The white people charge us with being imitators, incapable of
originating anything in the domain of science, art or invention, and to
a certain extent I am free to admit that the charge is true, and the
reasons are easily explained. Being a new people, as it were, we had not
attained to the point of originality, and situated in the midst of white
people who had education, refinement of manners, money and the advantage
it gives, we are compelled to imitate them. Besides, it was their advice
to us to do so if we wished to succeed, and we have, therefore, been
imitating them for nearly thirty years, adopting their habits and
customs, the good, and, I am sorry to say, the bad as well. Having
followed the advice of those white people, who we knew meant well, and
whom we knew to be our real friends, as anxious for our success as we
were, and who will have our sincere thanks always, for the noble and
generous deeds they have done for us; yet we have made mistakes.
Whenever we could, we gave our children the same course of study that
white children received, often graduating them from the same platform,
and then, when able, sent our boys to college to take a professional
course, either in law, medicine or the ministry, this being the usual
course followed by white parents, and being imitators, could we be
expected to adopt any other with our limited means or foresight? I
answer, no.
Being a peculiar, or I might say a proscribed people, the same course
of study, after leaving the common branches, which was deemed best for
the white children, experience has shown us, was not the best suited for
the Colored children. Being almost entirely a laboring class of people,
we should have used every means in our power to educate our children’s
hands as well as their heads by giving them a trade of some kind, by
establishing industrial schools as a part of the course of study, so
that our boys would have a trade when they reached the age of twenty-one
years, and our girls at the same age coming out of the schools, would be
trained nurses, cooks or seamstresses, prepared to make an honest
living.
I do not want it to be understood that I am opposed to the higher
studies or professions; far be it from me. On the contrary, I am proud
of every young Colored man who has attained to these honors, and would
be glad to see as many more turned out fullfledged every year. In order
that they may take our places in the labor world, when we, who have been
taught trades by our owners, shall have passed from life to death, we
should strive to give our children trades of some kind, and we should
commence now. Have we to-day as many shoemakers, carpenters,
bricklayers, blacksmiths, stone masons and wagon makers among us as when
emancipated? I think not. This presents a very unfortunate condition, if
true, and I believe it is. But I am glad to see our people awakening to
this neglected duty, and I think no man deserves more credit for this
than Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee Normal and
Industrial Institute.
On the fourth of July, 1881, this school began, in an old church
building, with one teacher and thirty pupils. Since then its growth has
been most remarkable. To-day it owns over 1500 acres of land, nineteen
buildings, has more than six hundred students, forty-one teachers, and
gives instruction in eighteen industries. Its lands and buildings are
worth $185,000. Its industries include farming, brickmaking, sawmill
work, planing, carpentry, painting, brickmasonry, plastering,
blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, chairmaking, mattress-making, printing,
bee-culture; and for girls, laundering, general housekeeping, sewing,
including cutting and making garments, and cooking lessons for seniors.
Eight of the largest buildings have been built wholly or in part by
student labor. It has been the aim of the school from the first to
combine thorough mental training with industrial work.
No one can visit the school to-day and see what it is doing in the
class-room, in the farm, in the carpenter-shop, in the blacksmith-shop,
in the sawmill, in the brickyard, in the printing office, in the
laundry, in the sewing room, in the literary societies, and in the
various religious exercises,--for the development of the head, hand and
heart of the young men and women gathered there, without feeling
profoundly thankful to God.
There are a few things about this school that are especially worthy of
note: 1st. It is a live school. It believes in progress. It has never
stood still a day since its organization. Every year it presents new
evidences of growth and development. 2nd. It does what it aims to do
thoroughly. It employs only well-qualified officers and teachers, and
subjects all its pupils to the most rigid examination before sending
them forth. 3rd. It is no sham affair, existing on paper only. It is
all it represents itself to be, and more; and it does all it professes
to do. 4th. Its funds are wisely and economically administered; there is
no waste anywhere, everything is utilized, and utilized for the general
good. The immediate work to which the school is committed, in its
greatness and importance, seems to weigh upon every mind; and how to get
the most out of what they have is the one thought. Hence the salaries
are small and the working force is cut down to the smallest possible
number, thereby increasing the burdens of the officers and teachers, but
by them willingly, cheerfully endured, as it helps to keep down
expenses; hence, also the buildings, as well as their furnishings, the
food, etc., are all of the plainest character. An example of the rigid
economy which characterizes everything there, may be found in the fact,
that eight dollars will keep a young man there for a month, including
everything, board, lodging, washing, mending, fuel and light. 5th. Every
officer and teacher in it, from the beginning to the present, has been
Colored. Whatever ability has been displayed therefore in the management
of its affairs, and in working it up to its present high standard, we
may justly claim as our own. In this particular it stands alone among
the Colored institutions in our land. Not that there are no other
schools that have proved a success under exclusively Colored management
and direction, but none of such magnitude, whose success is so
unquestioned, and where such large sums of money are expended annually.
The feeling of the whites in the neighborhood is now most friendly to
the school, and they frequently employ the students in their different
departments of labor. As an illustration of this friendly feeling, a
southern lady living near the school has recently given to it an estate
valued at $15,000.
At the head of this school, and its animating, controlling spirit, from
the very beginning, is Prof. Booker T. Washington, a graduate of
Hampton, a quiet, unassuming man, with a wise head and a big heart, and
the weight of this race problem resting upon him as upon scarcely any
other that I have met. You do not hear very much about him through the
columns of the newspapers, or of his addressing great meetings in the
various parts of the country; but judged by his work, he is a most
remarkable man--a man to be proud of, and to be honored, a modest man,
caring nothing about notoriety, content to be unknown, so long as the
work goes on, and his people go up; a born leader, with all the elements
of leadership, especially for the work in which he is engaged, with a
keen intellect, a strong will, courage, perseverance and enthusiasm.
When this great race problem shall be solved; when slavery and all its
dreadful consequences shall be a thing of the past, and when we shall
stand on the same plane with others in point of wealth, intelligence and
culture, which I firmly believe we will, and even the history of the
influences by which it has been brought about shall be written, I
believe that no man will be assigned a more honorable place than this
man, Booker T. Washington.
I have written quite fully of the institution over which Professor
Washington presides, to the exclusion of others, not because there were
no others worthy of mention, but because I had fuller information of
that institution than of any other. But I am reliably informed that
there are several such schools established in the South, and that they
are doing a good work, but being in their infancy, as it were, are not
on a par with the Tuskegee Institute.
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