colors, drawing designs, studying textiles and fabrics for analysis in
her theory classes twice during her three days of work, finds added
inspiration for her three days of class-room study. If she is in the
Senior class, she specializes in geometry on her school-days and
mechanical drawing on her work-days. When our girl has finished her
course in drawing and begins one of the uniform hats worn by the
hundreds of girls, she ranks among the first milliners of the land in
the estimation of the beginners. She completes hat after hat, drapes
them until the number meets the requirement, and then comes her own
creation, a pattern hat, undersized of course, but a real dress hat and
a thing of beauty. It usually finds its way to the old home for her
mother and neighbors to admire. The commendation that comes back to the
school is worth its weight in gold.
[Illustration: A CLASS IN MILLINERY.]
But there are backward learners. Some there are who excel in embroidery,
crocheting, making ties and other fancy articles, but who have no
aptitude for shaping and trimming hats. They plod on, and win at last.
Then there is the girl whose parents wish her to open a millinery
establishment in their town. She tries, but finally agrees with her
long-suffering instructor that she would succeed at mattress-making and
upholstering instead.
The work in the Mattress Division begins with sheet, pillow-case,
table-linen, and comforter-making for the endless demands of the lodging
division of the boys and girls. Pulling shucks for the mattress is the
next step in advance, and when shucks are covered by the cotton layers
in the making, they prove an excellent substitute for the hair filling
of a more expensive manufacture, and they have an advantage in the
matter of cleanliness. Covering screen frames made in the Carpentry
Division for the numerous rooms, caning couches, rockers, and stools,
help add to the variety of work in the division. The girl is not
awarded her certificate until she has completed the round of work,
including the fashioning of a bedroom suite from barrels finally covered
with neat-figured denim. The semiweekly theory classes are not unlike
those of the plain-sewing division, and the girl is as proud of her
achievement with needle, hammer, and saw as if she were an adept in
lighter work.
When the machinery was introduced for Broom-making, the girls looked
askance at the appliances. But when the broom-corn was delivered from
the farm, and the pioneer girl broom-maker began threshing of the seed
in the cleaner, an interest was evinced that has increased with the
knowledge that the work, study, or manufacture (call it what you will)
is very productive, especially in the confines of the girls'
broom-factory at Tuskegee Institute. The poultry-yard bought the seeds
threshed off the broom-stalks; the hundreds of old handles collected
cost nothing, and when the wiring, stitching, and clipping were finished
and the girl saw the first broom turned out, there was triumph in the
fact that the industry was the most inexpensive and still the most
productive of credit of all the girls' industries under the roof of
Dorothy Hall. The evolution from the flag-straw broom used in cabins of
the South to the ones now completed and labeled, creates the sensation
of the girl-world in the trades school. The wonders brought out in the
theory class in connection with broom-making were marvelous.
Broom-making has come to remain with our other girls' industries.
Work in the Laundry presents another aspect to the onlooker, and he
doubtless decides on the spur of the moment that all is drudgery here.
Girls are then assorting countless pieces received on Mondays from
students and teachers. They are placing the assorted articles in cages
in the basement. Two boys are filling three washers with bed-linen, and
in another apartment two girls are weighing and measuring materials to
make more soap to add to the boxes standing in the soap-room. Girls
up-stairs in the wash-room are busy rubbing at the tubs. Some girls are
starching, and others are sending baskets down on the elevator for girls
below to hang in the drying-room. Others are in the assorting-room
putting away clothes-bags into numerous boxes. The ironing-room farther
on is filled with busy workers. Days come during every week when time is
spent in the study of laundry chemistry. Rust and mildew stains and
scorching are some of the problems of the Laundry, and they find
solution. Soap, starch, water, and bluing have their composite qualities
and are analyzed, and no more interesting correlation is there than that
of the laundry with the class-room.
Although each Tuskegee girl is expected to become proficient in one
trade at least, all are required to attend the cooking classes. Girls
belonging to certain classes are scattered in the various divisions,
each busily engaged at her chosen trade. At the ringing of the bells in
each division at stated hours, classes form and pass to the
training-kitchen for their lesson in cooking. Both night-school and
day-school girls report every day until every girl has received her
lesson weekly. The normal classes have theory and practise one hour
each, the preparatory girls one hour weekly for their trades.
This is true also of girls in the normal classes. They spend one hour in
basketry study, making in all three hours away from their individual
trades each week. Theory is combined with practise, and many a fanciful
thought is woven in with the reed and raffia of the Indian baskets,
African purses, belts, and pine-needle work-baskets. The shuck hats and
foot-mats are so foreign in design that one often wonders how it were
possible to utilize the same material in so widely different purposes.
But our girl is progressive, and not a few instances have occurred when
one has been informed of the presence of a Tuskegee student in a remote
country district, by the inevitable shuck hat prettily designed and worn
by an utter stranger. So remunerative has been the work that many have
earned money enough from the sales of these hats to purchase books for
the school year and pay their entrance fees.
Few girls work at typesetting. Those learning the trade are in the Boys'
Trades Building. The same is true of the girl tailors, who are as
capable workers in the trade as the boys. The majority of these girls
are in night-school, and of late years have not earned much for their
work. In former years the greater body of the students were working
their way through school, and by their labor would earn enough to
complete their education in the Academic Department and the Industrial
as well. Last year the pay schedule was reduced, and many appeals for
assistance came from those battling their way through. A young girl
whose monthly statement warned her that she owed the school $15, at the
end of the school year wrote the following:
"DEAR MRS. WASHINGTON: I write to inform you of the enormous sum
that I owe on my board bill. I am not satisfied, because I want to
earn something in life, but it seems that means and opportunity
will not permit me. I can't help from crying when I think how
anxious and willing my people are to help me to be something, and
yet they are unable to help me.
"My mother has struggled to bring up eight of us, and now is to the
point where she can give me no more help, and that leaves me alone
to be something by myself. I am anxious to enter day-school so I
may finish my course of study and my trade, and at last let my
mother see me a good, noble woman, who will take care of her.
"I will thank you very much for your kindness, if you will look
into my board bill and help me as soon, and as much, as possible.
Yours gratefully."
As the day girls have put in so many hours of work recently under the
new system, it eliminates the necessity of so many night-school girls
being paid for their work. It is to the interest of the school and its
day-students that fewer work their way through school, and the time has
come to teach this fact. The boy or girl for a time will stagger in the
attempt to gain education, but will be all the more able, later, to
reach the desired goal.
All girls are taught housekeeping incidentally in the care of their
rooms; but the number assigned to the regular division yearly are
instructed in all branches of home industry. The course covering two
years is mapped out thoroughly, and when the girls reach the Senior
class, all have their turn at housekeeping in the Practise Cottage of
four rooms. No girl is graduated from the school without the finishing
touch of the little home. Marketing, the planning of meals,
table-setting, the care of table- and bed-linen, dusting, sweeping, and
everything else pertaining to a well-kept house, are taught by the
teacher in domestic science who is in charge of the training-kitchen
where the senior girls received their first lessons in cookery. The
young housekeepers have reached the stage of efficiency when they may
prepare a meal for a distinguished guest.
A red-letter day in the history of the cottage came when a warm-hearted
and much-beloved trustee of the institution expressed a wish to dine
with the girls during one of his visits to the institution. The flowers
that graced the small table on this day were brought by the
distinguished visitor, who came from a stroll in the "piney" woods. The
girls, apprehensive of their success in preparing the dinner for one
with so cultured a palate, felt visibly relieved on the disappearance of
the roast, the vegetables, and the dessert. The corn bread was voted the
best ever eaten, and the dinner, as a whole, a delicious preparation. If
ever, in the years to come, any of the four forgets the kindly heart
that made all forget station or condition, "the right hand will forget
its cunning."
Days pass all too quickly in work and study. After the supper at six,
the girls in the normal classes go to their rooms or the Carnegie
Library for study, the girls in the preparatory classes go to the
study-hour, and those who have been working at the trades during the day
spend two hours in night-school covering half as much ground as those in
day-school, and consequently spend a longer period in school. At the
ringing of the bell at half past eight all the girls form in line to
pass to the Chapel for prayers.
School and work over for the day, every girl seems to lose her
personality in her blue braided uniform, with her red tie and turnover
on week-day evenings at Chapel, and her white ribbon on Sundays when she
passes the platform as she marches by out of the Chapel to her room. Her
carriage at least identifies her class-standing, and one may easily
note the difference in the manner of her who has newly arrived and
another who has been in school with the advantages of several years.
Friday afternoons mark an hour for lectures, girls' clubs, and circle
entertainments. Saturday evenings are spent optionally. Time for class
gymnastics or sewing or swimming is always spent pleasantly on schedule
time during the week. Our girl attends the Christian Endeavor Sunday
mornings at nine, Chapel at eleven, Sunday-school at one, and, after
dinner is out of the way, spends the enforced quiet hour in her room
from three until four o'clock reading. The band concert on the lawn
calls all to listen, some walking, some sitting on the seats on the
green, but all presenting a picturesque appearance in the blue skirts
and white waists of the spring season.
Thus the days and weeks pass, mingled with the sorrows and joys of
school-life, its encouragements and disappointments. The months and
seasons come and go, and, before one is scarcely aware of the fact, the
Commencement Week is here and the hundreds of young people whose lives
have come in touch with one another pass on to their homes. Some go out
as helpful workers, giving useful service to others; many will return
to complete the course begun, but all, we hope, will give out the light
that will not fail. Some are workers with ten talents, some with five,
some with one; but all, we trust, will be using them for the upbuilding
of the kingdom here on earth.
V
HAMPTON INSTITUTE'S RELATION TO TUSKEGEE
BY ROBERT R. MOTON
In his eloquent address in May, 1903, at the memorial services of
General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, Founder, and for twenty-five years
Principal, of Hampton Institute, Dr. Booker T. Washington said: "A few
nights ago, while I was driving through the woods in Alabama, I
discerned in the distance a large, bright fire. Driving to it, I soon
found out that by the glow of this fire several busy hands were building
a nice frame cottage, to replace a log cabin that had been the abode of
the family for a quarter of a century. That fire was lighted by General
Armstrong years ago. What does it matter that it was twenty-five years
passing through Hampton to Tuskegee and through the Tuskegee Conference
to that lonely spot in those lonely woods! It was doing its work very
effectually all the same, and will continue to do it through the years
to come."
The relations existing between Tuskegee Institute and Hampton Institute
are much like those existing between a son and the father who has
watched the growth and development of his child through the formative
transition periods of his youth, and looks with pride upon him as he
stands forth in the full bloom of manhood, enumerating successes already
achieved, with large promise of greater and more far-reaching
achievements for the immediate future. The child never reaches the point
where he does not seek the approval and blessing of the parent, or where
he refuses to accept advice and assistance if needed.
In the early days of Tuskegee Mr. Washington turned naturally and
properly to Hampton for anything that was needed, as he so beautifully
and repeatedly testifies in his autobiography, Up from Slavery. For a
long time the men and women who helped him were from Hampton, more than
fifty such having been there.
While there is a large number of Hampton graduates in the Industrial
Departments of Tuskegee, the teaching force, especially in the Academic
Department, represents a dozen or more of the best colleges and
universities in this country. The same may be said of Hampton.
Up to about eight or ten years ago we at Hampton spoke of Tuskegee as a
small Hampton, but "small" no longer describes Tuskegee, and I doubt
seriously if _large Hampton_ would be altogether proper.
While Tuskegee was founded on the Hampton plan, and has consistently
followed that plan as far as possible, and while these two great
"Industrial Universities" are very much alike in spirit and purpose,
they are, on the other hand, very dissimilar in external appearance as
well as in internal conduct. Each sends out into the benighted districts
of the South, and Hampton also into the Indian country of the West,
hundreds of men and women who are living influences of civilization and
Christianity in their deepest and most far-reaching sense, adding much
to the solution of the perplexing questions with which the nation has to
deal.
The conditions surrounding the two schools have necessitated certain
differences in their evolution. The personnel of the two institutions is
different. Hampton has always been governed and controlled by white
people, and its teachers have come from the best families of the North.
Tuskegee was founded by a Negro, and its teachers and officers have come
from the best types of the American Negro and from the best schools
opened to them. Hampton deals with a different class of student
material, including the Indian, who is almost as different in traits and
characteristics from the Negro as he is in feature and origin. These
are, in a sense, external differences which must of necessity affect the
character and internal machinery of the two institutions.
This is no reflection upon either school, for each is unique and
complete in its way, and any marked ethnic change in the management of
either would be unfortunate. Hampton is a magnificent illustration of
Anglo-Saxon ideas in modern education. Tuskegee, on the other hand, is
the best demonstration of Negro achievement along distinctly altruistic
lines. In its successful work for the elevation and civilization of the
children of the freedmen, it is also the most convincing evidence of the
Negroes' ability to work together with mutual regard and mutual
helpfulness. When Tuskegee was started there was a serious question as
to whether Negroes could in any large measure combine for business or
educational purposes. The only cooperative institutions that had been
successful among them were the Church and, perhaps, the secret
societies.
In material development, in the rapid and steadily improving accession
of student material, in enlarging powers for greater usefulness, in
influence upon the educational methods of the country and the civilized
world, and in the sympathy and respect it has gained for the Negro
through the writings and speeches of its Founder and Principal, the
Tuskegee Institute has without doubt passed beyond the expectations of
those who were most sanguine about its future.
The Tuskegee torch, from the Hampton fire started so many years ago by
General Armstrong, has spread and is spreading light to thousands of
homes and communities throughout the South, and is the greatest pride
and glory of Hampton Institute, and a constant source of inspiration and
encouragement to the devoted men and women who have always made
Hampton's work possible.
At the conclusion of an address in a Northern city in the interest of
Hampton, in which I had quoted Dr. Curry's saying that, "if Hampton had
done nothing more than to give us Booker Washington, its history would
be immortality," a New England lady of apparently good circumstances and
well informed, in the kindness of her heart, took me to task for
distorting my facts in saying that Tuskegee had grown out of Hampton.
She was sure that it was just the other way--that Hampton was an
offshoot of Tuskegee. She certainly could not have paid a higher tribute
to Hampton, and likewise to Tuskegee.
For the past few years Mr. Washington's deserved popularity and
prominence have brought Tuskegee conspicuously and constantly before the
public. This has in no sense been a disadvantage to Hampton, but has
been a distinct gain in enabling Hampton to point to the foremost man of
the Negro race, and to the largest and most interesting and in many ways
the best-managed institution of the race, as the best and most
conspicuous product of the peculiar kind of education for which Hampton
stands.
While Tuskegee is, perhaps, in many respects, better known than Hampton,
its antecedent, Hampton, is without doubt much better known and more
highly thought of because of the existence of Tuskegee.
Tuskegee in its present state of development would be one of the marvels
of the age, even if the personality of its Principal were left out of
consideration.
Two thousand Negroes who are scarcely a generation removed from
bondage, being trained, disciplined, controlled by 200 or more of the
same racial type; 2,000 Negroes being educated, morally, industrially,
intellectually; an industrial university with 100 large buildings well
equipped and beautifully laid-off grounds, with a hum and bustle of
industry, scientifically and practically conducted by a race considered
as representing the lowest ethnic type, upsetting the theories of many
well-meaning people who believe the Negroes incapable of maintaining
themselves in this civilization, incapable of uniting in any successful
endeavor without being under the direct personal control of the dominant
Aryan--this is one of the greatest achievements of the race during its
years of freedom.
Hampton, though a dozen years older, the pioneer in industrial
education, equally well equipped, quite as well conducted, doing as
great a work in the elevation of the races it represents, and holding
just as important a place in the scheme of modern education, is not so
interesting or so wonderful, because its conception and execution are
the product of Aryan thought and Aryan ingenuity. New ideas, new
discoveries, new inventions and organizations, new methods and new
institutions, have been conspicuous among the white race for a thousand
years. General Armstrong's wisdom and foresight were truly wonderful, as
indeed are also those of his worthy successor, Dr. H. B. Frissell, under
whose direction the school's influence and usefulness have steadily
increased, and along lines that General Armstrong would approve; but had
Hampton been founded and brought to its present state of proficiency by
a Negro, and its dominating force been of the African race, it would be
a more wonderful and interesting institution. In other words, the white
race has long since passed its experimental period. It now is the
standard of measurement for all other races. The Negro's achievements,
then, are considered largely with reference to the impression which they
make upon the race of whose civilization and government he is a part.
[Illustration: THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.]
Tuskegee, therefore, stands out more prominently than Hampton as an
exponent of industrial education, and has been more severely questioned
because of the imagined disloyalty in a Negro's aggressive attitude for
this particular kind of education for his race. There are people of both
races who, while they do not on the whole oppose Hampton and Tuskegee in
their educational methods, are honestly afraid that, because of the
growing importance and influence of these two schools and others of a
similar kind, the idea will be thoroughly established that the Negro
needs only and is capable only of the narrowest sort of industrial
training--such as is represented by the "rule-of-thumb carpenter" and
the "one-suspender mule-driver," who work by rule and rote rather than
by principle and method, not in the slightest degree comprehending the
science underlying the work in which they are engaged, whose
mathematical knowledge is bounded by "the distance between two corn or
cotton rows."
To fix such an idea in the minds of the people of this country--which is
not likely to be done--would, no doubt, be disastrous to us for
generations to come, and make it much more easy than it is now to
deprive the Negro of the civil and political rights which are guaranteed
by the Constitution. It would, without question, defeat the objects for
which Hampton and Tuskegee have persistently stood, and for which they
have ever worked and are still very successfully working.
No one familiar with the curricula of these two schools would for a
moment raise such a question. General Armstrong saw, as few people did,
the moral and intellectual value of industrial training aside from its
merely economic importance. He founded a school on an entirely different
basis from any that had been known before--the basis of
character-building through practical education, industrial training, and
self-help.
During the thirty-six years of its history, Hampton has sent into the
world about 1,200 graduates and 5,000 undergraduates, many of whom have
taken with them the spark that has started many other Hamptons, large
and small, among the Negroes of the South and the Indians of the West.
Hampton's success, and indeed the success of any institution, depends
not so much upon the scholastic attainments of its pupils as upon the
work that those who have received its instruction accomplish. Hampton
glories, and justly, in the loyalty of its graduates and in the
faithfulness with which they have inculcated and exemplified the
traditions and principles for which it stands. Hampton glories in
Tuskegee, because Tuskegee has started in so many communities the spark
of true life and real civilization; in the impetus and inspiration it
has given, so beautiful and so perfect a consummation of the prophetic
vision of Hampton's founder.