UPS AND DOWNS--PROGRESS AS A STUDENT--BEGINNING TO TEACH
Probably one reason why youths who are educated in such a school as the
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute so commonly turn out to be of
use to themselves and to others in the world is, that only young people
of mettle and perseverance would endure the labour and hardship which
form part of the discipline. What was done for the students was not
altogether gratuitous; they were supposed either to have means or to be
able to earn money, and to be too hard driven to be able to pay the
merest trifle may often have been an experience which might have damped
the ardour of any save enthusiasts of the most dogged perseverance.
Among the large company of poor students, it would almost seem that
Booker Washington was the poorest. Do what he would, he could not help
small arrears of college dues accumulating; and when vacation time came
round, he might be the only one of the household who could not afford to
rejoin his friends at home. Instead of thinking of doing this, there was
pressing necessity for finding work in the town which would bring in
supplies towards paying off old scores, and which would help him to
tide over the next term. Education under such conditions would have a
deadening effect, or it would prove a discipline of the most bracing
kind, fostering habits of independence and self-reliance. To Booker
Washington it was of the latter kind. He formed good habits; he was a
ready learner; he was thankful for any advice which those above him
could impart. Reverence for Scripture is a very characteristic trait of
the negro race; and the habit of reading daily a portion of the Bible
which was formed at Hampton has never since been given up. While making
progress at ordinary school or college work, he also added to his
knowledge of certain outdoor industries, which was a valuable
acquisition to be turned to account in future days. Then, the
enlargement of his knowledge of human nature was likely to be of no
small advantage to him. He may not have known before that the desire for
education was so general among his own people, nor that the capacity for
turning it to good account was so self-evident. He learned still
further, that white men and women of social standing and high culture
were willing to make personal self-sacrifices on behalf of the coloured
race by becoming their teachers and their helpers. From such persons of
culture and refinement he even learned the dignity of labour. He learned
from their everyday example that education did not merely mean settling
down into a more genteel life, but meant larger responsibilities and
harder work. In other words, he came to see that the sharpening of the
mental faculties was to ensure the hands working more efficiently, while
it might be necessary to spend strength and talent for the benefit of
others.
The all-round work at the Institute continued as it had begun. As
regarded the general studies, every hour was turned to full account. The
housework expected of the janitor was never either neglected or half
done; and when each vacation time came round outside service had to be
procured. During all this time both his mother and his brother stood by
him, and not only gave him their sympathy, but all the help that was
possible. At the present moment that brother, as well as a friend, who
as a child was adopted by the family, are valued assistants in the
Tuskegee Institution.
As the college course came to an end, and Booker Washington returned to
his old haunts with their memories of coal mining and salt production,
he was now a man of education to be looked up to and respected; and as
the coloured people were ambitious of having a school established with a
competent master, a fully-equipped graduate from Hampton Institute was
no small acquisition. When the school was established the classes were
soon crowded by those who, on account of their anxiety to improve,
deserved to be distinguished as the most diligent and persevering of
learners. There were a host of others also who, through having to attend
to their daily labour were unable to attend school by day, were still
not content to remain uninstructed in such good times as had dawned upon
them. For these evening classes were provided, so that the tutor's time
was occupied from early morning until late at night.
While at Malden he saw something of the doings of the members of the
somewhat mysterious Ku-Klux Klan, which in the _Cyclopædia of Names_ is
thus described:--"A former secret organisation in the Southern United
States, of which the object was to intimidate the negroes,
carpet-baggers and 'scalawags,' and to prevent them from political
action. It arose probably in 1867; was guilty of numerous outrages; and
was suppressed in consequence of an Act of Congress--the Force
Bill--passed in 1871." Street fights occurred, and the progress made
since that day is seen in the fact that even the best part of the
Southern public sentiment would not now tolerate the existence of such
an association.
Had the policy of the Ku-Klux Klan been continued, and had public
sympathy been accorded to its warfare, the cause of the negroes must
have gone down until the race became a very genuine danger to the
Government. The change in public opinion in the South is not only one of
the most cheering signs of the times, but many of Booker Washington's
most earnest sympathisers and helpers are actually found in the former
slave States. In the _Southern Letter_ for May 1901, a little monthly
newspaper which the founder of the Tuskegee Institution issues from his
headquarters, a Southern lady of position, who was formerly a
slave-owner, writes:--
"God speed you in your noble work! Whenever I hear it said, 'The
Caucasian blood in Booker Washington is the cause of his success and
perseverance,' I answer, 'It is Principle.' I am a Southern white woman,
once a slave-owner, educated to think it right, and to believe that
coloured people could not provide for themselves, but would return to
cannibalism if brought from under their masters, and so I thought it
would be an awful thing for both races if they should be emancipated. I
have long ago seen the folly of such opinions, and have seen that
slavery was a horrible thing, and no one is more rejoiced than I am to
see the progress and prosperity and enlightenment of the coloured
people. Though a stranger in person, I am your true friend."
During the twelve years which followed the close of the Civil War, the
Southern States were in a condition of unrest, which was natural,
however, and was such as might have been expected after such a crisis as
that which had shaken and threatened the very existence of the Republic.
Considering what the relationship between the whites and the blacks had
been, and what kind of traditional views the former had been trained to
receive concerning the inferiority of the coloured race, we cannot
wonder that the planters, and those who were with them, should have been
appalled at the outlook. The situation became more anomalous, or even
dangerous, through the mistakes of the Northern politicians, quite as
much as through any want of charity, whether real or imaginary, on the
part of the Southern statesmen. There were wounds to be healed on both
sides, and there was too much of a disposition to maintain the
vindictive war spirit after the war was over. Those who aimed at
reconstruction certainly endangered their cause when they suddenly gave
to the negroes greater political privileges than they understood, or
would be able to use with any advantage to themselves. It would seem
that some ludicrous instances occurred of even the lower kind of negroes
being installed in important State offices. The result of this and many
more indiscretions was naturally to foment feelings of great bitterness
on both sides. If many in the North were disposed to make the
emancipated slaves a bone of contention--a means of punishing the States
which had wished to secede and to found a Commonwealth of their
own--they missed their mark and involved the coloured race in much
additional suffering which they might well have been spared. If we look
through such a record as the autobiography of Laura Haviland, we find
mention made of a number of atrocities belonging to this unsettled
period of the kind which, under the circumstances, were pretty sure to
happen. In a sense, Southern society was in a condition of that kind of
chaos which has often marked similar transition periods. Never before
were leaders more urgently needed who would work for peace and
advancement by showing those, whose interests were supposed to be at
variance, that their cause was one. Who could have prophesied at that
time that the coloured people were destined to find some of their best
friends among the whites of the south?
It has also to be confessed, that the outlook among the emancipated
people themselves was such as might be expected to inspire misgiving, or
even some alarm. They neither comprehended the situation nor could they
properly understand what was the true aim of education. Booker
Washington himself had been so thoroughly well trained in the best
school that then existed, that of General Armstrong at the Hampton
Institute, that he saw at a glance the kind of obstacles which
threatened to bring disaster to his race by hindering their progress. In
large measure the squalor and superstition which naturally come of
generations of the darkest ignorance prevailed. It was seen that the
training which was imperatively needed would have to be mainly
industrial, while there must be no aspiration for equality with the
whites by attempting to come into competition with them in the common
avocations of everyday life. This was actually happening, however, so
that while he studied for a time at Washington, the future founder of
the great institute at Tuskegee saw that there were breakers ahead
unless certain errors could be corrected. The negroes became too much
disposed to look to the Government to make full provision for them,
especially when they attained to the distinction of being able to read
and write. Many would indulge in extravagant habits in order to make it
appear that they were better off than they really were. Then there were
an extraordinary number who aspired to the rare distinction of shining
as divines and as admired preachers of the Gospel. Young men sought to
become instructors of others before they had any ballast of character of
their own. It was a time of danger and of the threatened loss of great
opportunities, making it all the more remarkable that, in the way of
social, educational and industrial progress, the negroes are where they
are to-day. In those days of uncertainty the prophets of evil made their
voices heard. As Booker Washington recently remarked in the
_International Monthly_: "There were not a few who predicted that, as
soon as the negro became a free man, he would not only cease to support
himself and others, but he would become a tax upon the community."
Persons who held notions of this kind doubtless supposed that negroes
had some physical kinship with the native American Indians, who have
never shown any disposition to take to field labour; and while they
involve the Government in no small annual expense, their tribes are
gradually dying out. The negroes, on the contrary, are fast multiplying,
and their value as field labourers, and as workers in other departments
of service, is a grateful contrast to the general incapacity of the
Indians. In the article just referred to, Booker Washington is able to
bear this high testimony to the general worth of his own people:--
"Few people in any part of our country have ever seen a black hand
reached out from a street corner asking for charity. In our Northern
communities a large amount of money is spent by individuals and
municipalities in caring for the sick, the poor, and other classes of
unfortunates. In the South, with very few exceptions, the negro takes
care of himself, and of the unfortunate members of his race. This is
usually done by a combination of individual members of the race, or
through the churches or fraternal organisations. Not only is this true,
but I want to make a story illustrate the condition that prevails in
some parts of the South. The white people in a certain Black Belt county
in the South had been holding a convention, the object of which was to
encourage white people to emigrate into the county. After the
adjournment of the convention an old coloured man met the president of
the meeting on the street and asked the object of the convention. When
told, the old coloured man replied, ''Fore God, Boss, don't you know
that we niggers have just as many white people in this county as we can
support?'"
The more we become acquainted with the general character and capacity of
the negro, the more are we likely to become convinced that, instead of
these people being any drawback to life in the South, those States, so
favoured by Nature, could not do without them. It is true that a number
of white persons in the States chiefly concerned have boldly testified
that the coloured race have proved the best labourers which the country
has ever had for its peculiar needs, and better than are likely to be
forthcoming in the future. This fact is now being recognised by those
whose interests are chiefly affected. Thus we even find it stated, "The
greatest excitement and anxiety has been recently created among the
white people in two counties in Georgia, because of the fact that a
large proportion of the coloured people decided to leave. No stone has
been left unturned to induce the coloured people to remain in the
country and prevent financial ruin to many white farmers." The 8,900,000
bales of cotton grown in 1899, under free labour, is nearly fourfold
greater than was produced in 1850 by slave labour.
During the transition or reconstruction time, especially during the
period when he was completing his college training at Washington, Booker
Washington was a keen observer of his own people, the result being that
he probably understands their needs, idiosyncrasies and tendencies
better than any other living authority. He also eagerly reads what
others who are not members of his own race say upon the subject. What he
considers the most valuable testimony under this head appeared about two
years ago in an article in _Appleton's Popular Science Monthly_, written
by Professor N. S. Shaler of Harvard University, and Dean of the
Scientific School. Take this passage:--
"The negroes who came to North America had to undergo as complete a
transition as ever fell to the lot of man, without the least chance to
undergo an acclimatising process. They were brought from the hottest
part of the earth to the region where the winter's cold is almost of
arctic severity; from an exceedingly humid to a very dry air. They came
to service under alien taskmasters, strange to them in speech and in
purpose. They had to betake themselves to unaccustomed food, and to
clothing such as they had never worn before. Rarely could one of the
creatures find about him a familiar face of friend, parent or child, or
an object that recalled his past life to him. It was an appalling
change. Only those who know how the negro cleaves to all the dear,
familiar things of life, how fond he is of life and friendliness, can
conceive the physical and mental shock that this introduction to new
conditions meant to them. To people of our own race it would have meant
death. But these wonderful folk appear to have withstood the trials of
their deportation in a marvellous way. They showed no particular
liability to disease. Their longevity or period of usefulness was not
diminished, or their fecundity obviously impaired. So far as I have
been able to learn, nostalgia was not a source of mortality, as it would
have been with any Aryan population. The price they brought in the
market and the satisfaction of their purchasers with their qualities
show that they were from the first almost ideal labourers."
When Booker Washington took up his residence in the town which the first
President of the United States called the Federal City, but which was
destined to take the name of that great patriot himself, a large number
of negroes were found there. As a town, Washington has made wonderful
strides since the close of the Civil War. The schools or colleges for
coloured students, which are provided, of course have attraction for
negroes, while other characteristics of the city also have strong
fascination for such susceptible folk. If we may say so, in connection
with a Republic, Washington is the seat of the Court and of the
Legislature. The population may be a quarter of a million or more; but
though not a very large town, it has recently developed into a beautiful
place, fine buildings of wide thoroughfares and charming recreation
grounds. Booker Washington seems to have discovered that such a place
failed to exercise the best of influence on negro students. It is not in
any sense an industrial centre; the people are for the most part
Government officials, professional people, and persons of means who
settle there because the surroundings and society are congenial. The
temptation to coloured students was to assume too lofty airs, to despise
any occupation other than a profession, and to think that the President
and his Government were bound to find openings for them.