Chapter X. A Harder Task Than Making Bricks Without Straw

by Booker T. Washington

　　From the very beginning, at Tuskegee, I was determined to havethe students do not only the agricultural and domestic work, butto have them erect their own buildings. My plan was to have them,while performing this service, taught the latest and best methodsof labour, so that the school would not only get the benefit oftheir efforts, but the students themselves would be taught to seenot only utility in labour, but beauty and dignity; would betaught, in fact, how to lift labour up from mere drudgery andtoil, and would learn to love work for its own sake. My plan wasnot to teach them to work in the old way, but to show them how tomake the forces of nature--air, water, steam, electricity,horse-power--assist them in their labour.At first many advised against the experiment of having thebuildings erected by the labour of the students, but I wasdetermined to stick to it. I told those who doubted the wisdom ofthe plan that I knew that our first buildings would not be socomfortable or so complete in their finish as buildings erectedby the experienced hands of outside workmen, but that in theteaching of civilization, self-help, and self-reliance, theerection of buildings by the students themselves would more thancompensate for any lack of comfort or fine finish.I further told those who doubted the wisdom of this plan, thatthe majority of our students came to us in poverty, from thecabins of the cotton, sugar, and rice plantations of the South,and that while I knew it would please the students very much toplace them at once in finely constructed buildings, I felt thatit would be following out a more natural process of developmentto teach them how to construct their own buildings. Mistakes Iknew would be made, but these mistakes would teach us valuablelessons for the future.During the now nineteen years' existence of the Tuskegee school,the plan of having the buildings erected by student labour hasbeen adhered to. In this time forty buildings, counting small andlarge, have been built, and all except four are almost wholly theproduct of student labour. As an additional result, hundreds ofmen are now scattered throughout the South who received theirknowledge of mechanics while being taught how to erect thesebuildings. Skill and knowledge are now handed down from one setof students to another in this way, until at the present time abuilding of any description or size can be constructed wholly byour instructors and students, from the drawing of the plans tothe putting in of the electric fixtures, without going off thegrounds for a single workman.Not a few times, when a new student has been led into thetemptation of marring the looks of some building by leadpencilmarks or by the cuts of a jack-knife, I have heard an old studentremind him: "Don't do that. That is our building. I helped put itup."In the early days of the school I think my most trying experiencewas in the matter of brickmaking. As soon as we got the farm workreasonably well started, we directed our next efforts toward theindustry of making bricks. We needed these for use in connectionwith the erection of our own buildings; but there was alsoanother reason for establishing this industry. There was nobrickyard in the town, and in addition to our own needs there wasa demand for bricks in the general market.I had always sympathized with the "Children of Israel," in theirtask of "making bricks without straw," but ours was the task ofmaking bricks with no money and no experience.In the first place, the work was hard and dirty, and it wasdifficult to get the students to help. When it came tobrickmaking, their distaste for manual labour in connection withbook education became especially manifest. It was not a pleasanttask for one to stand in the mud-pit for hours, with the mud upto his knees. More than one man became disgusted and left theschool.We tried several locations before we opened up a pit thatfurnished brick clay. I had always supposed that brickmaking wasvery simple, but I soon found out by bitter experience that itrequired special skill and knowledge, particularly in the burningof the bricks. After a good deal of effort we moulded abouttwenty-five thousand bricks, and put them into a kiln to beburned. This kiln turned out to be a failure, because it was notproperly constructed or properly burned. We began at once,however, on a second kiln. This, for some reason, also proved afailure. The failure of this kiln made it still more difficult toget the students to take part in the work. Several of theteachers, however, who had been trained in the industries atHampton, volunteered their services, and in some way we succeededin getting a third kiln ready for burning. The burning of a kilnrequired about a week. Toward the latter part of the week, whenit seemed as if we were going to have a good many thousand bricksin a few hours, in the middle of the night the kiln fell. For thethird time we had failed.The failure of this last kiln left me without a single dollarwith which to make another experiment. Most of the teachersadvised the abandoning of the effort to make bricks. In the midstof my troubles I thought of a watch which had come into mypossession years before. I took the watch to the city ofMontgomery, which was not far distant, and placed it in apawn-shop. I secured cash upon it to the amount of fifteendollars, with which to renew the brickmaking experiment. Ireturned to Tuskegee, and, with the help of the fifteen dollars,rallied our rather demoralized and discouraged forces and began afourth attempt to make bricks. This time, I am glad to say, wewere successful. Before I got hold of any money, the time-limiton my watch had expired, and I have never seen it since; but Ihave never regretted the loss of it.Brickmaking has now become such an important industry at theschool that last season our students manufactured twelve hundredthousand of first-class bricks, of a quality stable to be sold inany market. Aside from this, scores of young men have masteredthe brickmaking trade--both the making of bricks by hand and bymachinery--and are now engaged in this industry in many parts ofthe South.The making of these bricks taught me an important lesson inregard to the relations of the two races in the South. Many whitepeople who had had no contact with the school, and perhaps nosympathy with it, came to us to buy bricks because they found outthat ours were good bricks. They discovered that we weresupplying a real want in the community. The making of thesebricks caused many of the white residents of the neighbourhood tobegin to feel that the education of the Negro was not making himworthless, but that in educating our students we were addingsomething to the wealth and comfort of the community. As thepeople of the neighbourhood came to us to buy bricks, we gotacquainted with them; they traded with us and we with them. Ourbusiness interests became intermingled. We had something whichthey wanted; they had something which we wanted. This, in a largemeasure, helped to lay the foundation for the pleasant relationsthat have continued to exist between us and the white people inthat section, and which now extend throughout the South.Wherever one of our brickmakers has gone in the South, we findthat he has something to contribute to the well-being of thecommunity into which he has gone; something that has made thecommunity feel that, in a degree, it is indebted to him, andperhaps, to a certain extent, dependent upon him. In this waypleasant relations between the races have been simulated.My experience is that there is something in human nature whichalways makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matterunder what colour of skin merit is found. I have found, too, thatit is the visible, the tangible, that goes a long ways insoftening prejudices. The actual sight of a first-class housethat a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages ofdiscussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps couldbuild.The same principle of industrial education has been carried outin the building of our own wagons, carts, and buggies, from thefirst. We now own and use on our farm and about the school dozensof these vehicles, and every one of them has been built by thehands of the students. Aside from this, we help supply the localmarket with these vehicles. The supplying of them to the peoplein the community has had the same effect as the supplying ofbricks, and the man who learns at Tuskegee to build and repairwagons and carts is regarded as a benefactor by both races in thecommunity where he goes. The people with whom he lives and worksare going to think twice before they part with such a man.The individual who can do something that the world wants donewill, in the end, make his way regardless of race. One man may gointo a community prepared to supply the people there with ananalysis of Greek sentences. The community may not at the time beprepared for, or feel the need of, Greek analysis, but it mayfeel its need of bricks and houses and wagons. If the man cansupply the need for those, then, it will lead eventually to ademand for the first product, and with the demand will come theability to appreciate it and to profit by it.About the time that we succeeded in burning our first kiln ofbricks we began facing in an emphasized form the objection of thestudents to being taught to work. By this time it had gotten tobe pretty well advertised throughout the state that every studentwho came to Tuskegee, no matter what his financial ability mightbe, must learn some industry. Quite a number of letters came fromparents protesting against their children engaging in labourwhile they were in the school. Other parents came to the schoolto protest in person. Most of the new students brought a writtenor a verbal request from their parents to the effect that theywanted their children taught nothing but books. The more books,the larger they were, and the longer the titles printed uponthem, the better pleased the students and their parents seemed tobe.I gave little heed to these protests, except that I lost noopportunity to go into as many parts of the state as I could, forthe purpose of speaking to the parents, and showing them thevalue of industrial education. Besides, I talked to the studentsconstantly on the subject. Notwithstanding the unpopularity ofindustrial work, the school continued to increase in numbers tosuch an extent that by the middle of the second year there was anattendance of about one hundred and fifty, representing almostall parts of the state of Alabama, and including a few from otherstates.In the summer of 1882 Miss Davidson and I both went North andengaged in the work of raising funds for the completion of ournew building. On my way North I stopped in New York to try to geta letter of recommendation from an officer of a missionaryorganization who had become somewhat acquainted with me a fewyears previous. This man not only refused to give me the letter,but advised me most earnestly to go back home at once, and notmake any attempt to get money, for he was quite sure that I wouldnever get more than enough to pay my travelling expenses. Ithanked him for his advice, and proceeded on my journey.The first place I went to in the North, was Northampton, Mass.,where I spent nearly a half-day in looking for a coloured familywith whom I could board, never dreaming that any hotel wouldadmit me. I was greatly surprised when I found that I would haveno trouble in being accommodated at a hotel.We were successful in getting money enough so that onThanksgiving Day of that year we held our first service in thechapel of Porter Hall, although the building was not completed.In looking about for some one to preach the Thanksgiving sermon,I found one of the rarest men that it has ever been my privilegeto know. This was the Rev. Robert C. Bedford, a white man fromWisconsin, who was then pastor of a little colouredCongregational church in Montgomery, Ala. Before going toMontgomery to look for some one to preach this sermon I had neverheard of Mr. Bedford. He had never heard of me. He gladlyconsented to come to Tuskegee and hold the Thanksgiving service.It was the first service of the kind that the coloured peoplethere had ever observed, and what a deep interest they manifestedin it! The sight of the new building made it a day ofThanksgiving for them never to be forgotten.Mr. Bedford consented to become one of the trustees of theschool, and in that capacity, and as a worker for it, he has beenconnected with it for eighteen years. During this time he hasborne the school upon his heart night and day, and is never sohappy as when he is performing some service, no matter howhumble, for it. He completely obliterates himself in everything,and looks only for permission to serve where service is mostdisagreeable, and where others would not be attracted. In all myrelations with him he has seemed to me to approach as nearly tothe spirit of the Master as almost any man I ever met.A little later there came into the service of the school anotherman, quite young at the time, and fresh from Hampton, withoutwhose service the school never could have become what it is. Thiswas Mr. Warren Logan, who now for seventeen years has been thetreasurer of the Institute, and the acting principal during myabsence. He has always shown a degree of unselfishness and anamount of business tact, coupled with a clear judgment, that haskept the school in good condition no matter how long I have beenabsent from it. During all the financial stress through which theschool has passed, his patience and faith in our ultimate successhave not left him.As soon as our first building was near enough to completion sothat we could occupy a portion of it--which was near the middleof the second year of the school--we opened a boardingdepartment. Students had begun coming from quite a distance, andin such increasing numbers that we felt more and more that wewere merely skimming over the surface, in that we were notgetting hold of the students in their home life.We had nothing but the students and their appetites with which tobegin a boarding department. No provision had been made in thenew building for a kitchen and dining room; but we discoveredthat by digging out a large amount of earth from under thebuilding we could make a partially lighted basement room thatcould be used for a kitchen and dining room. Again I called onthe students to volunteer for work, this time to assist indigging out the basement. This they did, and in a few weeks wehad a place to cook and eat in, although it was very rough anduncomfortable. Any one seeing the place now would never believethat it was once used for a dining room.The most serious problem, though, was to get the boardingdepartment started off in running order, with nothing to do within the way of furniture, and with no money with which to buyanything. The merchants in the town would let us have what foodwe wanted on credit. In fact, in those earlier years I wasconstantly embarrassed because people seemed to have more faithin me than I had in myself. It was pretty hard to cook, however,with stoves, and awkward to eat without dishes. At first thecooking was done out-of-doors, in the old-fashioned, primitivestyle, in pots and skillets placed over a fire. Some of thecarpenters' benches that had been used in the construction of thebuilding were utilized for tables. As for dishes, there were toofew to make it worth while to spend time in describing them.No one connected with the boarding department seemed to have anyidea that meals must be served at certain fixed and regularhours, and this was a source of great worry. Everything was soout of joint and so inconvenient that I feel safe in saying thatfor the first two weeks something was wrong at every meal. Eitherthe meat was not done or had been burnt, or the salt had beenleft out of the bread, or the tea had been forgotten.Early one morning I was standing near the dining-room doorlistening to the complaints of the students. The complaints thatmorning were especially emphatic and numerous, because the wholebreakfast had been a failure. One of the girls who had failed toget any breakfast came out and went to the well to draw somewater to drink and take the place of the breakfast which she hadnot been able to get. When she reached the well, she found thatthe rope was broken and that she could get no water. She turnedfrom the well and said, in the most discouraged tone, not knowingthat I was where I could hear her, "We can't even get water todrink at this school." I think no one remark ever came so neardiscouraging me as that one.At another time, when Mr. Bedford--whom I have already spoken ofas one of our trustees, and a devoted friend of theinstitution--was visiting the school, he was given a bedroomimmediately over the dining room. Early in the morning he wasawakened by a rather animated discussion between two boys in thedining room below. The discussion was over the question as towhose turn it was to use the coffee-cup that morning. One boy wonthe case by proving that for three mornings he had not had anopportunity to use the cup at all.But gradually, with patience and hard work, we brought order outof chaos, just as will be true of any problem if we stick to itwith patience and wisdom and earnest effort.As I look back now over that part of our struggle, I am glad tosee that we had it. I am glad that we endured all thosediscomforts and inconveniences. I am glad that our students hadto dig out the place for their kitchen and dining room. I am gladthat our first boarding-place was in the dismal, ill-lighted, anddamp basement. Had we started in a fine, attractive, convenientroom, I fear we would have "lost our heads" and become "stuckup." It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundationwhich one has made for one's self.When our old students return to Tuskegee now, as they often do,and go into our large, beautiful, well-ventilated, andwell-lighted dining room, and see tempting, well-cookedfood--largely grown by the students themselves--and see tables,neat tablecloths and napkins, and vases of flowers upon thetables, and hear singing birds, and note that each meal is servedexactly upon the minute, with no disorder, and with almost nocomplaint coming from the hundreds that now fill our dining room,they, too, often say to me that they are glad that we started aswe did, and built ourselves up year by year, by a slow andnatural process of growth.