Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.]

Tuskegee, therefore, stands out more prominently than Hampton as an exponent of industrial education, and has been more severely questioned because of the imagined disloyalty in a Negro's aggressive att.i.tude for this particular kind of education for his race. There are people of both races who, while they do not on the whole oppose Hampton and Tuskegee in their educational methods, are honestly afraid that, because of the growing importance and influence of these two schools and others of a similar kind, the idea will be thoroughly established that the Negro needs only and is capable only of the narrowest sort of industrial training--such as is represented by the "rule-of-thumb carpenter" and the "one-suspender mule-driver," who work by rule and rote rather than by principle and method, not in the slightest degree comprehending the science underlying the work in which they are engaged, whose mathematical knowledge is bounded by "the distance between two corn or cotton rows."

To fix such an idea in the minds of the people of this country--which is not likely to be done--would, no doubt, be disastrous to us for generations to come, and make it much more easy than it is now to deprive the Negro of the civil and political rights which are guaranteed by the Const.i.tution. It would, without question, defeat the objects for which Hampton and Tuskegee have persistently stood, and for which they have ever worked and are still very successfully working.

No one familiar with the curricula of these two schools would for a moment raise such a question. General Armstrong saw, as few people did, the moral and intellectual value of industrial training aside from its merely economic importance. He founded a school on an entirely different basis from any that had been known before--the basis of character-building through practical education, industrial training, and self-help.

During the thirty-six years of its history, Hampton has sent into the world about 1,200 graduates and 5,000 undergraduates, many of whom have taken with them the spark that has started many other Hamptons, large and small, among the Negroes of the South and the Indians of the West.

Hampton's success, and indeed the success of any inst.i.tution, depends not so much upon the scholastic attainments of its pupils as upon the work that those who have received its instruction accomplish. Hampton glories, and justly, in the loyalty of its graduates and in the faithfulness with which they have inculcated and exemplified the traditions and principles for which it stands. Hampton glories in Tuskegee, because Tuskegee has started in so many communities the spark of true life and real civilization; in the impetus and inspiration it has given, so beautiful and so perfect a consummation of the prophetic vision of Hampton's founder.

Can the relations between the two inst.i.tutions be better stated than in the words of their two founders? After a visit to Tuskegee, General Armstrong said: "The Tuskegee school is a wonderful work and Mr.

Was.h.i.+ngton is a remarkable man. He has carried out the idea of training the head, hand, and heart in a wonderfully complete and perfect way.

This school is very much like the one at Hampton, and any one can recognize the similarity, but he has made many improvements. It is not merely an imitation. It is the Hampton Idea adapted and worked into a most sensible and efficient application to the needs of the Alabama Negroes." In the same memorial address at General Armstrong's funeral from which I quoted at the beginning of this paper, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton said, "The rose I place on his grave is _his_ work at Tuskegee."

Hampton and Tuskegee, striving along common lines for common ends, intimate in relations.h.i.+p, interdependent, each frankly criticizing and freely advising, each profiting by the failures of the other, each benefiting by the successes of the other, are both working as best they may toward that "far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves."

_PART II_

_AUTOBIOGRAPHIES BY GRADUATES OF THE SCHOOL_

I

A COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S STORY

BY ISAAC FISHER

I was born January 18, 1877, on a plantation called Perry's place, in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana, and was the sixteenth and last child of my parents. My early childhood was uneventful, save during the year 1882, when, by reason of the breaking of the Mississippi River levee near my home, I was compelled, together with my parents, to live six months in the plantation cotton-gin, fed by the Federal Government and by the determination never to live so close to the "Big Muddy" again; and during 1886, in which year my mother died.

Up to this latter year my life had been nothing more than that of the average Negro boy on a cotton-farm. While I had been too young to feel the burden of farm-life toil, I had not been spared a realization of the narrowness and the dwarfing tendencies of the lives which the Negro farmers and their families were living, and, in my heart, I cursed the farm and all its environs as being in verity an inferno on earth. A broader knowledge of the causes which operated to produce the cheerless life against which my child-nature rebelled, and a clearer insight into the possibilities of rural life, have altered this early impression; and to-day I find myself thinking some thoughts relative to the life lived near to nature's heart which are not at all complimentary to the bustle and selfishness of city life.

The death of my mother furnished the opportunity to leave the farm and go to a city; and I took advantage of this, going to Vicksburg, Miss., to live with an older sister. I had always desired to go to school, and had spent four terms of six months each in the country school near my home; but for some reason, which I can not now remember, I attended the city school in Vicksburg but one year, after which I was employed as a cake-baker's a.s.sistant and bread-wagon driver. A short time before this I was a house-boy in the city. I was, at the time of my employment in the bakery, an omnivorous reader of the newspapers, and, in fact, of all kinds of literature; but my hours of labor at both places were so long and incessant that I found it almost impossible to do any reading during my employment at either place.

Finally I saw and took advantage of an opportunity to secure employment with the drug firm of W. H. Jones & Brother; and I count my work in this store, and with these gentlemen as employers, as the turning-point in my life, because there my work demanded some intelligence above the average. I had some chance to study, and in addition, when it was found by these white men that I loved to read, all magazines, newspapers, and drug journals, not needed by the firm and the physicians whose offices were with them, were given to me. I never make any mention of my life in Vicksburg without mentioning, in particular, Mr. W. H. Jones; for not only was he a kind and considerate employer, but I learned from his actions that a white man could be kind and interested in a Negro--a fact which no amount of reasoning could have driven into my stubborn understanding previous to that time.

There came a time when I learned that at the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, in Alabama, any poor Negro boy who was willing to work could pay for all his education in labor. To hear was to act. I wrote to Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, asking if my information was correct. The affirmative answer came at once. It was the middle of August, and school began in September, but I determined to be present at the opening of the school year. I was then a boy wearing short trousers, but I immediately set about preparing to deliver a "lecture" to help raise funds for my trip. With a knowledge of the subject, and an a.s.surance which I have never since a.s.sumed, I spoke to a large audience in Vicksburg on the question, Will America Absorb the Negro? I settled the question then and there to my own satisfaction, even if I did not convince the nation that my affirmative conclusion was rational. The "lecture" netted me my fare to Tuskegee, with a few dollars over, and brought me from Rev. O. P. Ross, pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Vicksburg, the offer of a scholars.h.i.+p at Wilberforce College at the expense of his church. I respectfully declined the offer, feeling that I did not want to bind myself to any particular denomination by accepting so great a gift; but I have always felt very kindly toward that church ever since.

My first glimpse of Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton was had in the depot in Montgomery, Ala., where a friend and I, on our way to Tuskegee, had changed cars for the Tuskegee train. Two gentlemen came into the waiting-room where we were seated, one a man of splendid appearance and address, the other a most ordinary appearing individual, we thought. The latter, addressing us, inquired our destination. Upon being told that we were going to Tuskegee, he remarked that he had heard that Tuskegee was a very hard place--a place where students were given too much work to do, and where the food was very simple and coa.r.s.e. He was afraid we would not stay there three months. We a.s.sured him that we were not afraid of hard work, and meant to finish the course of study at Tuskegee at all hazards. He then left us. Very soon after, the gentleman who had so favorably impressed us, and whom we afterward found to be the capable treasurer of the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, Mr. Warren Logan, came back and told us that our interlocutor was none other than the President of the school to which we were going.

Arriving at Tuskegee, I found what it meant to be in a school without a penny, without a.s.surance of help from the outside, and wholly dependent upon one's own resources and labor; and I found further that in the severe, trying process through which Mr. John H. Was.h.i.+ngton, superintendent of industries, brother of Mr. Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton, and familiarly though very respectfully known to the students as "old man John," put all students who offered to work for their education, only the fittest, and the fittest of the fit at that, survived.

I was a.s.signed work with the resident physician, a very efficient woman doctor from Philadelphia; and I have a recollection, by no means dim, that when this good woman made her monthly report to the treasurer, she could write, "Health Department to Isaac Fisher, Dr., $12.50--value received." Every morning before breakfast it was my duty to go to the rooms of six hundred young men to see if any were ill, have those who were, carried to the hospital, report all such to four departments, take meals to those confined in the hospital, attend to all their wants, keep their building heated and supplied with fuel, and-- But s.p.a.ce will not permit the full catalogue of duties. At the end of such a day's work I would attend the night-school during its session of two hours.

Desiring to learn a trade, I asked permission to enter the printing-office for the next year. This was not granted until it was found that I would not leave the school during the summer, but would remain and work until the beginning of the next school year.

Accordingly, when my second year began I entered the printing-office as an apprentice. During that year I suffered actual want and privation in the matter of shoes and clothes; but later came under the notice of Mrs.

Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton, who made arrangements by which I could procure some of the second-hand clothes and shoes sent from the North to the school for just such cases. At the end of this year my health, as a result of my work in the office, was so poor that the resident physician recommended my removal therefrom. To the surprise of Mr. J. H.

Was.h.i.+ngton, I asked to be transferred to the farm; and I think I proved while working on the school-farm that I was sincere when I said that I would work wherever I was placed.

It was during this summer that Mr. Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton showed me that I had come favorably under his notice. At one of the weekly prayer-meetings, conducted by the chaplain, Mr. Penney, and at which Mr.

Was.h.i.+ngton was present, I made some remarks relative to the agnosticism of the late Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. The following day Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton sent for me, inquired my age and cla.s.s in the school, and then said some very kind things about the talk which I had made in the prayer-meeting, and made me a conditional promise of his friends.h.i.+p, which, despite my oft-proven unworthiness, he has ever since given me in unstinted measure. After that second year my hards.h.i.+ps as a "work-student" were practically over.

In my third year I entered the day-school, working one day in every week and every other Sat.u.r.day, and going to school the remainder of the time.

While the school made compulsory the earning of some money on the part of all students, it set no maximum limit on the amounts to be earned. I elected to earn as much as I could under the circ.u.mstances, earning, by reason of the many odd jobs which I did, often as much as $20 per month, going to school every day in the meantime. The average amount usually earned is $5 and $6 per month. At one time I worked eight days per month on the farm, sent notes of the school to 127 Negro newspapers, cleaned one laboratory every day, played in both the bra.s.s band and the orchestra, blew the bugle for the battalion, and taught two cla.s.ses in the night-school, for each of which duties I received pay; and even though I broke down under the acc.u.mulated strain soon after my graduation, I carried my point and completed the course of study as I had planned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY BUILDING.]

In my fourth year I won the Trinity Church (Boston) Prize of $25 for oratory; and in my senior year won the Loughridge Book Prize for scholars.h.i.+p, and also the valedictory of my cla.s.s, graduating in 1898.

I was immediately sent to the Schofield School, a Quaker inst.i.tution for Negroes in Aiken, S. C., to organize farmers' conferences on the order of those conducted by the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, and to serve as a teacher in the school. After one year's service in that position Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton asked me to accept the position of a.s.sistant Northern Financial Agent for Tuskegee. I accepted, and remained two years in New England, helping to interest friends in my _alma mater_. At my own request I was transferred from the Northern work to the South, being a.s.signed this time to the Negro Conference work in Alabama. Before beginning this work I was married to a Tuskegee girl, Miss Sallie McCann.

Within a few months a princ.i.p.al was needed for the Swayne Public School of Montgomery, Ala., and this in the middle of the school year. Mr.

Was.h.i.+ngton recommended me for the work, and I was elected to the position. At the close of the term I went to New York to study the public-school system of that city as far as possible. While there I was reelected princ.i.p.al of the Swayne School, and a notice of the election reached me one morning. Three hours later I received a letter from the secretary of the University of Arkansas (white) informing me that my name had been presented to the board of trustees of that inst.i.tution, and I had been elected to the presidency of the State Branch Normal College at Pine Bluff, Ark. I was not a candidate for the position, but seeing in it an opportunity for greater usefulness, I accepted the position in my twenty-fifth year, and have just been reelected to serve a third term as president of the school. The Branch Normal College was established in 1875 as one of the Land Grant colleges, and has a property valuation of $100,000.

Over my desk hangs a picture of the Princ.i.p.al of Tuskegee; and in my desk are views of the inst.i.tution which he has built. But these may be removed. In the book of my memory and in the secret chambers of my heart I have enshrined the two names which, with G.o.d and the parents now on the other side of the Great Divide, have shaped and given direction to my whole life--Tuskegee and Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton.

II

A SCHOOL PRINc.i.p.aL'S STORY

BY WILLIAM H. HOLTZCLAW

I was born in Randolph County, Ala., near the little town of Roanoke.

The house in which I first saw the light--or that part of it which streamed through the cracks, for there were no windows--was a little log cabin 12 by 16 feet. I know very little of my ancestry, except that my mother was the daughter of her mother's master, born in the days of slavery, and up to 1864 herself the slave of her half-brother. She was born in the State of Georgia. My father was born in Elmore County, Ala.

He never knew his father, but remembered his mother and eleven brothers.

My mother was married twice before she married my father. She married first at the age of fifteen. I am the fifth of fifteen children, and my father's oldest child. Neither my father nor my mother could read or write; mother could get a little out of some pages of the Bible by spelling each word as she came to it.

My early years were spent on a farm. When only four years old I was put to such work as I could do--such as riding a deaf and blind mule, while my brother plowed him in order to make him go forward, for he cared nothing for a.s.sault from the rear. We worked for a white man for one-fourth of the crop. He furnished the stock, land, and seeds, and we did the work, although he was supposed to help. He furnished money to "run" us at fifteen to a hundred per cent, according to the time of the year. He grew wealthier; we grew, if possible, poorer. Before I was fifteen years old I instinctively felt the injustice of the scheme. When the crop was divided he got three loads of corn to our one, and somehow he always got all the cotton: never did a single bale come to us.

Those were hard times for us; for it must be remembered that this was in the days of reconstruction and the Ku-Klux-Klan, and if to this be added the fact that my father, a young and inexperienced man, had started out with a family of six on his hands, some idea of the situation may be had. I can recall having been without food many a day, and the pangs of hunger drove me almost to desperation. But mother and father would come late at night from a day of depressing toil and excruciating inward pain, the result of their inability to relieve our suffering, and pacify us for the night with such things as they had been able to get. When I awoke the next morning they were gone again on a food mission.

Hunger would sometimes nearly drive us mad. My brother and I were given a meal of pie-crusts from the white folks' table one day, and as we ate them, Old Buck, the family dog, who resembled an emaciated panther, stole one of the crusts. It was our dinner. We loved Old Buck, but we had to live first; so my brother lit on him, and a battle royal took place over that crust. Brother was losing ground, so I joined in, and, coming up from the rear, we conquered and saved the crust, but not till both of us were well scratched and bitten.

I was put to school at the age of six. Both mother and father were determined that their children should be educated. School lasted two months in the year--July and August. The schoolhouse was three miles from our house, but we walked every day, my oldest sister carrying me astride her neck when I gave out. Sometimes we had an ear of roasted green corn in our basket for dinner, or a roasted sweet potato, but more often simply persimmons, or fruit and nuts picked from our landlord's orchard and from the forest.

When cotton began to open, in the latter part of August, the landlord wanted us to stop school and pick cotton, and I can distinctly remember how my mother used to outgeneral him by slipping me off to school through the woods, following me through the swamps and dark places, with her hand on my back, shoving me on till I was well on the way, and then returning to try to do as much in the field that day as she and I together would be expected to do. When the landlord came to the quarters early to look for me, my mother would hide me behind the cook-pot and other vessels. When I was a little older I had to play my part on the farm. Mother now worked another scheme. I took turns with my brother at school and at the plow. What he learned at school on his school-day was taught to me at night, and vice versa. In this way we got a month of schooling each during the year, and got the habit of home study.