Chapter VIII. Teaching School In A Stable And A Hen-House

by Booker T. Washington

　　I confess that what I saw during my month of travel andinvestigation left me with a very heavy heart. The work to bedone in order to lift these people up seemed almost beyondaccomplishing. I was only one person, and it seemed to me thatthe little effort which I could put forth could go such a shortdistance toward bringing about results. I wondered if I couldaccomplish anything, and if it were worth while for me to try.Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, afterspending this month in seeing the actual life of the colouredpeople, and that was that, in order to lift them up, somethingmust be done more than merely to imitate New England education asit then existed. I saw more clearly than ever the wisdom of thesystem which General Armstrong had inaugurated at Hampton. Totake 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 feltwould 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 littleshanty and church which had been secured for its accommodation.The white people, as well as the coloured, were greatlyinterested in the starting of the new school, and the opening daywas looked forward to with much earnest discussion. There werenot a few white people in the vicinity of Tuskegee who lookedwith some disfavour upon the project. They questioned its valueto the coloured people, and had a fear that it might result inbringing about trouble between the races. Some had the feelingthat in proportion as the Negro received education, in the sameproportion would his value decrease as an economic factor in thestate. These people feared the result of education would be thatthe Negroes would leave the farms, and that it would be difficultto secure them for domestic service.The white people who questioned the wisdom of starting this newschool had in their minds pictures of what was called an educatedNegro, with a high hat, imitation gold eye-glasses, a showywalking-stick, kid gloves, fancy boots, and what not--in a word,a man who was determined to live by his wits. It was difficultfor these people to see how education would produce any otherkind of a coloured man.In the midst of all the difficulties which I encountered ingetting the little school started, and since then through aperiod of nineteen years, there are two men among all the manyfriends of the school in Tuskegee upon whom I have dependedconstantly for advice and guidance; and the success of theundertaking is largely due to these men, from whom I have neversought anything in vain. I mention them simply as types. One is awhite man and an ex-slaveholder, Mr. George W. Campbell; theother is a black man and an ex-slave, Mr. Lewis Adams. These werethe men who wrote to General Armstrong for a teacher.Mr. Campbell is a merchant and banker, and had had littleexperience 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. Hehad never been to school a day in his life, but in some way hehad 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 thedays which were darkest financially for the school, Mr. Campbellwas never appealed to when he was not willing to extend all theaid 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 likefollowing in everything which concerns the life and developmentof the school at Tuskegee than those of these two men.I have always felt that Mr. Adams, in a large degree, derived hisunusual power of mind from the training given his hands in theprocess of mastering well three trades during the days ofslavery. If one goes to-day into any Southern town, and asks forthe leading and most reliable coloured man in the community, Ibelieve that in five cases out of ten he will be directed to aNegro who learned a trade during the days of slavery.On the morning that the school opened, thirty students reportedfor admission. I was the only teacher. The students were aboutequally divided between the sexes. Most of them lived in MaconCounty, the county in which Tuskegee is situated, and of which itis the county-seat. A great many more students wanted to enterthe school, but it had been decided to receive only those whowere above fifteen years of age, and who had previously receivedsome education. The greater part of the thirty were public-schoolteachers, and some of them were nearly forty years of age. Withthe teachers came some of their former pupils, and when they wereexamined it was amusing to note that in several cases the pupilentered a higher class than did his former teacher. It was alsointeresting to note how many big books some of them had studied,and how many high-sounding subjects some of them claimed to havemastered. The bigger the book and the longer the name of thesubject, the prouder they felt of their accomplishment. Some hadstudied Latin, and one or two Greek. This they thought entitledthem to special distinction.In fact, one of the saddest things I saw during the month oftravel which I have described was a young man, who had attendedsome high school, sitting down in a one-room cabin, with greaseon his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard andgarden, engaged in studying a French grammar.The students who came first seemed to be fond of memorizing longand complicated "rules" in grammar and mathematics, but hadlittle thought or knowledge of applying these rules to theireveryday affairs of their life. One subject which they liked totalk about, and tell me that they had mastered, in arithmetic,was "banking and discount," but I soon found out that neitherthey nor almost any one in the neighbourhood in which they hadlived had ever had a bank account. In registering the names ofthe students, I found that almost every one of them had one ormore middle initials. When I asked what the "J" stood for, in thename of John J. Jones, it was explained to me that this was apart of his "entitles." Most of the students wanted to get aneducation because they thought it would enable them to earn moremoney as school-teachers.Notwithstanding what I have said about them in these respects, Ihave never seen a more earnest and willing company of young menand women than these students were. They were all willing tolearn the right thing as soon as it was shown them what wasright. I was determined to start them off on a solid and thoroughfoundation, so far as their books were concerned. I soon learnedthat most of them had the merest smattering of the high-soundingthings that they had studied. While they could locate the Desertof Sahara or the capital of China on an artificial globe, I foundout that the girls could not locate the proper places for theknives and forks on an actual dinner-table, or the places onwhich the bread and meat should be set.I had to summon a good deal of courage to take a student who hadbeen studying cube root and "banking and discount," and explainto him that the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughlymaster the multiplication table.The number of pupils increased each week, until by the end of thefirst month there were nearly fifty. Many of them, however, saidthat, as they could remain only for two or three months, theywanted to enter a high class and get a diploma the first year ifpossible.At the end of the first six weeks a new and rare face entered theschool as a co-teacher. This was Miss Olivia A. Davidson, wholater became my wife. Miss Davidson was born in Ohio, andreceived her preparatory education in the public schools of thatstate. When little more than a girl, she heard of the need ofteachers in the South. She went to the state of Mississippi andbegan teaching there. Later she taught in the city of Memphis.While teaching in Mississippi, one of her pupils became ill withsmallpox. Every one in the community was so frightened that noone would nurse the boy. Miss Davidson closed her school andremained by the bedside of the boy night and day until herecovered. While she was at her Ohio home on her vacation, theworst epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Memphis, Tenn., thatperhaps has ever occurred in the South. When she heard of this,she at once telegraphed the Mayor of Memphis, offering herservices as a yellow-fever nurse, although she had never had thedisease.Miss Davidon's experience in the South showed her that the peopleneeded something more than mere book-learning. She heard of theHampton system of education, and decided that this was what shewanted in order to prepare herself for better work in the South.The attention of Mrs. Mary Hemenway, of Boston, was attracted toher rare ability. Through Mrs. Hemenway's kindness andgenerosity, Miss Davidson, after graduating at Hampton, receivedan opportunity to complete a two years' course of training at theMassachusetts State Normal School at Framingham.Before she went to Framingham, some one suggested to MissDavidson that, since she was so very light in colour, she mightfind it more comfortable not to be known as a coloured women inthis school in Massachusetts. She at once replied that under nocircumstances and for no considerations would she consent todeceive any one in regard to her racial identity.Soon after her graduation from the Framingham institution, MissDavidson came to Tuskegee, bringing into the school many valuableand fresh ideas as to the best methods of teaching, as well as arare moral character and a life of unselfishness that I think hasseldom been equalled. No single individual did more toward layingthe foundations of the Tuskegee Institute so as to insure thesuccessful work that has been done there than Olivia A. Davidson.Miss Davidson and I began consulting as to the future of theschool from the first. The students were making progress inlearning books and in development their minds; but it becameapparent at once that, if we were to make any permanentimpression upon those who had come to us for training we must dosomething besides teach them mere books. The students had comefrom homes where they had had no opportunities for lessons whichwould teach them how to care for their bodies. With fewexceptions, the homes in Tuskegee in which the students boardedwere but little improvement upon those from which they had come.We wanted to teach the students how to bathe; how to care fortheir 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 practicalknowledge of some one industry, together with the spirit ofindustry, thrift, and economy, that they would be sure of knowinghow to make a living after they had left us. We wanted to teachthem to study actual things instead of mere books alone.We found that the most of our students came from the countrydistricts, where agriculture in some form or other was the maindependence of the people. We learned that about eighty-five percent of the coloured people in the Gulf states depended uponagriculture for their living. Since this was true, we wanted tobe careful not to education our students out of sympathy withagricultural life, so that they would be attracted from thecountry to the cities, and yield to the temptation of trying tolive by their wits. We wanted to give them such an education aswould fit a large proportion of them to be teachers, and at thesame time cause them to return to the plantation districts andshow the people there how to put new energy and new ideas intofarming, as well as into the intellectual and moral and religiouslife of the people.All these ideas and needs crowded themselves upon us with aseriousness that seemed well-night overwhelming. What were we todo? We had only the little old shanty and the abandoned churchwhich the good coloured people of the town of Tuskegee had kindlyloaned us for the accommodation of the classes. The number ofstudents was increasing daily. The more we saw of them, and themore we travelled through the country districts, the more we sawthat our efforts were reaching, to only a partial degree, theactual needs of the people whom we wanted to lift up through themedium of the students whom we should education and send out asleaders.The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to usfrom several parts of the state, the more we found that the chiefambition among a large proportion of them was to get an educationso that they would not have to work any longer with their hands.This is illustrated by a story told of a coloured 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 cottom am so grassy, de work am so hard, and the sun am so hotdat I b'lieve dis darky am called to preach!"About three months after the opening of the school, and at thetime when we were in the greatest anxiety about our work, therecame into market for sale an old and abandoned plantation whichwas situated about a mile from the town of Tuskegee. The mansionhouse--or "big house," as it would have been called--which hadbeen occupied by the owners during slavery, had been burned.After making a careful examination of the place, it seemed to bejust the location that we wanted in order to make our workeffective 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 werestrangers in the town and had no credit. The owner of the landagreed to let us occupy the place if we could make a payment oftwo hundred and fifty dollars down, with the understanding thatthe remaining two hundred and fifty dollars must be paid within ayear. Although five hundred dollars was cheap for the land, itwas a large sum when one did not have any part of it.In the midst of the difficulty I summoned a great deal of courageand wrote to my friend General J.F.B. Marshall, the Treasurer ofthe Hampton Institute, putting the situation before him andbeseeching him to lend me the two hundred and fifty dollars on myown personal responsibility. Within a few days a reply came tothe effect that he had no authority to lend me the moneybelonging to the Hampton Institute, but that he would gladly lendme the amount needed from his own personal funds.I confess that the securing of this money in this way was a greatsurprise to me, as well as a source of gratification. Up to thattime I never had had in my possession so much money as onehundred dollars at a time, and the loan which I had asked GeneralMarshall for seemed a tremendously large sum to me. The fact ofmy being responsible for the repaying of such a large amount ofmoney weighed very heavily upon me.I lost no time in getting ready to move the school on to the newfarm. At the time we occupied the place there were standing uponit a cabin, formerly used as a dining room, an old kitchen, astable, and an old hen-house. Within a few weeks we had all ofthese structures in use. The stable was repaired and used as arecitation-room, and very presently the hen-house was utilizedfor the same purpose.I recall that one morning, when I told an old coloured man wholived near, and who sometimes helped me, that our school hadgrown so large that it would be necessary for us to use thehen-house for school purposes, and that I wanted him to help megive it a thorough cleaning out the next day, he replied, in themost earnest manner: "What you mean, boss? You sholy ain't gwineclean out de hen-house in de day-time?"Nearly all the work of getting the new location ready for schoolpurposes was done by the students after school was over in theafternoon. 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 theydid not seem to take to it very kindly. It was hard for them tosee the connection between clearing land and an education.Besides, many of them had been school-teachers, and theyquestioned whether or not clearing land would be in keeping withtheir dignity. In order to relieve them from any embarrassment,each afternoon after school I took my axe and led the way to thewoods. When they saw that I was not afraid or ashamed to work,they began to assist with more enthusiasm. We kept at the workeach afternoon, until we had cleared about twenty acres and hadplanted a crop.In the meantime Miss Davidson was devising plans to repay theloan. Her first effort was made by holding festivals, or"suppers." She made a personal canvass among the white andcoloured families in the town of Tuskegee, and got them to agreeto give something, like a cake, a chicken, bread, or pies, thatcould be sold at the festival. Of course the coloured people wereglad to give anything that they could spare, but I want to addthat Miss Davidson did not apply to a single white family, so faras I now remember, that failed to donate something; and in manyways the white families showed their interested in the school.Several of these festivals were held, and quite a little sum ofmoney was raised. A canvass was also made among the people ofboth races for direct gifts of money, and most of those appliedto gave small sums. It was often pathetic to note the gifts ofthe older coloured people, most of whom had spent their best daysin slavery. Sometimes they would give five cents, sometimestwenty-five cents. Sometimes the contribution was a quilt, or aquantity of sugarcane. I recall one old coloured women who wasabout seventy years of age, who came to see me when we wereraising money to pay for the farm. She hobbled into the roomwhere I was, leaning on a cane. She was clad in rags; but theywere 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' todo. I knows you is tryin' to make better men an' better women forde coloured race. I ain't got no money, but I wants you to takedese six eggs, what I's been savin' up, an' I wants you to putdese six eggs into the eddication of dese boys an' gals."Since the work at Tuskegee started, it has been my privilege toreceive many gifts for the benefit of the institution, but neverany, I think, that touched me so deeply as this one.