night talks to crystalize, interpret, and summarize the meaning and
significance of the kind of education which Tuskegee gives. He, the
supreme head of the institution, reserved to himself this supremely
important task. The heads of the manifold trades are naturally and
properly concerned primarily with turning raw boys and girls into good
workmen and workwomen. The academic teachers in the school are
similarly interested in helping them as students to secure a mastery
of their several subjects. The military commandants are concerned with
their ability to drill, march, carry themselves properly, and take
proper care of their persons and rooms. The physician is interested in
their physical health and the chaplain in their religious training.
Important as are all these phases of Tuskegee's training and closely
as he watched each Mr. Washington realized that they might all be well
done and yet Tuskegee fail in its supreme purpose: namely, the making
of manly men and womanly women out of raw boys and girls. As he said
in one of the passages quoted, "character is the only thing worth
fighting for." Now, while the forming of character is the aim, and in
some appreciable degree the achievement, of every worth-while
educational institution, it is to a peculiar degree the aim and the
achievement of Tuskegee. The ten million Negroes in the United States
need trained leaders of their own race more than they need anything
else. Whatever else they should or should not have these leaders must
have character. Since Tuskegee is the largest of the educational
institutions for Negroes, with the man at its head who was commonly
recognized as the leader of leaders in his race, naturally the
heaviest responsibility in the training of these leaders fell, and
will continue to fall, upon Tuskegee. Consequently the task at
Tuskegee is not so much to educate so many thousands of young men and
women as to train as many leaders for the Negro people as can possibly
be done and done well within a given space of time. These Tuskegee
graduates lead by the power of example and not by agitation. One runs
a farm and achieves so much more success than his neighbors, through
his better methods, that they gradually adopt these methods and with
his help apply them to their own conditions. Another teaches a country
school and does it so much better than the average country school
teacher that his or her school comes to be regarded as a model to be
emulated by the other schools of the locality. When a Tuskegee girl
marries and settles in a community she keeps her house so much cleaner
and in every way more attractive than the rank and file of her
neighbors that gradually her house and her methods of housekeeping
become the standard for the neighborhood. There is, however, nothing
of the "holier than thou" or the complaisant about the true Tuskegee
graduate and neither is there anything monopolistic. They have had the
idea of service thoroughly drilled into their consciousness--the idea
that their advantages of education are, as it were, a trust which they
are to administer for the benefit of those who have not had such
advantages.
Now such leaders as these must not only be provided if the so-called
race problem is to be solved, but they must be provided speedily. In
every community in which the black people are ignorant and vicious and
without trained leaders among themselves they are likely at any time
to come into conflict with the dominant race, and every such conflict
engenders bitterness on both sides and makes just so much more
difficult the final solution of the race problem. This is why Booker
Washington labored so incessantly to increase the quantity of
Tuskegee's output as well as to maintain the quality. He brought
Tuskegee to the point where it reached through all its courses
including its summer courses, short courses, and extension courses,
more than 4,000 people in a single year, not counting the well-nigh
innumerable hosts he counseled with on his State educational tours. In
short, Booker Washington's task at Tuskegee was not only to turn out
good leaders for his people, but to turn them out wholesale and as
fast as possible. He was, as it were, running a race with the powers
of ignorance, poverty, and vice. This in part accounted for the sense
of terrific pressure which one felt at Tuskegee, particularly when he
was present and personally driving forward his great educational
machine. This also may have accounted for the seeming lack of finesse
in small matters which occasionally annoyed critical visitors who did
not understand that the great institution was racing under the spur of
its indomitable master, and that just as in any race all but
essentials must be thrown aside.
Long before the University of Wisconsin had, through its extension
courses, extended its opportunities in greater or less degree to the
citizens of the entire State, Booker Washington, through similar
means, had extended the advantages of Tuskegee throughout Macon County
in particular and the State of Alabama and neighboring States in
general.
The extension work of Tuskegee began in a small way over twenty years
ago. It preceded even the work of the demonstration agents of the
United States Department of Agriculture. There was first only one man
who in his spare time went out among the farming people and tried to
arouse enthusiasm for better methods of farming, better schools, and
better homes. He was followed by a committee of three members of the
Tuskegee faculty, which committee still directs the work. One of the
first efforts of this committee was to get the farmers to adopt deep
plowing. There was not a two-horse plow to be found. There was a
strong prejudice against deep plowing which was thus expressed by a
Negro preacher farmer whom one of the committee tried to persuade: "We
don't want deep plowing. You're fixin' for us to have no soil. If we
plow deep it will all wash away and in a year or two we will have to
clear new ground." Not long after this a member of the committee with
a two-horse plow was practising what he had been preaching when a
white planter who was passing stopped and said: "See here, its none of
my business of course, but you're new here and I don't want to see you
fail. But if you plow your land deep like that you'll ruin it sure. I
know. I've been here."
After a time, however, the committee persuaded a few colored farmers
to try deep plowing on a small scale as an experiment. One of the
first of these was a poor man who had had the hardest kind of a
struggle scraping a scant existence out of the soil for himself and
his large family. He was desperate and agreed to try the new method.
He got results the first year, moved on to better land and followed
instructions. In a few years he bought 500 acres of land, gave each of
his four sons 100 acres, and kept 100 acres for himself. Since then
father and sons alike have been prosperous and contented and have
added to their holdings.
In short, these Negro farmers were no more eager to be reformed and
improved in their methods than are any normal people. There is a
shallow popular sentiment that unless people are eager for
enlightenment and gratefully receive what is offered them they should
be left unenlightened. Booker Washington never shared this sentiment.
His agent reported that in response to their appeals for the raising
of a better grade of cattle, hogs, and fowl the farmers replied that
the stock they had was good enough. One of their favorite comments
was, "When you eat an egg what difference does it make to you whether
that egg was laid by a full-blooded fowl or a mongrel?" Instead of
being discouraged or disgusted by this attitude on the part of the
people he merely regarded it as what was to be expected and set about
devising means to overcome it. As always he placed his chief reliance
upon the persuasive eloquence of the concrete. He decided to send
blooded stock and properly raised products around among the farmers so
that they might compare them with their inferior stock and products
and see the difference with their own eyes. This plan was later
carried out through the Jesup Wagon contributed by the late Morris K.
Jesup of New York. This wagon was a peripatetic farmers' school. It
took a concentrated essence of Tuskegees' agricultural department to
the farmers who could not or would not come to Tuskegee.
The wagon was drawn by a well-bred and well-fed mule. A good breed of
cow was tied behind. Several chickens of good breeds, well-developed
ears of corn, stalks of cotton, bundles of oats and seeds, and garden
products, which ought at the time to be growing in the locality,
together with a proper plow, for deep plowing, were loaded upon the
wagon. The driver would pull up before a farmhouse, deliver his
message, and point out the strong points of his wagonload and would
finally request a strip of ground for cultivation. This request
granted he would harness the mule to the plow, break the ground deep,
make his rows, plant his seeds, and move on to the next locality. With
a carefully planned follow-up system he would return to each such plot
for cultivation and harvest, and, most important of all, to
demonstrate the truths he had sought to impress upon the people by
word of mouth. Where the first driver sent out was a general farmer,
the second would be, let us say, a dairyman, the third a truck
gardener, and finally a poultry raiser would go; usually a woman,
since in the South women, for the most part, handle this phase of
farming. These agents also distribute pamphlets prepared by the
Agricultural Research Department of Tuskegee on such subjects as
school gardening, twenty-one ways to cook cowpeas, improvement of
rural schools, how to fight insect pests, cotton growing, etc. The
constant emphasis upon practice by no means entails any neglect of
theory.
Besides this work there is each January for two weeks at Tuskegee the
regular Farmers' Short Course. Many of the country schools adjourn for
this period so that both teachers and pupils may attend. In this
course not only teachers and pupils, but fathers and mothers, sons
and daughters sit side by side in the classrooms receiving instruction
in stock raising, canning, poultry raising, and farming in all its
branches. There are special courses for the women and girls in the
care of children and in housekeeping. The following breezy
announcement is taken from the prospectus of this course for the year
1914:
"_A creation of the farmer, by the farmers and for the
farmer._"
"It meets the crying needs of thousands of our boys and
girls, fathers and mothers.
"_It's free to all--no examination nor entrance fee is
required._
"It started 7 years ago with 11 students; the second year we
had 17, the third year we had 70, the fourth year we had
490, and last year we had nearly 2,000. It is the only thing
of its kind for the betterment of the colored farmers. It
lasts for only 12 days. It comes at a time when you would be
celebrating Christmas.[5] In previous years the farmers have
walked from 3 to 6 miles to attend; many have come on
horseback, in wagons, and in buggies. You who live so that
you cannot come in daily can secure board near the school
for $2.50 per week. We expect 2,000 to 2,500 to enter this
year."
[Footnote 5: There is a custom among the colored people, inherited
from the days of slavery, which is fortunately now drying out, to
celebrate Christmas for a period of a week or ten days by stopping
work and giving themselves over to a round of sprees.]
And then as a further stimulus to attend there comes:
"_Prizes will be given as follows:_
"A prize of $5 will be given to the person who makes the
greatest progress on all subjects taught.
"A prize of $2 will be given to the person who is the best
judge of livestock.
"A prize of $1 will be given to the person who shows the
best knowledge of the use and application of manures and
fertilizers. And so on through a further list of one-dollar
prizes for all the major activities of the Course."
It will be noted that there is nothing stilted or academic about this
announcement.
Immediately following this Farmers' Short Course comes the Annual
Farmers' Conference which holds its session in January of each year.
To enforce the lessons in canning, stock raising, gardening, and all
the other branches of farming, exhibits of the best products in each
activity are displayed before the audience of farmers and their
families, who number in all about 2,000. These exhibits are made and
explained by the farmers themselves. The man, woman, or child who has
produced the exhibit comes to the platform and explains in his or her
own way just how it was done. In these explanations much human nature
is thrown in. An amazingly energetic and capable woman had explained
at one of these gatherings how she had paid off the mortgage on their
farm by the proceeds from her eggs, her kitchen garden, and her
preserving in her spare moments when she was not helping her husband
in the cotton field, washing and dressing her six children, or
cooking, mending, washing, and scrubbing for the household.
In conclusion she said:
"Now my ole man he's an' old-fashion farmer an' he don' kere fur dese
modern notions, an' so I don't git no help from him, an' that makes
it hard for me 'cause it ain't nat'ral for der woman to lead. If I
could only git him to move I'd be happier jest ter foller him." While
these explanations are going on the farmers in the audience are
naturally saying to themselves over and over again, "I could do that!"
or "Why couldn't I do that?"
One of Mr. Washington's chief aims was to increase the wants of his
people and at the same time increase their ability to satisfy them. In
other words, he believed in fermenting in their minds what might be
termed an effective discontent with their circumstances. With this
purpose in view he addressed to them at these conferences such
questions as the following:
"What kind of house do you live in?"
"Do you own that house?"
"What kind of schoolhouse have you?"
"Do you send your children to school regularly?"
"How many months does your school run?"
"Do you keep your teacher in the community?"
"What kind of church have you?"
"Where does your pastor live?"
"Are your church, school, and home fences whitewashed?"
The farmers who were asked these questions would make an inward
resolve that they would do what they could to put themselves in a
position to answer the same questions more satisfactorily another
year.
Another feature of the work of Tuskegee beyond its own borders is that
of the Rural School Extension Department. Mr. Julius Rosenwald of
Chicago, one of the trustees of Tuskegee, has offered, through this
department, during a stated period of time, to add $300 to every $300
the Negroes in rural communities of the South raise for the building
of a new and modern schoolhouse. Under this plan ninety-two modern
rural school buildings have already been constructed. At the close of
the time set Mr. Rosenwald will probably renew his offer for a further
period. The social by-products of this campaign, in teaching the
Negroes of these communities how to disregard their denominational and
other feuds in working together for a high civic purpose of common
advantage to all, and the friendly interest in Negro education
awakened among their white neighbors, have been almost if not quite as
important as the new schools themselves.
There is also at Tuskegee a summer school for teachers in which last
year were registered 437 teachers from fifteen Southern and several
other States. Most of these teachers elect such practical subjects as
canning, basket-making, broom-making, shuck and pine needlework or
some form of manual training, as well as the teacher-training courses.
One of these students, who was the supervisor of the Negro schools of
an entire county, when she returned from her summer school work
proceeded to vivify her dead schools by introducing the making of
wash-boards, trash baskets, baskets made of weeping-willow, and pine
needle work in its various forms. The registration soared at once, the
indifferent Negro parents became interested, and before long the
parents of white children complained to the county superintendent
that the colored children were being taught more than their children.
There is at the present time being developed at Tuskegee a unique
experiment in the nature of what might be called a post-graduate
school in real life for the graduates of the agricultural department.
This consists in providing such graduates, who have no property of
their own, with a forty-acre farm, on an 1,800-acre tract about nine
miles from Tuskegee, known as Baldwin Farms, after the late Wm. H.
Baldwin, Jr., who was one of the ablest and most devoted supporters
and advisers of Booker Washington and Tuskegee. The land is held by
the Tuskegee Farm and Improvement Company which is conducted on a
business and not a charitable basis. The company sells the farms at an
average price of $15 an acre, and purchasers who move directly on to
the land are given ten years in which to pay for it, with the first
payment at the end of the first year. If there is no house on the land
the company will put up a $300 house so planned as to permit the
addition of rooms and improvements as rapidly as the purchaser is able
to pay for them; the cost to be added to the initial cost of the land.
When the graduate lacks the money and equipment necessary to plant,
raise, and harvest crops, for this, too, the company will advance a
reasonable sum, taking as security a mortgage on crops and equipment
until the loan has been paid off. This mortgage bears interest at 8
per cent. while the interest on the mortgage on the land is not more
than 6 per cent. Through coöperative effort within this colony it is
proposed to develop such organizations as coöperative dairy, fruit
growing, poultry, and livestock associations and thus make it possible
for the members of the colony to make not only a comfortable living
but to lay by something. They will, of course, have also the great
advantage of the advice and guidance of the experts of the Institute.
Formerly the penniless Negro youth, who graduated even most creditably
from the agricultural department of Tuskegee, had before him nothing
better than a greater or less number of years of monotonous drudgery
as a mere farm or plantation laborer. Now, he may at once take up his
own farm at Baldwin and begin immediately to apply all he has learned
in carving out his own fortune and future. Thus did Booker Washington
plan to carry the benefits of classroom instruction directly into the
actual life problems of these graduates as well as to bring the
problems of actual life into the classroom.
However much Mr. Washington may have seemed to eliminate
non-essentials in the pressure and haste of his wholesale educational
task he never neglected essentials, but among essentials he included
matters which might on the surface appear to be small and trifling.
For instance, he insisted upon good table manners, and no boy or girl
could spend any considerable time at Tuskegee without acquiring such
manners. Instead of a trivial detail he regarded good table manners as
an essential to self-respect and hence to the development of
character. In short, he was engaged not so much in conducting a school
as educating a race.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE RIGHTS OF THE NEGRO
Booker Washington was occasionally accused both by agitators in his
own race and by a certain type of Northern white men who pose as the
special champions of the "downtrodden" black man as encouraging a
policy of submission to injustice on the part of his people. He was,
for example, charged with tame acquiescence in the practical
disfranchisement of the Negro in a number of the Southern States. As a
matter of fact, when these disfranchising measures were under
consideration and before they were enacted, he in each case earnestly
pleaded with the legislators that whatever restrictions in the use of
the ballot they put upon the statute books should be applied with
absolute impartiality to both races. This he urged in fairness to the
white man as well as the black man.
In an article entitled, "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" published
in the _Century Magazine_ five years ago, Booker Washington said in
illustrating the evil consequences of discrimination in the
application of ballot regulations: "In a certain county of Virginia,
where the county board had charge of registering those who were to be
voters, a colored man, a graduate of Harvard University, who had long
been a resident of the county, a quiet, unassuming man, went before
the board to register. He was refused on the ground that he was not
intelligent enough to vote. Before this colored man left the room a
white man came in who was so intoxicated that he could scarcely tell
where he lived. This white man was registered, and by a board of
intelligent white men who had taken an oath to deal justly in
administering the law.
"Will any one say that there is wisdom or statesmanship in such a
policy as that? In my opinion it is a fatal mistake to teach the young
black man and the young white man that the dominance of the white race
in the South rests upon any other basis than absolute justice to the
weaker man. It is a mistake to cultivate in the mind of any individual
or group of individuals the feeling and belief that their happiness
rests upon the misery of some one else, or that their intelligence is
measured by the ignorance of some one else; or their wealth by the
poverty of some one else. I do not advocate that the Negro make
politics or the holding of office an important thing in his life. I do
urge, in the interest of fair play for everybody, that a Negro who
prepares himself in property, in intelligence, and in character to
cast a ballot, and desires to do so, should have the opportunity."
While Booker Washington did not believe that political activities
should play an important part among the Negroes as a whole he did
believe that the exceptional Negro who was particularly qualified for
holding public office should be given the opportunity just as he
believed in the higher academic education for the relatively small
minority capable of profiting by such an education.
In concluding a letter in which he asks Booker Washington to recommend
a member of his race for a Federal office in Vicksburg, Miss.,
President Roosevelt said: "The question of the political importance of
the colored man is really of no consequence. I do not care to consider
it, and you must not consider it. Give me the very best colored man
that you know of for the place, upon whose integrity and capacity we
can surely rely."
The man, T.V. McAlister, whom Mr. Washington "gave" the President for
this office was of such character and reputation that the white
citizens of Vicksburg actually welcomed his appointment. Certainly
neither Vicksburg nor any other portion of Mississippi can be accused
of over-enthusiasm for conferring civil and political privileges upon
Negroes.
Booker Washington's habit of never losing an opportunity to advance
constructively the interests of his people is well illustrated by the
following letter to President Roosevelt:
[_Personal_]
_March 20, 1904._
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: It has occurred to me that there are
a number of ways in which the colored people of the United
States' could be of service in digging the Panama Canal,
and personally I should be glad to do anything in my power
in getting them interested if deemed practicable.
First: I think they can stand the climate better or as well
as any other people from the United States.
Second: I have thought that a reasonably satisfactory number
of them might be useful as common, or skilled, laborers.
Third: That in the Health Department our well-trained nurses
and physicians might be found helpful.
Fourth: If the United States should assume any
responsibility as to education, that many efficient colored
teachers from our industrial schools, and colleges, might
prove of great benefit. And, then, besides the presence of
these educated persons would, in my opinion, both by
character and example, aid in influencing the morality of
the darker-skinned people to be employed at the Isthmus. I
believe that these educated colored people could get closer
to the masses than white men.
Yours truly,
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
_To President Theodore Roosevelt, Washington, D.C._