questions, are being asked over and over again by people all over
the country. The question can be answered only by our putting our
consciences into our work, and by our being entirely unselfish in it.
Let every person get into the habit of planning every day for the
comfort and welfare of others, let each one try to live as unselfishly
as possible, remembering that the Bible says: "He that would save his
life, must lose it." And you never saw a person save his life in this
higher sense, in the Christ-like sense, unless that person was willing,
day by day, to lose himself in the interest of his fellow-men. Such
persons save their own lives, and in saving them save thousands of
other lives.
Such questions as these can be satisfactorily answered not merely
by our putting our consciences into every effort, no matter what
the effort may be, but by improving, day by day, upon what has been
done the day before. In large institutions and establishments it is
comparatively easy to find persons who will sweep a room day by day,
or plough a field during certain seasons of the year, and do other
work at certain other seasons of the year, but the difficulty comes
in finding persons who make improvements in the manner of sweeping
rooms, of ploughing fields and planting corn. The question for us is:
"Are we going to put so much brains into our efforts every year, that
we are going to go on steadily and constantly improving from year to
year?" Are you going to get into the habit of so thinking about your
work here that the habit will become, as it were, a part of yourself,
so that when you go out into the world you will not be satisfied to
take a position and go on in the same humdrum manner, but will not be
satisfied until your work has been improved in every possible detail,
and made easier, more systematic, and more convenient?
We must put brains into our work. There must be improvement in every
department of this institution every year. It is absolutely impossible
for an institution to stand still; it must go forward or backward,
grow better or worse each year. An institution grows stronger and more
useful each year, or weaker and less useful.
This institution can grow only by each person putting his thought into
his work, by planning how he can improve the work of his particular
department, by constantly striving to make his work more useful to the
institution, by keeping the place where he works cleaner, and making
his work more business-like and more systematic. That is the only way
in which the questions which people all over the country are asking
about this institution can be satisfactorily answered.
You will find that people will look to us more and more for tangible
results. Not only here, but all over the country, our race is going
to be called on to answer the question: "What can the race really
accomplish?" It is perfectly well understood by our friends as well
as by our enemies, that we can write good newspaper articles and make
good addresses, that we can sing well and talk well, and all that kind
of thing. All that is perfectly well understood and conceded. But the
question that will be more and more forced upon us for an answer is:
"Can we work out our thoughts, can we put them into tangible shape,
so that the world may see from day to day actual evidences of our
intellectuality?"
Last winter I was in the town of Clinton, Iowa. I think I had never
heard of the place before, and when I got there I was surprised to find
it a place of more than 16,000 inhabitants. The gentleman who was to
entertain me wanted to take me to a coloured restaurant. I expected
to go into a restaurant of the kind operated by our people generally,
and I was very much surprised when he took me into a large, two-story
building. I found the floors carpeted, and everything about the place
as pleasant and attractive as it was possible to make it. In fact the
restaurant compared very favourably with many in the largest cities
in the country. I found the waiters clean, the service good, and
everything conducted in the most systematic manner. And there was not
the least thing, except the colour of the proprietor's skin, to show
that the place was operated by coloured people.
Afterward my friend took me into another establishment of the same
size, operated in the same creditable manner by another coloured man.
In both I found that these gentlemen not only carried on a regular
restaurant business, but manufactured their own candies and ice cream,
and did a sort of wholesale catering business. I asked the white people
there what they thought of the coloured people, and I did not find a
single white person who did not have the most implicit confidence in
the coloured people. The trouble was that there were not many coloured
people there. That accounts possibly for the good opinion which the
white people have of them. But you see what just two black men can do.
These people had never seen many black people, but fortunately for us
they had with them two of the best specimens of our race that I have
ever seen anywhere in this country. As a result you do not find any one
cursing the black man in that town. Everybody had the utmost confidence
in black people, and respected them.
Just in proportion as we can establish object lessons of this kind
all over the country, you will find that the problem that now is so
perplexing will disappear. Until we do this, we shall not be able to
talk away, or to argue away, this prejudice. We cannot talk our way
into our rights; we must work our way, think our way, into them. And
you will find that just in proportion as we do this, we are going to
get all we deserve.
SOME GREAT LITTLE THINGS
I am going to speak to you for a few minutes to-night upon what I shall
term "Some Great Little Things." I speak of them as great, because of
their supreme importance, and I speak of them as little, because they
come in a class of things which are usually looked upon by many people
as small and unimportant. But in an institution like this I think they
often hold first place--certainly they come under the head of important
things that we can learn.
You will remember that in the sermon the Chaplain preached this
morning, he mentioned the three-fold division of our nature; the
physical part, the mental part, and the spiritual part. What I shall
refer to to-night has largely to do with the material, the physical
part of our natures. There are certain little things that each one of
you can learn now, in connection with the care of your bodies, which,
if left unlearned now, will perhaps go without being learned all your
lives. You are now, as it were, at the parting of the ways--you are
going to make these habits a part of yourselves, or you are going to
let them escape you forever, and be weak in a measure all your lives
for not having made them a part of yourselves.
I am going to speak very plainly, because I feel that such talk means
nothing unless it is in language which every one can appreciate and
understand. Now, among the first things that a person going to a
boarding school should learn, if he has not already learned it at
home--and I am constantly being surprised at the number who seem to
have thus left it unlearned--is the habit of regular and systematic
bathing. No person who has left this habit unlearned can reach the
highest success in life. I mean by that, that a person who does not
get into the habit of keeping the body clean, cannot do the highest
work and the greatest amount of work in the world. When it comes to
competing with persons who have learned the habit of keeping the body
in good condition, you will find that the first named persons usually
win in the race of life. I think many of you have already learned from
your physiologies that when it comes to the combating of disease, where
two persons are on a sick-bed with the same disease, the one who is
habitually clean in his personal habits has a far greater chance for
recovery than the one who has not learned the habit of cleanliness. You
will also find that the person who is in the habit of caring for his
body is in a better condition for study; he is in a condition to bear
prolonged and severe exertion, while the person whose body is unclean
is in a weak condition.
Take the matter of the teeth. Persons cannot call themselves educated
and refined who do not make the matter of the cleanliness and proper
care of their teeth an important part of themselves. When I speak of
making such a thing a part of yourselves, I mean that you should make
it such a strong habit that to leave it undone would seem unnatural.
Some person has defined man as a bundle of habits. There are many
habits that I wish you to make a part of yourselves, by practising so
constantly that they may really be said to have become that.
There is the matter of the care of the hair, which everyone should make
a part of himself. There is also the proper care of the finger nails.
Now all of these are common things, but they are great things. I should
not recommend very highly a young man or young woman who went out from
this institution as a graduate, and had not learned the habit of caring
for the teeth, hair and nails systematically. Are you making these
lessons a part of yourself?
Take the young men and young women who have been here two or three
years. Have you grown to the point where you are dissatisfied and all
out of sorts when your hair is not combed, your finger nails dirty, and
your body not in the condition it should be in? If you have not reached
that point, when you come to graduate, then there will be something
wrong with your education, and you are not ready to go out from this
institution, whether you are in the senior class or in the preparatory
class.
Another thing; I confess that I cannot have the highest kind of respect
for the person who is in the habit of going day after day with buttons
off his clothes. There is no excuse for it, when buttons are so cheap.
I wonder how many of you could stand, if I were now to ask all to stand
who have every button in its place. I cannot have the best opinion of a
girl who will let a hole remain in her apron day after day. Nor can I
think well of a man who does not remove a grease spot from his coat as
soon as he discovers it.
You have more respect for yourselves, and other people have more
respect for you, when you get into the habit of polishing your shoes,
no matter where you are, but especially when you are at school. Every
man should get into the habit of polishing his shoes. See to it that
they are in proper condition at all times.
I need not repeat here, after what I have said, that it is of the
utmost importance that every person wear the cleanest of linen. If I
speak to you so plainly, it is because I want you to make these matters
a part of yourselves to such an extent that they will be essential to
your happiness and success. I want every girl who goes away from here
to be so nearly perfect in her dress that she cannot be happy if there
is any detail unattended to; and I want the same thing to be true of
the young men. Let these things have an important bearing on your
education here, and on your life hereafter.
And then, above all things, although on account of the number of
students here you are very much crowded in your rooms and will have to
make all the harder effort on that account, get into the habit of being
orderly and neat. School your room-mates to the point where they will
have a place for everything. Always know where to put your hands on
anything you may want in your room, whether in the light or in the dark.
Then there are one or two other little things. You should have quiet
in your rooms, at your work or in your talk with your fellow students.
Do your work quietly. Get into the habit of closing doors quietly. You
cannot realize how much all these little things add to your happiness
and to the manhood and womanhood which you are going to build up as the
years go on.
And then, in conclusion, so order your lives that you can form the
habit of reading. Set aside a certain amount of time each day, even
if it be not more than four or five minutes, for reading and studying
aside from your lessons. Read books of travel, history and biography. I
want you to patronize the library this year as never before. In it are
great numbers of books by authors of the highest rank.
Be regular in all your habits. Have a regular time for studying, for
recreation, and for sleeping.
And last, but far from least, set aside a regular time for thinking,
for meditating with yourself. Take yourself up, pick yourself to
pieces, see wherein you are weak and need strengthening. Analyze
yourself. Get rid, as it were, of all the weights that have been
holding you back, and resolve at the end of each week that you will
walk upon your dead selves of the week before. If you will go on,
making that kind of progress, you will find at the end of the nine
school months that you are stronger in everything essential to good
manhood and good womanhood.
TO WOULD-BE TEACHERS
Since very many of you whom I see before me to-night will spend some
part of your lives after you leave here as teachers, even if you do not
make teaching your life work, I am going to talk over with you again a
subject on which I have spoken elsewhere--How to build up a good school
in the South.
The coloured schools of the South, especially in the country districts
and smaller towns, are not kept open by the State fund, as a rule,
longer than three or four months in the year. One of the great
questions, then, with teachers and parents, is how to extend the school
term to seven or eight months, so that the school shall really do some
good.
I want to give a few plain suggestions, which will, I think, if
carefully followed, result in placing a good school in almost every
community. In this I am not speculating, because more than one Tuskegee
graduate has built up a good school on the plan I outline.
In the first place the teacher must be willing to settle down in the
community, and feel that that is to be his home, and teaching there his
chief object in life while he is there. Not only must he not feel that
he can move about from place to place every three months, but he must
feel that he is not working for his salary alone. He must be willing to
sacrifice for the good of the community.
The next thing is to get a convenient school-house. Usually, in the
far South, the State has not been able to build a school-house. How
is it to be secured? A good school-house should be carefully planned.
Then the teacher or some one else should go among the people in
the community, coloured and white, and get each individual to give
something, no matter how small an amount if in money, or, if not in
money, how little in value, for purchasing lumber. When we were getting
started here at Tuskegee one old coloured woman brought me six eggs as
her contribution to our work.
If enough money cannot be secured by subscription and collection to
pay for the lumber, a supper, a festival, entertainment or church
collection will help out. After the lumber is secured, the parents
should be asked to "club in" with their waggons and haul it free. Then
at least one good carpenter should be secured to take the lead in
building. Each member of the community should agree to give a certain
number of days' work in helping to put up the structure. In this work
of building, the larger pupils can help a good deal, and they will
have all the more interest in the school-house because they have had a
hand in its erection. In these ways, by patient effort, a good frame
school-house can be secured in almost any community.
Where it is possible, take a three or four months' public school as a
starting point, and work in co-operation with the school officers, but
do not let the school close at the end of these three or four months,
because if that is done it will amount to almost nothing.
As soon as the teacher goes into a community, he should organize the
people into an educational society or club, and there should be regular
meetings once a week, or once in two weeks, at which plans for the
improvement of the school should be discussed.
There are a number of ways for extending the school term. One is for
each parent to pay ten, fifteen, twenty-five or fifty cents each month
during the whole time the school is in session. Frequently parents who
cannot pay in cash can let the teacher have eggs, chickens, butter,
sweet potatoes, corn or some other kind of produce which will help to
supply the teacher with food. Another plan is for each farmer to set
aside a portion of land and give all that is raised upon it to the
school. Still another plan, and one that is being successfully carried
out in at least one place, and one that I think much of, is for the
teacher to secure, either by renting or purchase, a small tract of
land--say from two to five acres--and let the children cultivate this
land while they are attending school. If, in this way, three bales of
cotton can be raised, and a variety of vegetables and grain also, the
produce can be sold and the school term extended from three months to
six or seven months.
Some parents may object to this at first, but they will soon see that
it is better to let the school close at one o'clock or two o'clock in
the afternoon, so that the children may work on the school land for an
hour or two, and in this way keep the school open six or seven months,
than to let it close entirely at the end of three months. There is
another advantage in this latter plan. The teacher can in this way
teach the students, in a practical way, better methods of farming.
Short talks on the principles of agriculture are worth much more to
them than time spent in committing to memory the names of mountain
peaks in Central Africa. Very often there is enough land right around
the school-house for the pupils to cultivate.
In every case where it is possible, the teacher should buy a home in
the community, and make his home in every way a model for those of
the people who live around him. The teacher should cultivate a farm,
or follow some trade while not teaching. This not only helps him, but
sets a good example for the people in the community. If the teacher be
a woman, there are few communities where she cannot add much to her
income by sewing, dressmaking or poultry-raising.
THE CULTIVATION OF STABLE HABITS
I am going to speak with you a few minutes this evening upon the matter
of stability. I want you to understand when you start out in school,
that no individual can accomplish anything unless he means to stick
to what he undertakes. No matter how many possessions he may have, no
matter how much he may have in this or that direction, no matter how
much learning or skill of hand he may possess, an individual cannot
succeed unless, at the same time, he possesses that quality which will
enable him to stick to what he undertakes. In a word he is not to be
jumping from this thing to that thing.
That is the reason why so many ministers fail. They preach awhile,
and then jump to something else. They do not stick to one thing. It
is the same with many lawyers and doctors. They do not stick to what
they undertake. Many business men fail for the same reason. When an
individual gets a reputation--no matter what he has undertaken--of
not having the quality of sticking to a thing until he succeeds in
reaching the end, that reputation nullifies the influence for good of
the better traits of his character in every direction. It is said of
him that he is unstable.
I want you to begin your school life with the idea that you are going
to stick to whatever you undertake until you have completed it. I take
it for granted that all of you have come here with that idea in mind;
that before you came here you sat down and talked the matter over with
your father and mother, read over the circulars giving information
about the school, and then deliberately decided that this institution
was the one whose course of study you wished to complete. I take it
for granted that you have come here with that end in view, and I want
to say to you now, that you will injure yourselves, your parents, and
the institution--and you will hurt your own reputation--unless, after
having come here with the determination to succeed, you remain here
for that purpose, and remain for the full time, until you receive your
diploma. I hope every individual here, every young man and woman at the
school, is here with the determination that he or she will not give up
the struggle until the object aimed at has been attained.
You are at a stage now, when, if you begin jumping about here and
there, if you begin in this course of study and then go to that course
of study, you will very likely be jumping about from one thing to
another all your life. You must make up your minds, after coming here,
to do well whatever you undertake. This is a good rule not only to
begin your school life with, but also to begin your later life with.
Perhaps I was never more interested than I was last evening in
Montgomery, while standing on one of the streets there for an hour. I
seldom stand on any street for an hour, but last night I did stand on
that street for an hour, in front of a large, beautiful store that is
owned by Mr. J. W. Adams, and watched the notice taken of the display
of millinery made in his store windows by two girls that finished their
academic and industrial courses at this school--Miss Jemmie Pierce and
Miss Lydia Robinson. The first Monday in October is always the day in
Montgomery for what they call the millinery openings; on that day the
stores which handle such goods all make a great display of ladies' hats
and bonnets. It was surprising and interesting to note how these two
girls had entered a great city like Montgomery and had taken entire
charge of the millinery department in a large store. Hundreds of people
stopped to comment favourably upon the taste that was displayed in the
decoration of those windows.
Now, all this work was done by two Tuskegee graduates. And the
complimentary remarks that were made came not only from coloured people
but from white people as well. No one could tell from the windows of
that store whether it was a coloured or a white establishment. Many of
the white ladies who were standing there did not know that they were
standing in front of a store that was owned by a black man. It had
none of the usual earmarks about it. Usually when you go into coloured
establishments you see grease on the doors or on the counters; or you
see this sign or that sign that this is a coloured man's establishment.
Those of you here who are going to go into business after you leave
school do not want to have any such earmarks about your establishments.
Such a store as that of Mr. Adams is the kind of a store to have.
Now, these two young women have made a reputation for themselves.
They went into the millinery division while they were here, and they
remained until they graduated. One of them, I believe had not finished
in the millinery department when she received her academic diploma, and
so she came back last year and took a postgraduate course in millinery.
It is interesting and encouraging to see these two young women
succeeding in their work, and it all comes from their determination
to succeed, and because they had sense enough to finish what they had
undertaken.
That is the lesson that you all want to learn. If you do not learn it
now, in a large degree you will be failures in life. You want to be
like these young women. You want to fight it out. Now if you mean to
get your diploma, you are going to have a hard time. Some of you are
going to be without shoes, without a hat, without proper clothing of
any kind. You will get discouraged because you have not as nice a dress
or as nice a hat as this person or that person. I would not give a snap
of my finger for a person who would give up for that. The thing for you
to do is to fight it out. Get something in your head, and don't worry
about what you can get to put on it. The clothes will come afterward.