and self-control. He knew little of Latin, but he knew
much of labor. He knew no Greek, but he knew how to dig. He knew the
soil. He knew people. He was ready for the great work that lay before
him.