OFF TO HAMPTON--WAS HE A LIKELY CANDIDATE?
Those who read the American newspapers will be aware that there is great
diversity of opinion in regard to the manner in which the education of
the coloured people should be conducted. Those who have grown up amid
the traditions of the Southern States, where, under the old order of
things, the education of slaves was a legal offence, do not readily
favour that higher training of negroes to which, in Great Britain, no
one would ever think of offering any objection. The feeling referred to
prevails in the Northern States as well as in the Southern; and more or
less throughout the Republic it is strongly held that, whether educated
or uneducated, the coloured race are socially on a lower plane and can
never associate on terms of equality with white people. The readiness
with which he has acknowledged this fact, while acting accordingly, has
in no small measure contributed to Booker Washington's success and
popularity. He has undoubtedly stimulated the interest which is now
shown in efficient negro training, as is self-evident from the newspaper
and magazine articles which from time to time appear upon the subject.
Thus, in course of an article on "The Function of the Negro College,"
in the _Dial_ of Chicago, Mr Kelly Miller, of Howard University,
Washington, remarks:--
"The groundwork of education cannot be modified to meet the variant
demands of race or colour, previous conditions or present needs. The
general processes of discipline and culture must form a fixed and
unalterable part of any adequate educational programme. On the other
hand, there is quite a wide latitude of accommodation for special needs
and social circumstances in what might be called the practical aspect of
education. There has recently sprung up a class of educational
philosophers who would restrict the term practical education to those
forms of knowledge or formulas of information which can be converted
into cash equivalent on demand. The truth is, that all knowledge which
enables the recipient to do with added efficiency the work which falls
to his lot in this world, whether that work be tilling the soil or
plying a handicraft, healing the sick or enlightening the ignorant,
uplifting the lowly or administering spiritual solace, is 'practical' in
the highest and best significance of that term.... Traditional branches
of study have lost much of their talismanic value. The so-called higher
education is no longer confined to the classic tongues of two famous
far-off peoples. The pedagogical watchword is _method_ rather than
subject-matter. The higher method of inquiry and investigation can be
applied to the growing roots of living plants as well as to the dry
stems of a dead language. The problems growing out of the population of
Alabama or Florida are as intricate in their relation, and as
far-reaching in their consequence, and, withal, as important a subject
for study, as any ever involved in the European peninsulas."
It seems to be generally held by such writers and their readers that the
mission of negroes who have received a good college training is to be
teachers and leaders to the more commonplace members of their own race,
and it is thought that a proportion of one in two hundred needs to have
the knowledge which will enable him to lead, and so benefit his fellows.
There must be tact, however; the negro student must have his craft well
ballasted or he may lose self-control, which may possibly lead to
somewhat comical results. Thus, Mr Miller tells of "A circular issued by
a young man, scarcely thirty years of age, the sum-total of whose
knowledge would be scarcely equal to that of a Yale sophomore, who
advertises himself as Rev. ----, A.M., B.D., Ph.D., D.D. It is more than
likely that the majority of the congregation of this over-bedecked
preacher can neither read nor write. What these humble people need is
sound knowledge and simple sense.... The negro race is characterised by
boisterousness of manners and extravagant forms of taste. As if to
correct such deficiencies, their higher education hitherto has been
largely concerned with Greek and Latin literature, the norms of modern
culture. The advanced negro student became acquainted with Homer and
Virgil before he had Shakespeare and Milton. It is just here that our
educational critics are apt to become excited. The spectacle of a negro
wearing eyeglasses, and declaiming in classic phrases about 'the walls
of lofty Rome,' and 'the wrath of Achilles,' upsets their critical
balance and composure. We have so often listened to the grotesque
incongruity of a Greek chorus and a greasy cabin, and the relative value
of a piano and a patch of potatoes, that if we did not join in the smile
in order to encourage the humour, we should do so out of sheer
weariness."
Their utterances show in what light the college training of negroes is
regarded by ordinary citizens of the United States; and it may be noted
that Mr Kelly Miller, the writer, hails from Howard University, which is
intended chiefly for coloured students. As slavery only disappeared a
generation ago, it can hardly be expected that such a matter can be
discussed without some show of extravagance or of exaggeration
appearing. We even find a well-known Doctor of Divinity venturing the
opinion, in an influential weekly journal, that the education of one
white student is worth more to the negroes than the education of ten
blacks. All tends to clear the air, however; and what is done at Howard
and Atlanta Universities and elsewhere, in the way of providing
education for coloured youths, shows that advances are being made, and
that better times are coming.
We left Booker Washington still looking forward with confidence to being
admitted as a student at Hampton College and Industrial Institute. The
resolution thus taken was the more extraordinary because the negro
aspirant was still a mere boy, practically without means for such an
ambitious enterprise, while he had no friends who could assist him in
any adequate manner. He was also quite unused to travelling, and was so
unacquainted with the map of his native State that he could not have
pointed out the direction in which the town of Hampton lay. In point of
fact, a cross-country journey would have to be taken, representing a
distance about corresponding with that between London and Aberdeen.
Under such unfavourable conditions even his hitherto heroic mother,
whose strength seemed now to be declining, hardly thought that the thing
could successfully be carried out. On the other hand, others rather
encouraged the lad, at least to make the endeavour. Then, for some
considerable time before the start was made, the outlook at Malden, so
far as Booker Washington was himself personally concerned, had
considerably improved. Instead of having to continue at the rough, or
even dangerous, labour in which he had been compelled to engage, he
obtained a situation in the household of a military officer, whose wife
had gained the reputation of being a domestic martinet, the family
otherwise being one of the chief in the town. The sequel proved,
however, that common report is oftentimes not to be trusted; for while
the ex-slave boy made an excellent house-servant, the discipline he
underwent in the officer's house was just such as he needed, and could
not fail to be beneficial to him.
Having resolved to resign a situation which he valued, and which, most
probably, his mother would have been well content for him to retain, the
would-be student prepared to start, being unhampered by anything in the
way of luggage beyond a bundle that could easily be carried in one hand.
The journey alone was a very formidable undertaking, much more so at
that time than would be the case to-day. As might have been expected,
the ambitious youth soon made the painful discovery that he was very
inadequately equipped for his journey. The difficulties of the way were
also greatly increased by the fact that he belonged to a proscribed
race. The distance was so great that money was wanted for food and for
travelling fares; but the scant available supply very speedily ran out.
Of course, there were roadside houses of rest and of refreshment into
which negroes could not gain admittance, even though he might carry a
good supply of cash. He soon found out that a boy of colour could not
hope to find lodging in an hotel intended for white people; and on
reaching Richmond, footsore and famished with hunger, he was so utterly
impecunious that, for some nights in succession, after earning a little
by day, he had to repeat the experience of "sleeping out." The wonder is
that, in the case of so young a boy, all of this suffering did not damp
his ardour and discourage his still persevering. So far as can be
discovered, however, he never did lose his hold of the anchor of hope.
Is it not a singular and a suggestive thing that quite a number of
well-known men, who afterwards won literary fame or distinguished
commercial success, were correspondingly adventurous in having to "sleep
out," or to walk the streets through the livelong night in order to keep
themselves warm, because they lacked the money wherewith to pay for a
bed? Dr Johnson went through this experience before he became the
literary autocrat of the eighteenth century. So also did John Cassell
when he came to London, with only a few pence in his pocket, not so very
long before the founding of that printing and publishing house, still
named after him, which ranks as one of the greatest establishments of
the kind in the British Isles.
No youthful aspirant thirsting for an education ever completed a more
toilsome, and even painful, journey in order to reach the college he
desired to enter than Booker Washington, when he actually got over the
five hundred miles between Malden and Hampton. It is still more
remarkable that, although he was undoubtedly one of the most daring and
doggedly persevering youths that could have been found among the
coloured people, he was still not a solitary example of a negro boy
literally making stepping-stones of difficulties. There were other black
youngsters who were quite as determined, and their efforts were also
destined to be crowned with success.
Still, our wonder is increased when we remember that this journey, with
its formidable difficulties, was boldly hazarded without there being any
certainty of his being received as a student in the institution. No one
in the house even knew that he was on the road and was about to present
himself as a candidate for admission. When at length he arrived and
confronted the chief matron, a less shrewd and sympathetic person than
she was would hardly have been impressed in Booker Washington's favour.
Footsore, travel-stained, hungry, with not more than two shillings in
his pocket, he was, in point of fact, so completely, though
unintentionally, disguised, that an ordinary observer would have had
difficulty in deciding what he was. He might have been one of that
class, who abound in the United States, who prefer a wandering vagabond
life to honest work, and who thus thought that a brief acquaintance
with the college might add to the diversity or excitement of life. But,
happily, there is something in the human eye which surely betokens
character. Cheats and impostors of all kinds cannot control their eyes.
It would seem that the chief matron thought that there might be
something in the adventurous applicant. At all events she decided that
he might be tested, and, as the training included the teaching of
various industries, what more effective test could be applied than the
"doing up" of a room. The work was so perfectly done that Booker
Washington was found to have something in him.
We may naturally infer that this aspiring negro lad now began fully to
reap the benefit of having been for many months subjected to the
uncompromising discipline of the domestic martinet--the general's
wife--at Malden. If it had not been for this preliminary household
education we can hardly suppose that he would, even imperfectly, have
understood how to do certain things which were now done well, the
knowledge thus acquired being of the greatest possible value to one who
had to make a favourable impression on those from whom he was hoping to
obtain an education. He was admitted into the institution as a student;
but as there were still certain expenses for board and teaching to be
met, difficulties looming in the future were not as yet altogether
overcome. It was quite impossible for him to find any money at all for
current expenses unless it was first earned, all of his family
connections being too poor to send even the smallest contribution. The
most ready way out of such difficulties was for the student to give his
labour during certain hours of each day in return for his board. He was
such an efficient house-servant that such an arrangement promised to be
of advantage to both sides. He was appointed to the position of what we
should call handy-man in the institution--doorkeeper, porter,
room-cleaner, man-of-all-work. The burden of labour, in addition to
onerous class-work, which all this involved through each successively
long working day, was, of course, formidable; but such things were now
made light of because the goal, so long looked forward to when seen from
afar, had been reached at last. The ex-slave boy not only breathed the
air of freedom, he was getting an education which was best adapted to
his needs and future plans. General Armstrong, the founder of such a
school-paradise, was naturally looked upon as an ideal man. Until the
good General died in middle age, Booker Washington never lowered his
estimate of this distinguished benefactor of the coloured race; and, if
questioned at the present time concerning his late friend, the master of
the Tuskegee institution would probably not hesitate to say that the
General was worthy of being compared with Greatheart in the _Pilgrim's
Progress_.
During those early days at Hampton there were, at times, hardships to be
borne, but even these seem to have had a bracing effect. The number of
students became so great that those who had to be lodged in tents might
occasionally suffer from the weather. Notwithstanding, coloured students
made light of privations which might reasonably have damped the ardour
of others.