CHAPTER VIII
TEACHING SCHOOL IN A STABLE AND A HEN-HOUSE
I confess that what I saw during my month of travel and investigation left
me with a very heavy heart. The work to be done in order to lift these
people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing. I was only one person, and it
seemed to me that the little effort which I could put forth could go such a
short distance toward bringing about results. I wondered if I could
accomplish anything, and if it were worth while for me to try.
Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, after spending this
month in seeing the actual life of the colored people, and that was that, in
order to lift them up, something must be done more than merely to imitate
New England education as it then existed. I saw more clearly than ever the
wisdom of the system which General Armstrong had inaugurated at Hampton. To
take the children of such people as I had been among for a month, and each
day give them a few hours of mere book education, I felt would be almost a
waste of time.
After consultation with the citizens of Tuskegee, I set July 4, 1881, as the
day for the opening of the school in the little shanty and church which had
been secured for its accommodation. The white people, as well as the
colored, were greatly interested in the starting of the new school, and the
opening day was
looked forward to with much earnest discussion. There were not a few white
people in the vicinity of Tuskegee who looked with some disfavor upon the
project.
They questioned its value to the colored people, and had a fear that it
might result in bringing about trouble between the races. Some had the
feeling that in proportion as the Negro received education, in the same
proportion would his value decrease as an economic factor in the state.
These people feared the result of education would be that the Negroes would
leave the farms, and that it would be difficult to secure them for domestic
service.
The white people who questioned the wisdom of starting this new school had
in their minds pictures of what was called an educated Negro, with a high
hat, imitation gold eye-glasses, a showy walking-stick, kid gloves, fancy
boots, and whatnot- in a word, a man who was determined to live by his wits.
It was difficult for these people to see how education would produce any
other kind of a colored man.
In the midst of all the difficulties which I encountered in getting the
little school started, and since then through a period of nineteen years,
there are two men among all the many friends of the school in Tuskegee upon
whom I have depended constantly for advice and guidance; and the success of
the undertaking is largely due to these men, from whom I have never sought
anything in vain. I mention them simply as types. One is a white man and an
ex-slaveholder, Mr. George W. Campbell; the other is a black man and an
ex-slave, Mr. Lewis Adams. These were the men who wrote to General Armstrong
for a teacher.
Mr. Campbell is a merchant and banker, and had had little experience in
dealing with matters pertaining to education. Mr. Adams was a mechanic, and
had learned the trades of shoemaking, harness-making, and tinsmithing during
the days of slavery. He had never been to school a day in his life, but in
some way he had learned to read and write while a slave. From the first,
these two men saw clearly what my plan of education was, sympathized with
me, and supported me in every effort. In the days which were darkest
financially for the school, Mr.Campbell was never appealed to when he was
not willing to extend all the aid in his power. I do not know two men, one
an ex-slaveholder, one an ex-slave, whose advice and judgment I would feel
more like following in everything which concerns the life and development of
the school at Tuskegee than those of these two men. I have always felt that
Mr. Adams, in a large degree, derived his unusual power of mind from the
training given his hands in the process of mastering well three trades
during the days of slavery. If one goes to-day into any Southern town, and
asks for the leading and most reliable colored man in the community, I
believe that in five cases out of ten he will be directed to a Negro who
learned a trade during the days of slavery.
On the morning that the school opened, thirty students reported for
admission. I was the only teacher. The students were about equally divided
between the sexes. Most of them lived in Macon County, the county in which
Tuskegee is situated, and of which it is the county seat. A great many more
students wanted to enter the school, but it had been decided to receive only
those who were above fifteen years of age, and who had previously received
some education. The greater part of the thirty were public-school teachers,
and some of them were nearly forty years of age. With the teachers came some
of their former pupils, and when they were examined it was amusing to note
that in several cases the pupil entered a higher class than did his former
teacher. It was also interesting to note how many big books some of them had
studied, and how many high-sounding subjects some of them claimed to have
mastered. The bigger the book and the longer the name of the subject, the
prouder they felt of their accomplishment. Some had studied Latin, and one
or two Greek. This they thought entitled them to special distinction.
In fact, one of the saddest things I saw during the month of travel which I
have described was a young man, who had attended some high school, sitting
down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing, filth all around him,
and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar.
The students who came first seemed to be fond of memorizing long and
complicated “rules” in grammar and mathematics, but had little thought
or knowledge of applying these rules to the everyday affairs of their life.
One subject which they liked to talk about, and tell me that they had
mastered, in arithmetic, was “banking and discount,” but I soon found
out that neither they nor almost any one in the neighborhood in which they
lived had ever had a bank account. In registering the names of the students,
I found that almost every one of them had one
or more middle initials. When I asked what the “J” stood for, in the
name of John J. Jones, it was explained to me that this was a part of his
“entitles.” Most of the students wanted to get an education because they
thought it would enable them to earn more money as school-teachers.
Notwithstanding what I have said about them in these respects, I have never
seen a more earnest and willing company of young men and women than these
students were. They were all willing to learn the right thing as soon as it
was shown them what was right. I was determined to start them off on a solid
and thorough foundation, so far as their books were concerned. I soon
learned that most of them had the merest smattering of the high-sounding
things that they had studied. While they could locate the Desert of Sahara
or the capital of China on an artificial globe, I found out that the girls
could not locate the proper places for the knives and forks on an actual
dinner-table, or the places on which the bread and meat should be set.
I had to summon a good deal of courage to take a student who had been
studying cube root and “banking and discount,” and explain to him that
the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughly to master the
multiplication table.
The number of pupils increased each week, until by the end of the first
month there were nearly fifty. Many of them, however, said that, as they
could remain only for two or three months, they wanted to enter a high class
and get a diploma the first year if possible.
At the end of the first six weeks a new and rare face entered the school as
a co-teacher. This was Miss Olivia A. Davidson, who later became my wife.
Miss Davidson was born in Ohio, and received her preparatory education in
the public schools of that state. When little more than a girl, she heard of
the need of teachers in the South. She went to the state of Mississippi and
began teaching there.
Later she taught in the city of Memphis. While teaching in Mississippi, one
of her pupils became ill with smallpox. Every one in the community was so
frightened that no one would nurse the boy. Miss Davidson closed her school
and remained by the bedside of the boy night and day until he recovered.
While she was at her Ohio home on her vacation, the worst epidemic of yellow
fever broke out in Memphis, Tenn., that perhaps has ever occurred in the
South. When she heard of this, she at once telegraphed the Mayor of Memphis,
offering her services as a yellow-fever nurse, although she had never had
the disease.
Miss Davidson’s experience in the South showed her that the people needed
something more than mere book-learning. She heard of the Hampton system of
education, and decided that this was what she wanted in order to prepare
herself for better work in the South. The attention of Mrs. Mary Hemenway,
of Boston, was attracted to her rare ability. Through Mrs. Hemenway’s
kindness and generosity, Miss Davidson, after graduating at Hampton,
received an opportunity to complete a two years’ course of g at the
Massachusetts State Normal School at Framingham.
Before she went to Framingham, some one suggested to Miss Davidson that,
since she was so very light in color, she might find it more comfortable not
to be known as a colored woman in this school in Massachusetts. She at once
replied that under no circumstances and for no considerations would she
consent to deceive any one in regard to her racial identity.
Soon after her graduation from the Framingham institution, Miss Davidson
came to Tuskegee, bringing into the school many valuable and fresh ideas as
to the best methods of teaching, as well as a rare moral character and a
life of unselfishness that I think has seldom been equaled. No single
individual did more toward laying the foundations of the Tuskegee Institute
so as to insure the successful work that has been done there than Olivia A.
Davidson.
Miss Davidson and I began consulting as to the future of the school from the
first. The students were making progress in learning books and in developing
their minds; but it became apparent at once that, if we were to make any
permanent impression upon those who had come to us for training, we must do
something besides teach them mere books. The students had come from homes
where they had had no opportunities for lessons which would teach them how
to care for their bodies. With few exceptions, the homes in Tuskegee in
which the students boarded were but little improvement upon those from which
they had come. We wanted to teach the students how to bathe; how to care for
their teeth and clothing. We wanted to teach them what to eat, and how to
eat it properly, and how to care for their rooms. Aside from this, we wanted
to give them such a practical knowledge of some one industry, together with
the spirit of industry, thrift, and economy, that they would be sure of
knowing how to make a living after they had left us. We wanted to teach them
to study actual things instead of mere books alone.
We found that the most of our students came from the country districts,
where agriculture in some form or other was the main dependence of the
people. We learned that about eighty-five per cent of the colored people in
the Gulf states depended upon agriculture for their living. Since this was
true, we wanted to be careful not to educate our students out of sympathy
with agricultural life, so that they would be attracted from the country to
the cities, and yield to the temptation of trying to live by their wits. We
wanted to give them such an education as would fit a large proportion of
them to be teachers, and at the same time cause them to return to the
plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new
ideas into farming, as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious
life of the people.
All these ideas and needs crowded themselves upon us with a seriousness that
seemed well-nigh overwhelming. What were we to do? We had only the little
old shanty and the abandoned church which the good colored people of the
town of Tuskegee had kindly loaned us for the accommodation of the classes.
The number of students was increasing daily. The more we saw of them and the
more we traveled through the country districts, the more we saw that our
efforts were reaching, to only a partial degree, the actual needs of the
people whom we wanted to lift up through the medium of the students whom we
should educate and send out as leaders.
The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to us from
several parts of the state, the more we found that the chief ambition among
a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they would not
have to work any longer with their hands.
This is illustrated by a story told of a colored man in Alabama, who, one
hot day in July, while he was at work in a cotton-field, suddenly stopped,
and, looking toward the skies, said: “O Lawd, de cotton am so grassy, de
work am so hard, and the sun am so hot dat I b’lieve dis darky am called
to preach!”
About three months after the opening of the school, and at the time when we
were in the greatest anxiety about our work, there came into the market for
sale an old and abandoned plantation which was situated about a mile from
the town of Tuskegee. The mansion house- or “big house,” as it would
have been calledwhich had been occupied by the owners during slavery, had
been burned. After making a careful examination of this place, it seemed to
be just the location that we wanted in order to make our work effective and
permanent.
But how were we to get it? The price asked for it was very little- only five
hundred dollars- but we had no money, and we were strangers in the town and
had no credit. The owner of the land agreed to let us occupy the place if we
could make a payment of two hundred and fifty dollars down, with the
understanding that the remaining two hundred and fifty dollars must be paid
within a year. Although five hundred dollars was cheap for the land, it was
a large sum when one did not have any part of it.
In the midst of the difficulty I summoned a great deal of courage and wrote
to my friend General J. F. B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton
Institute, putting the situation before him and beseeching him to lend me
the two hundred and fifty dollars on my own personal responsibility. Within
a few days a reply came to the effect that he had no authority to lend me
money belonging to the Hampton Institute, but that he would gladly lend me
the amount needed from his own personal funds.
I confess that the securing of this money in this way was a great surprise
to me, as well as a source of gratification. Up to that time I never had had
in my possession so much money as one hundred dollars at a time, and the
loan which I had asked General Marshall for seemed a tremendously large sum
to me. The fact of my being responsible for the repaying of such a large
amount of money weighed very heavily upon me.
I lost no time in getting ready to move the school on to the new farm. At
the time we occupied the place there were standing upon it a cabin, formerly
used as the dining room, an old kitchen, a stable, and an old hen-house.
Within a few weeks we had all of these structures in use. The stable was
repaired and used as a recitation-room, and very presently the hen-house was
utilized for the same purpose.
I recall that one morning, when I told an old colored man who lived near,
and who sometimes helped me, that our school had grown so large that it
would be necessary for us to use the hen-house for school purposes, and that
I wanted him to help me give it a thorough cleaning out the next day, he
replied, in the most earnest manner: “What you mean, boss? You sholy ain’t
gwine clean out de hen-house in de day-time?” Nearly all the work of
getting the new location ready for school purposes was done by the students
after school was over in the afternoon. As soon as we got the cabins in
condition to be used, I determined to clear up some land so that we could
plant a crop. When I explained my plan to the young men, I noticed that they
did not seem to take to it very kindly. It was hard for them to see the
connection between clearing land and an education. Besides, many of them had
been school-teachers, and they questioned whether or not clearing land would
be in keeping with their dignity. In order to relieve them from any
embarrassment, each afternoon after school I took my axe and led the way to
the woods. When they saw that I was not afraid or ashamed to work, they
began to assist with more enthusiasm. We kept at the work each afternoon,
until we had cleared about twenty acres and had planted a crop.
In the meantime Miss Davidson was devising plans to repay the loan. Her
first effort was made by holding festivals, or “suppers.” She made a
personal canvass among the white and colored families in the town of
Tuskegee, and got them to agree to give something, like a cake, a chicken,
bread, or pies, that could be sold at the festival. Of course the colored
people were glad to give anything that they could spare, but I want to add
that Miss Davidson did not apply to a single white family, so far as I now
remember, that failed to donate something; and in many ways the white
families showed their interest in the school.
Several of these festivals were held, and quite a little sum of money was
raised. A canvass was also made among the people of both races for direct
gifts of money, and most of those applied to gave small sums. It was often
pathetic to note the gifts of the older colored people, most of whom had
spent their best days in slavery. Sometimes they would give five cents,
sometimes twenty-five cents. Sometimes the contribution was a quilt, or a
quantity of sugar cane. I recall one old colored woman, who was about
seventy years of age, who came to see me when we were raising money to pay
for the farm. She hobbled into the room where I was, leaning on a cane. She
was clad in rags; but they were clean. She said: “Mr. Washin’ton, God
knows I spent de bes’ days of my life in slavery. God knows I’s ignorant
an’ poor; but,” she added, “I knows what you an’ Miss Davidson is
tryin’ to do. I knows you is tryin’ to make better men an’ better
women for de colored race. I ain’t got no money, but I wants you to take
dese six eggs, what I’s been savin’ up, an’ I wants you to put dese
six eggs into de eddication of dese boys an’ gals.”
Since the work at Tuskegee started, it has been my privilege to receive many
gifts for the benefit of the institution, but never any, I think, that
touched me so deeply as this one,