telegram recommending the appointment of Dr. W.D. Crum, a colored
physician, to a South Carolina vacancy, so that the President could
thereby announce at the same time the appointment of a first-grade
Southern white Democrat and a first-class colored man.]
This precedent-breaking appointment of a Southern Democrat by a
Republican President, made primarily on the recommendation of Booker
Washington and Grover Cleveland, was acclaimed with enthusiastic
approval by all Democrats everywhere, and in fact there was no
dissenting voice except from the officeholding Southern Republicans
who naturally resented this encroachment upon what they regarded as
their patronage rights. At first appreciation was almost universal of
the efforts of the Negro leader in helping a Republican President to
make this far-reaching change in the Federal officeholding traditions
of the South. Soon, however, some Southern newspapers began to
question the wisdom of allowing a Negro to have even an advisory voice
in political matters notwithstanding his advice had in this instance
been so acceptable to the South. This criticism grew so insistent that
Judge Jones found himself in an uncomfortable position because his
appointment had been made, in large part, on the recommendation of a
Negro. He tried to soften the situation by giving out a statement to
the effect that his endorsement by representative white men would
probably have assured his appointment even without the assistance of
Booker Washington. Later, however, the Judge expressed to Mr. Scott
privately, after listening with deep interest to the recital of all
the incidents connected with his appointment, his appreciation of what
Booker Washington had done for him.
Aside from this appointment, Booker Washington had a voice in many
others, including those of Gen. R.D. Johnson as Receiver of Public
Moneys at Birmingham, Colonel Thomas R. Roulhac as United States
District Judge, and Judge Osceola Kyle of Alabama as United States
District Attorney in the Panama Canal Zone. During the administrations
of both Presidents Roosevelt and Taft hardly an office of consequence
was conferred upon a Negro without first consulting Mr. Washington. He
did not strive through his influence with Presidents Roosevelt and
Taft to increase the number of Negro appointees, but rather to raise
the personnel of Negro officeholders. During the period when his
advice was most constantly sought at the White House, Charles W.
Anderson was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue for the Second
District of New York City; J.C. Napier of Nashville, Tenn., became
Register of the Treasury; William H. Lewis of Boston was appointed
successively Assistant United States District Attorney and Assistant
Attorney-General of the United States; Robert H. Terrell was given a
Municipal Judgeship of the District of Columbia; Whitefield McKinlay
was made Collector of the Port for the Georgetown District, District
of Columbia; Dr. W.D. Crum was appointed Collector of Customs for the
Port of Charleston, S.C.; Ralph W. Tyler, Auditor for the Navy
Department at Washington, D.C.; James A. Cobb, Special Assistant U.S.
Attorney in charge of the enforcement of the Pure Food Law for the
District of Columbia, and Charles A. Cottrell, Collector of Internal
Revenue for the District of Hawaii at Honolulu. In all these notably
excellent appointments Mr. Washington had a voice.
In 1903, in commenting on a speech of Mr. Washington's in which he had
emphasized the importance of quality rather than quantity in Negro
appointments, President Roosevelt wrote him as follows:
MY DEAR MR. WASHINGTON: That is excellent; and you have put
epigrammatically just what I am doing--that is, though I
have rather reduced the quantity I have done my best to
raise the quality of the Negro appointments. With high regard.
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
CHAPTER THREE
WASHINGTON: THE EDUCATOR
The Tuskegee Commencement exercises dramatize education. They enable
plain men and women to visualize in the concrete that vague word which
means so little to them in the abstract. More properly they dramatize
the identity between real education and actual life. On the platform
before the audience is a miniature engine to which steam has been
piped, a miniature frame house in course of construction, and a piece
of brick wall in process of erection. A young man in jumpers comes
onto the platform, starts the engine and blows the whistle, whereupon
young men and women come hurrying from all directions, and each turns
to his or her appointed task. A young carpenter completes the little
house, a young mason finishes the laying of the brick wall, a young
farmer leads forth a cow and milks her in full view of the audience, a
sturdy blacksmith shoes a horse, and after this patient, educative
animal has been shod he is turned over to a representative of the
veterinary division to have his teeth filed. At the same time on the
opposite side of the platform one of the girl students is having a
dress fitted by one of her classmates who is a dressmaker. She at
length walks proudly from the platform in her completed new gown,
while the young dressmaker looks anxiously after her to make sure that
it "hangs right behind." Other girls are doing washing and ironing
with the drudgery removed in accordance with advanced Tuskegee
methods. Still others are hard at work on hats, mats, and dresses,
while boys from the tailoring department sit crosslegged working on
suits and uniforms. In the background are arranged the finest
specimens which scientific agriculture has produced on the farm and
mechanical skill has turned out in the shops. The pumpkin, potatoes,
corn, cotton, and other agricultural products predominate, because
agriculture is the chief industry at Tuskegee just as it is among the
Negro people of the South.
This form of commencement exercise is one of Booker Washington's
contributions to education which has been widely copied by schools for
whites as well as blacks. That it appeals to his own people is
eloquently attested by the people themselves who come in ever-greater
numbers as the commencement days recur. At three o'clock in the
morning of this great day vehicles of every description, each loaded
to capacity with men, women, and children, begin to roll in in an
unbroken line which sometimes extends along the road for three miles.
Some of the teachers at times objected to turning a large area of the
Institute grounds into a hitching-post station for the horses and
mules of this great multitude, but to all such objections Mr.
Washington replied, "This place belongs to the people and not to us."
Less than a third of these eight to nine thousand people are able
to crowd into the chapel to see the actual graduation exercises, but
all can see the graduation procession as it marches through the
grounds to the chapel and all are shown through the shops and over the
farm and through the special agricultural exhibits, and even through
the offices, including that of the principal. It is significant of the
respect in which the people hold the Institute, and in which they held
Booker Washington, that in all these years there has never been on
these occasions a single instance of drunkenness or disorderly
conduct.
[Illustration: Showing some of the teams of farmers attending the
Annual Tuskegee Negro Conference.]
In his annual report to the trustees for 1914 Mr. Washington said of
these commencement exercises: "One of the problems that constantly
confronts us is that of making the school of real service to these
people on this one day when they come in such large numbers. For many
of them it is the one day in the year when they go to school, and we
ought to find a way to make the day of additional value to them. I
very much hope that in the near future we shall find it possible to
erect some kind of a large pavilion which shall serve the purpose of
letting these thousands see something of our exercises and be helped
by them."
The philosophy symbolized by such graduation exercises as we have
described may best be shown by quoting Mr. Washington's own words in
an article entitled, "Industrial Education and the Public Schools,"
which was published in the _Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science_ for September of the year 1913. In this
article Mr. Washington says: "If I were asked what I believe to be
the greatest advance which Negro education has made since emancipation
I should say that it has been in two directions: first, the change
which has taken place among the masses of the Negro people as to what
education really is; and, second, the change that has taken place
among the masses of the white people in the South toward Negro
education itself.
"I can perhaps make clear what I mean by a little explanation: the
Negro learned in slavery to work but he did not learn to respect
labor. On the contrary, the Negro was constantly taught, directly and
indirectly during slavery times, that labor was a curse. It was the
curse of Canaan, he was told, that condemned the black man to be for
all time the slave and servant of the white man. It was the curse of
Canaan that made him for all time 'a hewer of wood and drawer of
water.' The consequence of this teaching was that, when emancipation
came, the Negro thought freedom must, in some way, mean freedom from
labor.
"The Negro had also gained in slavery some general notions in regard
to education. He observed that the people who had education for the
most part belonged to the aristocracy, to the master class, while the
people who had little or no education were usually of the class known
as 'poor whites.' In this way education became associated in his mind
with leisure, with luxury, and freedom from the drudgery of work with
the hands....
"In order to make it possible to put Negro education on a sound and
rational basis it has been necessary to change the opinion of the
masses of the Negro people in regard to education and labor. It has
been necessary to make them see that education, which did not,
directly or indirectly, connect itself with the practical daily
interests of daily life could hardly be called education. It has been
necessary to make the masses of the Negroes see and realize the
necessity and importance of applying what they learned in school to
the common and ordinary things of life; to see that education, far
from being a means of escaping labor, is a means of raising up and
dignifying labor and thus indirectly a means of raising up and
dignifying the common and ordinary man. It has been necessary to teach
the masses of the people that the way to build up a race is to begin
at the bottom and not at the top, to lift the man furthest down, and
thus raise the whole structure of society above him. On the other
hand, it has been necessary to demonstrate to the white man in the
South that education does not 'spoil' the Negro, as it has been so
often predicted that it would. It was necessary to make him actually
see that education makes the Negro not an idler or spendthrift, but a
more industrious, thrifty, law-abiding, and useful citizen than he
otherwise would be."
The commencement exercises which we have described are one of the
numerous means evolved by Booker Washington to guide the masses of his
own people, as well as the Southern whites, to a true conception of
the value and meaning of real education for the Negro.
The correlation between the work of farm, shop, and classroom, first
applied by General Armstrong at Hampton, was developed on an even
larger scale by his one-time student, Booker Washington. The students
at Tuskegee are divided into two groups: the day students who work in
the classroom half the week and the other half on the farm and in the
shops, and the night students who work all day on the farm or in the
shops and then attend school at night. The day school students pay a
small fee in cash toward their expenses, while the night school
students not only pay no fee but by good and diligent work gradually
accumulate a credit at the school bank which, when it becomes
sufficiently large, enables them to become day school students. In
fact, the great majority of the day students have thus fought their
way in from the night school. But all students of both groups thus
receive in the course of a week a fairly even balance between theory
and practice.
[Illustration: An academic class. A problem in brick masonry. Mr.
Washington always insisted upon correlation; that is, drawing the
problem from the various shops and laboratories.]
In a corner of each of the shops, in which are carried on the forty or
more different trades, is a blackboard on which are worked out the
actual problems which arise in the course of the work. After school
hours one always finds in the shops a certain number of the teachers
from the Academic Department looking up problems for their classes for
the next day. A physics teacher may be found in the blacksmithing shop
digging up problems about the tractive strength of wires and the
expansion and contraction of metals under heat and cold. A teacher of
chemistry may be found in the kitchen of the cooking school unearthing
problems relating to the chemistry of food for her class the next
day. If, on the other hand, you go into a classroom you will find the
shop is brought into the classroom just as the classroom has been
brought into the shop. For instance, in a certain English class the
topic assigned for papers was "a model house" instead of "bravery" or
"the increase of crime in cities," or "the landing of the Pilgrims."
The boys of the class had prepared papers on the architecture and
construction of a model house, while the girls' papers were devoted to
its interior decoration and furnishing. One of the girls described a
meal for six which she had actually prepared and the six had actually
consumed. The meal cost seventy-five cents. The discussion and
criticism which followed each paper had all the zest which vitally
practical and near-at-hand questions always arouse.
When the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational
Association met in Atlanta, Ga., in 1904, many of the delegates, after
adjournment, visited the Tuskegee Institute. Among these delegates was
Prof. Paul Monroe of the Department of History and Principles of
Education of the Teachers' College of Columbia University. In
recording his impressions of his visit, Professor Monroe says: "My
interest in Tuskegee and a few similar institutions is founded on the
fact that here I find illustrated the two most marked tendencies which
are being formulated in the most advanced educational thought, but are
being worked out slowly and with great difficulty. These tendencies
are: first, the endeavor to draw the subject matter of education, or
the 'stuff' of schoolroom work, directly from the life of the pupils;
and second, to relate the outcome of education to life's activities,
occupations, and duties of the pupil in such a way that the connection
is made directly and immediately between schoolroom work and the other
activities of the person being educated. This is the ideal at
Tuskegee, and, to a much greater extent than in any other institution
I know of, the practice; so that the institution is working along not
only the lines of practical endeavor, but of the most advanced
educational thought. To such an extent is this true that Tuskegee and
Hampton are of quite as great interest to the student of education on
account of the illumination they are giving to educational theory as
they are to those interested practically in the elevation of the Negro
people and in the solution of a serious social problem. May I give
just one illustration of a concrete nature coming under my observation
while at the school, that will indicate the difference between the
work of the school and that which was typical under old conditions, or
is yet typical where the newer ideas, as so well grasped by Mr.
Washington, are not accepted? In a class in English composition two
boys, among others, had placed their written work upon the board, one
having written upon 'Honor' in the most stilted language, with various
historical references which meant nothing to himself or to his
classmates--the whole paragraph evidently being drawn from some
outside source; the other wrote upon 'My Trade--Blacksmithing'--and
told in a simple and direct way of his day's work, the nature of the
general course of training, and the use he expected to make of his
training when completed. No better contrast could be found between the
old ideas of formal language work, dominated by books and cast into
forms not understood or at least not natural to the youth, and the
newer ideas of simplicity, directness, and forcefulness in presenting
the account of one's own experience. Not only was this contrast an
illustration of the ideal of the entire education offered at Tuskegee
in opposition to that of the old, formal, 'literary' education as
imposed upon the colored race, but it gave in a nutshell a concept of
the new education. This one experience drawn from the life of the boy
and related directly to his life's duration and circumstances was
education in the truest sense; the other was not save as Mr.
Washington made it so in its failure...."
Among the delegates was also Mr. A.L. Rafter, the Assistant
Superintendent of Schools of Boston, who in speaking at Tuskegee said:
"What Tuskegee is doing for you we are going to take on home to the
North. You are doing what we are talking about." In general, these
foremost educational experts of the dominant race looked to Booker
Washington and Tuskegee for leadership instead of expecting him or his
school to follow them.
Booker Washington not only practised at Tuskegee this close relation
between school life and real life--and it is being continued now that
he is gone--but preached it whenever and wherever opportunity offered.
Some years ago, in addressing himself to those of his own students who
expected to become teachers, he said on this subject among other
things: "... colored parents depend upon seeing the results of
education in ways not true of the white parent. It is important that
the colored teacher on this account give special attention to bringing
school life into closer touch with real life. Any education is to my
mind 'high' which enables the individual to do the very best work for
the people by whom he is surrounded. Any education is 'low' which does
not make for character and effective service.
"The average teacher in the public schools is very likely to yield to
the temptation of thinking that he is educating an individual when he
is teaching him to reason out examples in arithmetic, to prove
propositions in geometry, and to recite pages of history. He conceives
this to be the end of education. Herein is the sad deficiency in many
teachers who are not able to use history, arithmetic, and geometry as
means to an end. They get the idea that the student who has mastered a
certain number of pages in a textbook is educated, forgetting that
textbooks are at best but tools, and in many cases ineffective tools,
for the development of man....
"The average parent cannot appreciate how many examples Johnny has
worked out that day, how many questions in history he has answered;
but when he says, 'Mother, I cannot go back to that school until all
the buttons are sewed on my coat,' the parent will at once become
conscious of school influence in the home. This will be the best kind
of advertisement. The button propaganda tends to make the teacher a
power in the community. A few lessons in applied chemistry will not
be amiss. Take grease spots, for example. The teacher who with tact
can teach his pupils to keep even threadbare clothes neatly brushed
and free from grease spots is extending the school influence into the
home and is adding immeasurably to the self-respect of the home."[2]
[Footnote 2: From "Putting the Most Into Life," by Booker T.
Washington. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., Publishers.]
The idea that education is a matter of personal habits of cleanliness,
industry, integrity, and right conduct while of course not original
with Booker Washington was perhaps further developed and more
effectively emphasized by him than by any other American educator.
Just as Matthew Arnold insisted that religion was a matter of conduct
rather than forms and dogmas so Booker Washington held that education
is a matter of character and not forms. He concluded one of his Sunday
night talks to his students with these words: "I want every Tuskegee
student as he finds his place in the surging industrial life about him
to give heed to the things which are 'honest and just and pure and of
good report,' for these things make for character, which is the only
thing worth fighting for...." In another of these talks he said: "A
student should not be satisfied with himself until he has grown to the
point where, when simply sweeping a room, he can go into the corners
and crevices and remove the hidden trash which, although it should be
left, would not be seen. It is not very hard to find people who will
thoroughly clean a room which is going to be occupied, or wash a dish
which is to be handled by strangers; but it is hard to find a person
who will do a thing right when the eyes of the world are not likely to
look upon what has been done. The cleaning of rooms and the washing of
dishes have much to do with forming characters."[3]
[Footnote 3: "Sowing and Reaping," by Booker T. Washington. L.C. Page
& Co., Boston, Publishers.]
This recalls Booker Washington's own experience when as a ragged and
penniless youth he applied for admission to Hampton and was given a
room to sweep by way of an entrance examination. Indeed, one of Booker
Washington's greatest sources of strength as a teacher lay in the fact
that his own life not only illustrated the truth of his assertions,
but illustrated it in a striking and dramatic manner. His life was, in
fact, an epitome of the hardships, struggles, and triumphs of the
successful members of his race from the days of slavery to the present
time. A great believer in the power of example he lived a life which
gave him that power in its highest degree. Because of his inherent
modesty and good taste he never referred to himself or his
achievements as examples to be emulated, and this merely further
enhanced their power.
In concluding another Sunday night talk he said: "As a race we are
inclined, I fear, to make too much of the day of judgment. We have the
idea that in some far-off period there is going to be a great and
final day of judgment, when every individual will be called up, and
all his bad deeds will be read out before him and all his good deeds
made known. I believe that every day is a day of judgment, that we
reap our rewards daily, and that whenever we sin we are punished by
mental and physical anxiety and by a weakened character that separates
us from God. Every day is, I take it, a day of judgment, and as we
learn God's laws and grow into His likeness we shall find our reward
in this world in a life of usefulness and honor. To do this is to have
found the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of character and
righteousness and peace."[4]
[Footnote 4: From "Putting the Most Into life," by Booker T.
Washington. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., Publishers.]
To quote once more from these Sunday night talks, in another he said:
"There is, then, opportunity for the colored people to enrich the
material life of their adopted country by doing what their hands find
to do, minor duties though they be, so well that nobody of any race
can do them better. This is the aim that the Tuskegee student should
keep steadily before him. If he remembers that all service, however
lowly, is true service, an important step will have been taken in the
solution of what we term 'the race problem.'"