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_Compliments of_
_BOOKER T. WASHINGTON_
_Principal Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute
Tuskegee Institute, Alabama_
TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE
[Illustration: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.]
TUSKEGEE & ITS PEOPLE: THEIR IDEALS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
EDITED BY
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
1906
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
_Published June, 1905_
PREFACE
In a general way the reading public is fairly well acquainted with the
work of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, but there is
continued demand for definite information as to just what the graduates
of that institution are doing with their education.
That inquiry is partly answered by this book. The scope of the Tuskegee
Institute work is outlined by the chapters contained in Part I, while
those of Part II evidence the fact that the graduates of the school are
grappling at first-hand with the conditions that environ the masses of
the Negro people.
At the school, in addition to the regular Normal School course of
academic work, thirty-six industries are taught the young men and women.
These are: Agriculture; Basketry; Blacksmithing; Bee-keeping;
Brickmasonry; Plastering; Brick-making; Carpentry; Carriage Trimming;
Cooking; Dairying; Architectural, Freehand, and Mechanical Drawing;
Dressmaking; Electrical and Steam Engineering; Founding; Harness-making;
Housekeeping; Horticulture; Canning; Plain Sewing; Laundering;
Machinery; Mattress-making; Millinery; Nurse Training; Painting;
Sawmilling; Shoemaking; Printing; Stock-raising; Tailoring; Tinning; and
Wheelwrighting.
Since the founding of the institution, July 4, 1881, seven hundred and
forty-six graduates have gone out from the institution, while more than
six thousand others who were not able to remain and complete the
academic course, and thereby secure a diploma, have been influenced for
good by it.
The school has sought from the very beginning to make itself of
practical value to the Negro people and to the South as well. It has
taught those industries that are of the South, the occupations in which
our men and women find most ready employment, and unflinchingly has
refused to abandon its course; it has sought to influence its young men
and women to live unselfish, sacrificing lives; to put into practise the
lessons taught on every side that make for practical, helpful every-day
living.
In the main those who go out from Tuskegee Institute, (1) follow the
industry they have been taught, (2) teach in a public or private school
or teach part of the year and farm or labor the rest, (3) follow
housekeeping or other domestic service, or (4) enter a profession or the
Government service, or become merchants. Among the teachers are many who
instruct in farming or some industry; the professional men are largely
physicians, and the professional women mostly trained nurses. Dr.
Washington, the Principal of the school, makes the unqualified
statement: "After diligent investigation, I can not find a dozen former
students in idleness. They are in shop, field, schoolroom, home, or the
church. They are busy because they have placed themselves in demand by
learning to do that which the world wants done, and because they have
learned the disgrace of idleness and the sweetness of labor."
No attempt has here been made to represent all of the industries; no
attempt has especially been made to confine representation to those who
are working at manual labor. The public, or at least a part of it,
somewhat gratuitously, has reached the conclusion that Tuskegee
Institute is a "servant training school," or an employment agency. That
is a mistaken idea.
The object of the school is to train men and women who will go out and
repeat the work done here, to teach what they have learned to others,
and to leaven the whole mass of the Negro people in the South with a
desire for the knowledge and profitable operation of those industries in
which they have in so large a measure the right of way. Tuskegee
students and graduates are never urged not to take such service,
especially not to refuse in preference to idleness, but it all involves
a simple, ordinary, economic principle. Capable men and women, skilled
in the industrial arts, are like those of all races--they seek the most
profitable employment. A blacksmith, a tailor, a brickmason, a
harness-maker, or other artisan, who can find work in shops and
factories, or independently, and make thirty to seventy-five dollars a
month, and even more, will not, simply because he is black, leave those
chances to accept service in private employment for fifteen dollars per
month, and less, and board himself. No school could covenant to train
servants for an indefinite tenure; it can at best only promise to train
leaders who shall go among the masses and lift them up; to train men and
women who shall in turn reach hundreds of others.
Those who write the following chapters represent, in the main, this
class. They have written simply, with perfect frankness, have dealt with
the significant things of their lives, and have demonstrated, the
writer believes, that from humble origin black men and women may
confidently be counted upon, with proper encouragement, to win success.
The chapters are autobiographical, significantly optimistic, with just
pride in what has been done, and outlining, as did "Up from
Slavery"--which was commended as a proper model--experiences from
childhood, the school-life of the writer, and the results achieved in
the direction of putting into practise what was learned in school.
Through this symposium it is hoped that the public may learn, in the
best possible way, some of the finer results already accomplished by the
Tuskegee Institute.
E. J. S.
TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE, ALABAMA, _April 1, 1905_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1
By Booker T. Washington.
PART I
THE SCHOOL AND ITS PURPOSES
I.--PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND GOVERNING IDEALS 19
By Emmett J. Scott, Mr. Washington's Executive Secretary.
II.--RESOURCES AND MATERIAL EQUIPMENT 35
By Warren Logan, Treasurer of the School.
III.--THE ACADEMIC AIMS 56
By Roscoe C. Bruce, Director of the Academic Department.
IV.--WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT, AND HOW 68
By Mrs. Booker T. Washington, Director of Industries for Girls.
V.--HAMPTON INSTITUTE'S RELATION TO TUSKEGEE 87
By Robert R. Moton.
PART II
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES BY GRADUATES OF THE SCHOOL
I.--A COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S STORY 101
By Isaac Fisher, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
II.--A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 111
By William H. Holtzclaw, of Utica, Mississippi.
III.--A LAWYER'S STORY 141
By George W. Lovejoy, of Mobile, Alabama.
IV.--A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY 152
By Martin A. Menafee, of Denmark, South Carolina.
V.--THE STORY OF A FARMER 164
By Frank Reid, of Dawkins, Alabama.
VI.--THE STORY OF A CARPENTER 173
By Gabriel B. Miller, of Fort Valley, Georgia.
VII.--COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 184
By John W. Robinson, of Lome, Togo, West Africa.
VIII.--THE STORY OF A TEACHER OF COOKING 200
By Mary L. Dotson, of Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
IX.--A WOMAN'S WORK 211
By Cornelia Bowen, of Waugh (Mt. Meigs), Alabama.
X.--UPLIFTING OF THE SUBMERGED MASSES 224
By W. J. Edwards, of Snow Hill, Alabama.
XI.--A DAIRYMAN'S STORY 253
By Lewis A. Smith, of Rockford, Illinois.
XII.--THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT 264
By Edward Lomax, of Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
XIII.--THE STORY OF A BLACKSMITH 276
By Jubie B. Bragg, of Tallahassee, Florida.
XIV.--A DRUGGIST'S STORY 285
By David L. Johnston, of Birmingham, Alabama.
XV.--THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR OF MECHANICAL INDUSTRIES 299
By James M. Canty, of Institute P. O., West Virginia.
XVI.--A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 317
By Russell C. Calhoun, of Eatonville, Florida.
XVII.--THE EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 338
By Charles L. Marshall, of Cambria, Virginia.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON _Frontispiece_
EMMETT J. SCOTT 20
Mr. Washington's Executive Secretary.
THE COLLIS P. HUNTINGTON MEMORIAL BUILDING 26
WARREN LOGAN 36
Treasurer of the School
THE OFFICE BUILDING IN PROCESS OF ERECTION 50
Student carpenters shown at work.
ROSCOE C. BRUCE 56
Director of the Academic Department.
A PORTION OF THE SCHOOL GROUNDS 64
ANOTHER PORTION OF THE SCHOOL GROUNDS 66
MRS. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 68
Director of Industries for Girls.
A CLASS IN MILLINERY 76
THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 94
Standing, left to right: P. C. Parks, Superintendent of Farm;
George W. Carver, Director, Agricultural Department; J. N. Calloway,
Land Extension; John H. Palmer, Registrar; Charles H. Gibson,
Resident Auditor; Edgar J. Penney, Chaplain.
Seated, left to right: Lloyd G. Wheeler, Business Agent; Robert R.
Taylor, Director of Mechanical Industries; John H. Washington,
General Superintendent of Industries; Warren Logan, Treasurer; Booker
T. Washington, Principal; Miss Jane E. Clark, Dean of Woman's
Department; Mrs. Booker T. Washington, Director of Industries for
Girls; and Emmett J. Scott, Secretary to the Principal.
The Director of the Academic Department, Roscoe C. Bruce, and the
Commandant of Cadets, Major J. B. Ramsey, also members of the
Executive Council, were absent when photograph was taken.
THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY BUILDING 108
MORNING AT THE BARNS ON THE SCHOOL FARM 122
Teams of horses and cattle ready to start for the day's work.
STUDENTS PRUNING PEACH-TREES 146
A SILO ON THE FARM 166
Students filling it with fodder corn, steam-power being used.
A MODEL DINING-ROOM 208
From the department where table-service is taught.
THE CULTURE OF BEES 220
Students at work in the apiary.
IN THE DAIRY 254
Students using separators.
STUDENTS AT WORK IN THE HARNESS SHOP 270
AT THE HOSPITAL 294
A corner in the boys' ward.
IN THE TIN SHOP 300
STUDENTS CANNING FRUIT 308
STARTING A NEW BUILDING 314
Student masons laying the foundation in brick.
GIRLS GARDENING 344
TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Institutions, like individuals, are properly judged by their ideals,
their methods, and their achievements in the production of men and women
who are to do the world's work.
One school is better than another in proportion as its system touches
the more pressing needs of the people it aims to serve, and provides the
more speedily and satisfactorily the elements that bring to them
honorable and enduring success in the struggle of life. Education of
some kind is the first essential of the young man, or young woman, who
would lay the foundation of a career. The choice of the school to which
one will go and the calling he will adopt must be influenced in a very
large measure by his environments, trend of ambition, natural capacity,
possible opportunities in the proposed calling, and the means at his
command.
In the past twenty-four years thousands of the youth of this and other
lands have elected to come to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute to secure what they deem the training that would offer them
the widest range of usefulness in the activities open to the masses of
the Negro people. Their hopes, fears, strength, weaknesses, struggles,
and triumphs can not fail to be of absorbing interest to the great body
of American people, more particularly to the student of educational
theories and their attendant results.
When an institution has, like Tuskegee Institute, reached that stage in
its development that its system of instruction has aroused very general
discussion, and has given to the world of varied industry an army of
workers, numbering not less than 6,000, there is a natural curiosity on
the part of the public to learn all that is possible of such an
institution, and of the personality and methods of those administering
its affairs. They wish to ascertain the actual truth concerning its
resources and equipment; they want figures detailing the degree of
pecuniary productiveness and moral efficiency attained by those who have
received the prescribed training; and they are eager to hear the whole
story from the lips of both the instructors and the instructed as to how
the recorded results have been accomplished.
In several volumes already published, bearing upon Tuskegee Institute
and what it stands for, an endeavor has been made to present a truthful
account of the Principal's early strivings and life-work; an honest
attempt has been made to analyze and impress the basic principles upon
which Tuskegee Institute was founded. It has been the aim to write a
history of individual yearnings for the light of knowledge that would
stir the inner consciousness of the humblest of the race and arouse him
to the vast possibilities that lie in the wake of solid character,
intelligent industry, and material acquisition. He has tried, with all
earnestness, to hold up the future of the American Negro in its most
attractive aspect, and to emphasize the virile philosophy that there is
a positive dignity in working with the hands, when that labor is
fortified by a developed brain and a consecrated heart.
Though much has been said of the spirit and purpose of this center of
social and economic uplift in the famed Black Belt of the South, there
is still a wide-spread demand for a more specific recital of what is
being done here, by whom, under what conditions, and the concrete
evidences of the benefits that are growing out of the thrift, industry,
right thinking, and right living taught by our faculty.
In response to this insistent call, Mr. Emmett J. Scott, Executive
Secretary of the Tuskegee Institute, presents to the public a further
contribution, Tuskegee and Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements,
with authentic accompanying autobiographies of a number of typical
students of the school.
To this work Mr. Scott brings a peculiar fitness, unequaled by any other
person who might have been chosen to perform it. He is closely knit to
the Southland and her great masses by the common sympathy of nativity
and the mutuality of hopes. The South has always been his home, but he
has traveled so extensively and mingled so freely that he has acquired
most ample breadth of vision as regards men and things.
For many years now Mr. Scott has served the school with rare fidelity
and zeal, and has been to the Principal not only a loyal assistant in
every phase of his manifold and frequently trying duties, but has proved
a valuable personal friend and counselor in matters of the most
delicate nature, exhibiting in emergencies a quality of judgment and
diplomatic calmness seldom found in men of even riper maturity and more
extended experience.
As I stated in one of my books published several years ago, as far as
one individual can fill the place of another, Mr. Scott has acted in the
Principal's stead, seeing with the Principal's eyes and hearing with the
Principal's ears, counting no sacrifice too great to be made for
Tuskegee's well-being. He is in perfect accord with the fundamental
principles and practical policies through the persistent adherence to
which Tuskegee Institute has won its conspicuous place in the
educational world.
The volume here presented has been edited by Mr. Scott with the utmost
care, he preferring to have the contributors understate rather than
overstate the results that have come from the labors of Tuskegee and its
people. It has been the Principal's pleasure and privilege to examine
and critically review the manuscript after its completion, and the
volume is so praiseworthy that it is given his cordial approval. The
task of editing he had expected to perform has been so well done that it
has only been necessary to review the manuscript after its preparation
for the publishers, and to forego the strict editorial revisioning
planned. The book is an accurate portrait of the Tuskegee of to-day, and
reasonably forecasts the hopes for the institution of to-morrow. It
tells with forceful directness and graphic precision the formative work
that is being done for this generation, and supplies a fulcrum upon
which there may justly rest a prophecy of greater things for the
generations that are to follow.
A Tuskegee book, whatever its primary motive, is invariably expected to
deal broadly with the entire problem of the Negro and his relationships
of every kind. It must be more than a mere flesh-and-blood narrative,
descriptive of the material progress of the men and women the Institute
has produced and is producing. It must be a book free from ostentatious
pretension, breathing the atmosphere of the life of the earnest people
it describes. It must, of course, exhibit not only the achievements, but
also the ideals, the possibilities of the Tuskegee trained man and
woman. This, I feel, is adequately done in this volume.
Tuskegee and Its People possesses ideals in thought, morals, and
action--and they are lofty. In these respects the symposium will not
prove a disappointment. This instinct for the ideal, however, lies not
in idly sighing for it, but is born of an abiding belief that worth is
intrinsic, and that applied common sense, practical knowledge, constancy
of effort, and mechanical skill will make a place for the patient
striver far more secure than the artificial niche into which some one
may thrust him. The masses who are most helpfully reached by the
Tuskegee Institute are coming to realize that education in its truest
sense is no longer to be regarded as an emotional impulse, a fetish made
up of loosely joined information, to be worshiped for its mere
possession, but as a practical means to a definite end. They are being
taught that mind-training is the logical helpmeet of hand-training, and
that both, supplemented and sweetened by heart-training, make the
high-souled, useful, productive, patriotic, law-loving, public-spirited
citizen, of whom any nation might well be proud. The outcome of such
education will be that, instead of the downtrodden child of ignorance,
shiftlessness, and moral weakness, we shall generate the thoroughly
rounded man of prudence, foresight, responsibility, and financial
independence. He will cease to be the gullible victim of the sharper who
plays upon vanity, credulity, and superstition, and learn to value only
that which is real and substantial. It is of the highest importance to
the Negro, who must make his way amid disadvantages and embarrassments
of the severest character, that he be made aware of the vast difference
between working and being worked. In carrying this inspiring message and
impressing these fundamental truths, the new Tuskegee book renders a
splendid service.
Industrial training will be more potent for good to the race when its
relation to the other phases of essential education is more clearly
understood. There is afloat no end of discussion as to what is the
"proper kind of education for the Negro," and much of it is hurtful to
the cause it is designed to promote. The danger, at present, that most
seriously threatens the success of industrial training, is the
ill-advised insistence in certain quarters that this form of education
should be offered to the exclusion of all other branches of knowledge.
If the idea becomes fixed in the minds of the people that industrial
education means class education, that it should be offered the Negro
because he is a Negro, and that the Negro should be confined to this
sort of education, then I fear serious injury will be done the cause of
hand-training. It should be understood rather that at such institutions
as Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute, industrial education is not
emphasized because colored people are to receive it, but because the
ripest educational thought of the world approves it; because the
undeveloped material resources of the South make it peculiarly important
for both races; and because it should be given in a large measure to any
race, regardless of color, which is in the same stage of development as
the Negro.
On the other hand, no one understanding the real needs of the race would
advocate that industrial education should be given to every Negro to the
exclusion of the professions and other branches of learning. It is
evident that a race so largely segregated as the Negro is, must have an
increasing number of its own professional men and women. There is, then,
a place and an increasing need for the Negro college as well as for the
industrial institute, and the two classes of schools should, and as a
matter of fact do, cooperate in the common purpose of elevating the
masses. There is nothing in hand-training to suggest that it is a
class-training. The best educational authorities in the world are
indorsing it as an essential feature in the education of both races,
and especially so when a very large proportion of the people in question
are compelled by dint of circumstances to earn their living in
manufactures and agricultural and mechanical pursuits in general. It so
happens that the bulk of our people are permanently to remain in the
South, and conditions beyond their control have attached them to the
soil; for a long time the status of the majority of them is likely to be
that of laborers. To make hard conditions easier, to raise common labor
from drudgery to dignity, and to adopt systems of training that will
meet the needs of the greatest number and prepare them for the better
things that intelligent effort will surely bring, form a task to which
the wisest of the race are addressing themselves with an eager
enthusiasm which refuses to be chilled by adverse criticism.
Tuskegee emphasizes industrial training for the Negro, not with the
thought that the Negro should be confined to industrialism, the plow, or
the hoe, but because the undeveloped material resources of the South
offer at this time a field peculiarly advantageous to the worker skilled
in agriculture and the industries, and here are found the Negro's most
inviting opportunities for taking on the rudimentary elements that
ultimately make for a permanently progressive civilization.
The Tuskegee Idea is that correct education begins at the bottom, and
expands naturally as the necessities of the people expand. As the race
grows in knowledge, experience, culture, taste, and wealth, its wants
are bound to become more and more diverse; and to satisfy these wants
there will be gradually developed within our own ranks--as has already
been true of the whites--a constantly increasing variety of professional
and business men and women. Their places in the economic world will be
assured and their prosperity guaranteed in proportion to the merit
displayed by them in their several callings, for about them will have
been established the solid bulwark of an industrial mass to which they
may safely look for support. The esthetic demands will be met as the
capacity of the race to procure them is enlarged through the processes
of sane intellectual advancement. In this cumulative way there will be
erected by the Negro, and for the Negro, a complete and indestructible
civilization that will be respected by all whose respect is worth the
having. There should be no limit placed upon the development of any
individual because of color, and let it be understood that no one kind
of training can safely be prescribed for any entire race. Care should be
taken that racial education be not one-sided for lack of adaptation to
personal fitness, nor unwieldy through sheer top-heaviness. Education,
to fulfil its mission for any people anywhere, should be symmetrical and
sensible.
A mastery of the industries taught at Tuskegee presupposes and requires
no small degree of academic study, for competency in agriculture calls
for considerable knowledge of chemistry, and no mechanical pursuit can
be followed satisfactorily without some acquaintance with the "three
R's." Likewise, the individual of liberal academic or college
preparation possesses a stronger equipment for constructive work who has
trained his hands to supplement his brain.
After all, the final test of the value of any system of education is
found in the record of its actual achievements. In Tuskegee and Its
People heads of the several departments have not only given a succinct
account of the history, resources, and current labors of the school, but
deal most happily with the governing ideals behind the institution, and
vindicate its claim to the approval of the world's thinkers and moving
forces. Besides treating rather elaborately the structural efficiency
of the work of the teachers, the editor has not neglected to emphasize
the spiritual and ethical virtues that spread over a wider range of
influence here and among our people throughout the Southland than those
familiar with the purely academic phases have adequately understood.
Tuskegee's germ principle is to be found in its unboasted ideals, in the
things that of necessity can not be listed in catalogue or report,
rather than in its buildings, shops, farms, and what not. The school
dwells upon the saving power of land, and learning, and skill, and a
bank-account--not as finalities in themselves, but as tangible witnesses
to the Negro's capacity to compete with others.
Perhaps the newest and most refreshing feature of the book is its vivid
pen-portraits of the young men and women who have gone out of Tuskegee
carrying into diversified lives the principles and precepts imbibed from
their parent school. The pictures are drawn by the originals themselves,
and they illustrate by honorable achievement the wholesome and
evangelizing influence of Tuskegee's preachments, and the far-reaching
effect of placing before them as teachers the highest example of what
the Negro of morals and manners may become. They tell their story at
first-hand, modestly and sincerely, and the foundations of inspiring
lives, laid in the Christian virtues and conscientious service of their
fellow men, foster a firm belief that the school is doing a work that
will live.
These types of Tuskegee's graduates, picked out at random from hundreds
of equal scholarship and ability, represent distinctive channels of
activity, including the president of a leading college, principals and
teachers of thriving schools, a lawyer, a tinner, a school treasurer,
farmers, cotton-growers, master builders and contractors, a dairyman,
and a blacksmith. No element contributing to the racial uplift is
overlooked. The scenes of their labors are scattered over a vast area,
showing convincingly the diffusive character as well as the rich harvest
garnered through the Tuskegee Idea. These rough-hewn sketches of a
sturdy pioneer band in staking out a larger life and a wider horizon for
later generations are worthy of the most careful perusal.
The immeasurable advancement of the Negro, manifested in character,
courage, and cash, vitalized by valiant service to the republic in
education, commerce, and religion, and crowned by an enlightened,
vigorously efficient, sensibly ambitious, and law-abiding citizenship,
is "confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ" that the gospel of
industry, as exemplified by Tuskegee and its helpers, has exerted a
leavening influence upon civilization wherever it has been brought
within the reach of those who are struggling toward the heights. Under
this new dispensation of mind, morals, and muscle, with the best whites
and best blacks in sympathetic cooperation, and justice meaning the same
to the weak as to the strong, the South will no longer be vexed by a
"race problem." Peace and prosperity for all will come with the strength
to rise above the baser self. Civic righteousness is the South's
speediest thoroughfare to economic greatness.
A book that opens the inner chambers of a people's heart, and sheds a
light that may guide the footsteps of both races along the upward way,
should meet with a hearty welcome at the hands of all lovers of
mankind.
_PART I_
_THE SCHOOL AND ITS PURPOSES_
I
PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND GOVERNING IDEALS
BY EMMETT J. SCOTT
So much has been said about Tuskegee Institute as a training-school in
which to prepare young colored men and women for earning a living in the
world of trade and business, that the ideals and spirit behind all this
training are to a very large extent lost sight of.
Tuskegee, with its hundreds of acres of farm-land under intelligent
cultivation, with its ever-increasing number of well-appointed buildings
and its equipment, and the many things on the grounds included in the
name of handicrafts, is always in the public eye, and continually
appeals to the interest of those who are deeply concerned in the
well-being and progress of the Negro people.
Yet behind all of these more tangible manifestations of work, skill, and
achievement, there is an unseen, persistent groping after the higher
ideals of life and living. No one can remain long on the grounds as an
intelligent observer of all that is to be here seen and felt, without
recognizing that the things that are not written in the catalogue and
not a part of the daily program of activities are real, vital, and of
far-reaching importance.
Principal Booker T. Washington and the men and women who have helped him
to build Tuskegee Institute are constantly looking beyond the present to
a future filled with the evidences of a better living for all those who
have felt the transforming spirit of the hidden forces at work.
How the perspective widens and deepens! Far, far beyond the confines of
the Tuskegee Institute community the light of this new life is seen and
felt and has its salutary effect. The stagnant life of centuries has
awakened, and is casting off its bonds. A new term, "intelligent
thrift," has come into its possession. Wherever this term has gone and
taken root, there has gone with it the thought that unless the idea make
for character, as well as for more cotton or corn, it is not of much
value.
The Tuskegee Idea always asks one question, and that is, "What are you?"
and not, "What have you?" The man who does not rise superior to his
possessions does not measure up to the Tuskegee idea of manhood.
[Illustration: EMMETT J. SCOTT.
Mr. Washington's Executive Secretary.]
In other words, character-building is the Alpha and Omega of all that
Tuskegee stands for. From the moment the new student comes on the
grounds until he leaves, he is appealed to in ways innumerable to regard
life as more than bread or meat, as more than mere mental equipment.
Cleanliness, decorum, promptness, truthfulness--these are old-fashioned
virtues, and are more properly taught in the home, but in Tuskegee they
mean everything. Tuskegee not only acts as a teacher, but assumes the
rôle of parent, and lays emphasis on the importance of these virtues
every moment of the time from the entrance of the student until
Commencement Day. The "cleanliness that is next to godliness" is one of
the Tuskegee ideals, and a student can scarcely commit a more serious
misdemeanor than to appear slovenly, either in dress or manners. The
facilities and requirements for bathing are quite as complete and
exacting as the equipments in the laboratories and recitation-rooms. The
result is that Tuskegee has the reputation of being one of the most
cleanly and sanitary institutions in the South.
As for good manners, Lord Chesterfield himself would scarcely ask more
than is insisted upon by Tuskegee precision. A man must first be
conscious of being a gentleman before he can be recognized as such by
others, and a girl's good manners are only outward evidences of her
individual worth and passport to respectful treatment. Tuskegee
Institute, then, insists upon these things because they make for
character, and are a part of the ideals toward which all training tends.
But how are all these things taught and enforced? The first requisite,
of course, is the character of the teachers and instructors themselves,
the men and women who are the embodiment of the ideals that Tuskegee
Institute stands for. While it can not be claimed that the best teachers
in the South are all at Tuskegee, it can be said that no other school
has so large a number of colored men and women who have had the
advantage of the highest industrial and intellectual, moral and
religious training. The teaching force is made up largely of graduates
from nearly every first-class educational institution in America. These
teachers have been carefully sought out and brought to Tuskegee, not
only for their teaching ability, but that the students may have the
benefit of the best examples before them of what the highest culture can
do for men and women of their own race. For the majority of our students
the perspective of life is narrow: many of them have never lived out of
the community in which they were born. That was their only world; their
ideals of life were shaped by their mean and narrow environments. They
have learned to believe, and act accordingly, that the best people are
all of one complexion, and the worst and poorest people are all of
another complexion. There is no such thing as creating a sentiment of
race pride in such people unless they have set before them living
examples of their own race in whom they can feel a sense of pride.
It is scarcely too much to say that one of the best things about the
Tuskegee Institute is that it wins our young men and women from mean and
sordid environment and brings them in contact with teachers whose minds,
hearts, and lives have been enlarged and graced by the highest learning
in the best educational institutions of the country. The school teaches
no more important lesson than that of cultivating a sense of pride and
respect for colored men and women who deserve it because of their
character, education, and achievements.
Pride of race, though not so written in the courses of study, is as much
a part of Tuskegee's work as agriculture, brick-making, millinery, or
any other trade, and quite as important. This may be called sentiment,
but it makes for race development quite as much as any of the material
things taught in the class-room or shop. To borrow a line from George
Eliot:
"Because our race has no great memories,
I will so live, it shall remember me
For deeds of such divine beneficence
As rivers have, that teach men what is good
By blessing them--
And make their name, now but a badge of scorn,
A glorious banner floating in their midst,
Stirring the air they breathe with impulses
Of generous pride, exalting fellowship
Until it soars to magnanimity."
That self-respect demands race pride; that virtue is its own reward;
that character is the greatest thing in human life, are taught and
emphasized in other ways also. Dr. Washington has succeeded, to a
remarkable degree, in developing the Tuskegee Institute by insisting
that this institution must have nothing less than the best within and
without it, everywhere. What is not best is only temporary. Those who
have done most for the school have been made to feel that the character
of the work done here and the ideals striven for are deserving of the
best. The idea that "anything is good enough for a Negro school" has
never been allowed to have any part or exert any effect in Tuskegee's
expansion.
For example, when Mr. Carnegie donated the money for a library for
Tuskegee, a building was erected of classic outline--a noble structure
of artistic symmetry and beauty that must appeal to every one who has
any appreciation of architectural beauty. The Collis P. Huntington
Memorial Building, just completed, a gift of Mrs. C. P. Huntington, used
for the academic classes of the school, would be a credit and delight to
any municipality. There is everything about the exterior and interior
that must awaken a sense of pride in every pupil who enters its portals.
Its facilities are sensible and unostentatious, yet they meet every
requirement of the department. What is true of the new Academic Building
is likewise true of the various dormitories for girls and boys. The
cleanliness and the sanitation to be found at Tuskegee are in delightful
contrast to the poor environment to which many of the students have been
accustomed; especially is this contrast heightened when these same
students have, under competent direction, installed the plants which
yield these comforts. Thus it is that in dormitory, recitation-room,
shop, dining-hall, library, chapel, and landscape, the idea that only
the best is worth having and striving for is emphasized as an
object-lesson and principle with such insistence that it becomes an
actual part of a student's training and life.
The student at Tuskegee is constantly being trained to look up and
forward. He learns how the idea of beauty can be actualized in home and
social life; how faithful performance of every duty means nobility of
character; how the value of achievement is determined by the motive
behind it. But besides these, the one aim, thought, or anxiety around
which all others revolve is the high honorableness of all kinds of work
intelligently done.
In a section where those who work with their hands are marked off by the
inexorable line of caste from those who work with their brains or not at
all, this idea of making intelligent work more honorable than
intelligent idleness is of constructive value in race development. The
problem that the Tuskegee Institute is helping to solve is not only that
the colored people shall do their proportionate share of the work, but
that they shall do it in such a way that the benefits will remain with
those who do the work. Who can measure the transforming effect and
influence when it can be said that the "best mechanics" and the "best
agriculturists" in the South are Negroes? Certainly, if such a time ever
comes, there will be no such painful thing as a race problem, as Negroes
now see it and feel it.
[Illustration: THE COLLIS P. HUNTINGTON MEMORIAL BUILDING.]
This is one of Tuskegee's largest ideals; not that Tuskegee alone can
bring about a "consummation so devoutly to be wished," but it is
ambitious to be a potent factor in all the tendencies that make for such
a condition of life in the heart of the South. So important is this aim
and idea of Tuskegee, that it allows no criticism to affect, interfere,
or obscure its vision. Tuskegee says to the world that it is determined
not only to be a school, but an agent of civilization, a missionary for
a better life, that shall stand for a kindlier relationship between the
races.
The school enthusiastically seeks to live up to the ideal of its
Principal, that education in the broadest and truest sense is designed
to influence individuals to help others; is designed, first, last, and
all the time, to transform and energize individuals into life-giving
agencies for the uplift of their fellows. Principal Washington's whole
educational creed, accepted by Tuskegee Institute teachers and students
alike, was recently declared in one of his familiar Sunday-evening
"talks" to the students of the institution. Said he:
"Education in the broadest and truest sense will make an individual seek
to help all people, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless
of condition. And you will find that the person who is most truly
educated is the one who is going to be kindest, and is going to act in
the gentlest manner toward persons who are unfortunate, toward the race
or the individual that is most despised. The highly educated person is
the one who is most considerate of those individuals who are less
fortunate. I hope when you go out from here and meet persons who are
afflicted by poverty, whether of mind or body, or persons who are
unfortunate in any way, that you will show your education by being just
as kind and considerate toward those persons as it is possible for you
to be. That is the way to test a person with education. You may see
ignorant persons, who perhaps think themselves educated, going about the
street, and when they meet an individual who is unfortunate--lame, or
with a defect of body, mind, or speech--are inclined to laugh at and
make sport of that individual. But the highly educated person, the one
who is really cultivated, is gentle and sympathetic to every one.
Education is meant to make us absolutely honest in dealing with our
fellows. I do not care how much arithmetic we have, or how many cities
we can locate; it is all useless unless we have an education that makes
us absolutely honest. Education is meant to make us give satisfaction,
and to get satisfaction out of giving it. It is meant to make us get
happiness out of service for our fellows. And until we get to the point
where we can get happiness and supreme satisfaction out of helping our
fellows, we are not truly educated.... Education is meant to make us
appreciate the things that are beautiful in nature. A person is never
educated until he is able to go into the swamps and woods and see
something that is beautiful in the trees and shrubs there--is able to
see something beautiful in the grass and flowers that surround him--is,
in short, able to see something beautiful, elevating, and inspiring in
everything that God has created. Not only should education enable us to
see beauty in these objects which God has put about us, but it is meant
to influence us to bring beautiful objects about us. I hope that each
one of you, after you graduate, will surround himself at home with what
is beautiful, inspiring, and elevating. I do not believe that any
person is educated so long as he lives in a dirty, miserable shanty. I
do not believe that any person is educated until he has learned to want
to live in a clean room made attractive with pictures and books, and
with such surroundings as are elevating. In a word, I wish to say again
that education is meant to give us that culture, that refinement, that
taste, which will make us deal truthfully and sympathetically with our
fellow men, and will make us see what is beautiful, elevating, and
inspiring in what God has created. I want you to bear in mind that your
text-books, with all their contents, are not an end, but a means to an
end--a means to help us get the highest, the best, the purest, and the
most beautiful things out of life."
The Tuskegee trained boy or girl has set before him every hour in the
day, and every day in the year, the substantial educational ideals here
set forth. Books, valuable as they are, and nowhere more thoroughly
reckoned as such than here, are only a means to an end: this is the
gospel preached by the Tuskegee teacher. Life is the great, the eternal
thing; the serving of one's fellows, the ministering unto the needy of a
groping, developing people--this is the thing not forgotten, but ever
constantly enforced by precept and by example.
The many old and time-worn frame buildings are being replaced by finely
built and imposing brick and stone structures; the tallow dip and
antiquated oil-lamp and gas-jet, as illuminators, have paled before the
more brilliant white light of electricity, installed by Tuskegee
students and operated by them. Patience and faith!--these are Tuskegee's
watchwords and her standard virtues. What can not be accomplished to-day
will certainly be accomplished to-morrow.
So, in its larger outlook and household anxieties, Tuskegee Institute
teachers are confident that the things taught and enforced by example
and precept will justify their efforts in helping to make a dependent
people independent, a distracted people confident, and an humble people
to thrill with pride in itself and in its best men and women. Thus it is
that Tuskegee Institute has never been satisfied with being merely a
school, concerned wholly with its recitations and training in shop and
field. Every student who carries a diploma from these grounds is urged
not to hang that diploma on the wall as an ornament, as an evidence of
individual superiority, but to make it mean something constructive and
life-giving to every one in the community where he must live and work.
The young men and women who are trained for mission work in foreign
countries are not more carefully trained in the spirit of consecration
than are these young men and women trained at Tuskegee for the work of
creating better economic and social conditions among their own people.
It is not necessary to state here what has already been accomplished in
many parts of the South by Tuskegee graduates. The selected examples set
forth in this book are evidence enough. It is sufficient to say that the
Tuskegee Institute is determined to become more and more a distinctive
influence among the regenerative agencies that are gradually bringing
order out of chaos, and justice, peace, and happiness out of the
wretched disorders of a painful past. It is easy to trace the influence
of such well-established institutions as Harvard and Yale in the
progressive life of the American people. The sons of Harvard and Yale
almost dominate civilization in America. In another sense, it is
possible for Tuskegee to have a like influence in the many things that
must be accomplished in the South, before love and justice shall
supplant race prejudice and race antagonism.
This reaching out helpfully in all directions where help is needed is
the distinguishing feature of Tuskegee. This race-loving spirit gives it
a largeness of view and purpose that saves both its teachers and pupils
from being narrow and self-centered. Take from Tuskegee all this "vision
splendid," and it will at once shrink into common-place insignificance.
"Set your ideals high," says the distinguished man who here is Principal
as he was founder, "and in your efforts to reach them you become strong
for greater things." It is but truth to say that no institution in all
the land, whether for white or black education, stands for higher and
more generous ideals.
Unless the young man who goes away from Tuskegee as blacksmith,
carpenter, printer, or as any other mechanic, is something more than
these, he has been incapable of perceiving and taking in the ideals that
go with these accomplishments. He has been taught over and over again to
"hitch his wagon to the stars," and if he fail to do so, the fault is in
himself, and not in Tuskegee.
As between a poor doctor and a poor carpenter, there is but scant
choice. They are both failures and to be avoided. Honor in one is as
precious as in the other. Honor and efficiency--these, therefore, are
the ideal test of every son and daughter that passes out of these
grounds into the larger world of work and responsibility.
What a terrible task it has been and still is to teach the lessons of
the upward spirit: "God's in His heaven, all's well with the world."
Hope is strength and discouragement is weakness. Everything that is
false and unjust and wrong is transitory. Those who are brave enough to
solve problems shall be more honored of mankind than those who create
problems which they make no effort to solve.
There can be no liberty without intelligence, no independence without
industry, and no power for man, and no charm for woman, without
character.
These are some of the ideals toward which all our teaching leads;
without these there would be no Tuskegee; with them, as its very life
and spirit and inspiration, Tuskegee shall lead into more ways of peace,
happiness, and power than we of this generation have yet dreamed of, or
realized.
II
RESOURCES AND MATERIAL EQUIPMENT
BY WARREN LOGAN