PIONEER EDUCATOR ARRIVES.
Into the midst of these terrible times which made weak the souls and
hearts of the strongest of men, came Miss Martha Schofield, the first
of the pioneers to push into the distracted South to labor, to suffer,
and if need be, to die for the millions of ignorant, irresponsible
Negroes. Their education, along industrial lines, she made her
life-work--crowning it on the 77th day of her birth, February 1, 1916,
by passing from earth to heaven. But she left to show that she did
something on earth a school and campus comprising an area of two entire
blocks in the beautiful City of Aiken, S. C., on which she had erected
eight buildings.
The school farm, adequate for all farm demonstration work, consists
of about 400 acres. The funds by which all this valuable property was
acquired was raised by Miss Schofield herself, through the fluent
use of her trenchant pen, which she knew how to wield as few women
have ever learned to do. Everything contracted for in the interest
of the school was paid for in cash as Miss Schofield, in all her
fifty years of administration, never contracted the outlay of money
without first having provided the means with which to meet claims. She
enjoyed the good-will and friendship of men and women of wealth and
influence throughout the country, especially of the old Abolitionists,
who supported her institution generously as long as they lived and
possessed the means with which to do so.
The Schofield School at Aiken has sent out into the world many young
men and women who have gone back among their own people accomplished
teachers, ministers, physicians, farmers and artisans, leading the
colored race of the South to the highest appreciation of what Martha
Schofield’s motto for life was--“Thoroughness,” thoroughness not only
in books and the industrial arts, but in thought and action as well.
No doubt the success which attended the efforts of the graduates of
this School is due, in the main, to the strict regard for efficiency
with which this great woman inspired every student coming under her
influence.
When we contemplate the wide-spread influence which the life and work
of Martha Schofield has exerted on the education of the people of the
South, the white as well as the colored, words become inadequate to pay
proper tribute to her; to justly express the appreciation felt by those
having knowledge of her achievements.
There is not a colored school in the entire South that has not
acknowledged the wisdom of this Divinely endowed leader and instructor
by establishing an industrial department. Recognizing the imperative
importance of this sort of instruction almost all the schools and
colleges for whites emphasize it by giving it first place in their
curriculums. Clemson, for white men and Rock Hill Normal and Industrial
Institute for young white women were established long after Miss
Schofield brought home to the people of the South the crying necessity
of preparing our boys and girls of all races for the actual duties
met with in every day home life. The vision which she herself had of
a thorough preparation for the humbler tasks lighted the intellectual
skies of the whole South after years of success by her in the education
of the weaker race. This fact is made more prominent by the action of
many of the States in incorporating industrial courses in the common
schools.
Much credit must be given to the practical success of Miss Schofield’s
school work for the marvelous strides made by the education of the
Negro at such celebrated institutions as Hampton, Va., with an
enrollment annually of over 1,500 students and an endowment of over
$1,000,000.00; and at Tuskegee, with about an equal number of students
and as great or greater endowment fund. Then there are other great
institutions devoted entirely to the education of the colored race,
making quite a feature of the industrial department, such as Atlanta
University, Atlanta, Ga., Fisk University, Nashville, Term., Haines
Institute, Augusta, Ga., Spellman University, Atlanta, Ga., Claflin
and the Agricultural Colored State College at Orangeburg, S. C. Also
Benedict at Columbia and Voorhees Institute at Denmark, all of which
have grown into existence and attained the top-most rung of the ladder
of fame since the coming to the South of Martha Schofield in 1865.
Near the Schofield School is the Bettis Academy in Edgefield County,
South Carolina, formed and modeled after the fashion of the Aiken
School. Alford Nicholson, the principal, is a product of the latter
and is working out with great similarity the ideas and theories of his
Alma Mater. The good being accomplished here in a small way is one of
the great triumphs of the life-work of Miss Schofield, it being her
greatest aim in life not to create and endow great institutions of
learning with money and high sounding names, but to plant in the heart
and soul of every child coming under her influence those principles
of efficiency that would enable them to get out into the world and
actually do something to lift up the fallen. She acted always as if the
taking of the name of the Lord in vain consisted entirely of praying
for the Kingdom of God to come but doing absolutely nothing to bring
those prayers to pass. “Deeds, deeds, my children,” she was fond of
saying, “are what count, not mere words.”
The absence of faith in God, she asserted, was seen in all those who
did not turn their hand to accomplish the results for which they
prayed. No one can successfully accuse her of hypocracy in the least.
She practiced what she taught and taught others that anything less than
that was hypocracy and infidelism.
Miss Martha Schofield was born near Newton, in Bucks County,
Pennsylvania, on the first day of February in the year 1839 of
well-to-do parents, who professed and lived true the principles of
religion as enunciated by the Society of Friends, or the Quakers, as
they are commonly called. This stern sect of religious puritans date
their arrival in America along with the earliest immigrants, and in
proportion to numbers can lay as heavy claim to being responsible
for the civilization of the present day as any other denomination
inhabiting the New World. The same cause, religious persecution,
leading other denominations to seek a home on American shores, where
they could worship God in their own way, inspired the Friends to come
to this country. William Penn, a very wealthy and highly educated
man, famous the civilized world over for his kindness of heart and
generous benevolences, was a member of the Society and one of its chief
supporters in England and America. He founded the City of Philadelphia,
which means brotherly love. The foundation stone of the whole structure
of the Quaker religion is carved out of the rock of brotherly love, and
it was this love that placed Ben Abon Ahem on the highest seat in the
house of the Hall of Saints when the wandering Angel of the earth went
to Heaven to pick out the Archangel within the pearly gates.
The love which Martha Schofield bore for all mankind, white and black,
Jew and Greek, male and female, friend and foe, was evidently inspired
by a religious conviction that held her thrall.
Not since Christ has there been a man or woman of whom it can be truly
said he or she could not possibly, wilfully sin, but it is believed
confidently by all who knew Miss Schofield best that she would not
under any circumstances knowingly commit sin. It was as natural for her
to be virtuous and righteous as it is natural for the vicious to be
bad, unkind, selfish and immoral.
While Miss Schofield was kind and generous to prodigality she was
also as brave as a lion and quick as a tiger to fight if the occasion
demanded it. While she always took counsel and weighed matters
carefully she never failed to contend for what she believed to be
right. Her nature seemed blended with the holiness of a sacred
spirituality, imparted to it no doubt by her religious training, and
an invincibleness in matters affecting social relations that bordered
the stubbornness of Satan. Influenced, possibly, to greatness in the
latter attribute by the teachings of the Abolitionist Party, to which
she belonged in heart, mind and soul?
As one of her most valued friends and one of the most brilliant of the
many noteworthy people said of her at the funeral, the author wishes
to repeat here: “Martha Schofield is not dead; she lives and will
continue to live in the memory of her students scattered all over South
Carolina and other States. She lives in their memory and in the memory
of their children’s children, for there are few colored homes in which
her name and deeds are not recounted in the family circle. I count some
of her best work, the efforts she made to elevate and purify the home.
She spent much time and endured many hardships traveling through the
country speaking and teaching the value of homes and the necessity of
clean homes, both physically and morally. She never tired of stressing
these things and there are many good Negro homes in South Carolina and
all over the Southland that are evidences that her efforts have not
been in vain. Martha Schofield was helpful not alone to the Negroes but
also to the whites, for good Negroes make good whites and good whites
make good Negroes.”
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