The girl, coming a stranger from her home in the city or country, is lost in a crowd of girls new to dormitory life. New surroundings and new conditions are everywhere. New emotions, new purposes, new resolutions chase one another in her thoughts, and she becomes a stranger to herself only to find her bearings first in her own room. Here Maine and California, far-away Washington and Central America, meet on common ground. Alabama and Georgia alone feel kinship from geographical propinquity.

Beds, one double and one single, chairs, a table, mirror, bookcase, wardrobe, wash-stand, and screen, all manufactured on the grounds, compose the simple furniture of the room. But a few pictures, a strip of carpet before each bed, a bright table-covering, soon give the room the appearance of home, and the untried life has begun. The duty-list assigns to each girl her work, and perhaps the first lessons in order and system will be fairly instituted.

How many and varied are the associations that cluster about the life of the girl in her room, that refuge from a day of discouragement in schoolroom or workshop, and a haven of peace during the quiet hours of the Sabbath! Roommate meets roommate, quick to resent and as quick to forgive—and the petty strife and envy suppressed at birth only serve to discipline them for the coming days.

Up with the rising bell at five, the duties of the room are almost finished when the girl leaves her beds to air while she takes her six o'clock breakfast. Social amenities, the niceties of table-training, and the tricks of speech that betray the sectional birthright, proclaim to the ever-observant table-mates the status of each newcomer, and she rises or falls in estimation just so far as her metal rings true. Thus another element enters into her life, one that will prove a potent force in balancing character; for the frankly expressed criticisms of schoolmates play no small part in the development of students.

If a girl be one of the forty-five waitresses on the eighty-nine tables of the dining-room, she eats her breakfast as the other students march out, then finishes her room-duties and is ready for work at ten minutes of seven wherever she happens to be assigned. If she is a dishwasher, she does that work, waits for inspection of the table that she has set, finishes her room-duty, and is admitted into her work division at half past seven.

Gardening and greenhouse work are becoming so attractive through the Nature-Study classes of the Academic Department that there are constant applications for transfers from the sewing divisions to this outside work. Equipped in an overall gingham apron and sunbonnet of the same material, the girl begins her duties, and no prouder girl can be found than she who takes her first basket of early spring vegetables to the Teachers' Home.

If the day is to be spent with the whole agricultural force of girls picking strawberries for the tables of the Boarding Department and the local market, the stage takes the group out to the patch two miles back on the farm—and that is happiness unalloyed for the schoolgirl. When she correlates her outing with her school work on the day following, there is seen nature at first-hand in the class-room.

If other classmates have been working in the Plain-Sewing Division turning out cotton underwear and plain articles of clothing to supply the demand of the Salesroom of the institution, the lesson in English has a natural, practical bearing, arising from the fact that one hour has been spent with the theory class of the workroom studying the warp and woof of the materials used, perhaps the sixth or seventh lesson in a series on cotton, introduced to the class first in its native heath. Correlation comes in wherever it may, and the association of ideas obtained in class-room and workroom is closely joined.

The large class of the Dressmaking Division, spending the day from seven until half past five making the blue uniform dresses, filling orders for tailor-made dresses in silk and cloth, measuring, drafting, cutting, and fitting, has many a representative in the schoolroom the succeeding day; and still more is the lesson varied by the practical illustrations in Mathematics or the recital of the experiences of the day in the English classes.

The girl in the millinery work, shaping forms, trimming hats, blending colors, drawing designs, studying textiles and fabrics for analysis in her theory classes twice during her three days of work, finds added inspiration for her three days of class-room study. If she is in the Senior class, she specializes in geometry on her school-days and mechanical drawing on her work-days. When our girl has finished her course in drawing and begins one of the uniform hats worn by the hundreds of girls, she ranks among the first milliners of the land in the estimation of the beginners. She completes hat after hat, drapes them until the number meets the requirement, and then comes her own creation, a pattern hat, undersized of course, but a real dress hat and a thing of beauty. It usually finds its way to the old home for her mother and neighbors to admire. The commendation that comes back to the school is worth its weight in gold.



But there are backward learners. Some there are who excel in embroidery, crocheting, making ties and other fancy articles, but who have no aptitude for shaping and trimming hats. They plod on, and win at last. Then there is the girl whose parents wish her to open a millinery establishment in their town. She tries, but finally agrees with her long-suffering instructor that she would succeed at mattress-making and upholstering instead.

The work in the Mattress Division begins with sheet, pillow-case, table-linen, and comforter-making for the endless demands of the lodging division of the boys and girls. Pulling shucks for the mattress is the next step in advance, and when shucks are covered by the cotton layers in the making, they prove an excellent substitute for the hair filling of a more expensive manufacture, and they have an advantage in the matter of cleanliness. Covering screen frames made in the Carpentry Division for the numerous rooms, caning couches, rockers, and stools, help add to the variety of work in the division. The girl is not awarded her certificate until she has completed the round of work, including the fashioning of a bedroom suite from barrels finally covered with neat-figured denim. The semiweekly theory classes are not unlike those of the plain-sewing division, and the girl is as proud of her achievement with needle, hammer, and saw as if she were an adept in lighter work.

When the machinery was introduced for Broom-making, the girls looked askance at the appliances. But when the broom-corn was delivered from the farm, and the pioneer girl broom-maker began threshing of the seed in the cleaner, an interest was evinced that has increased with the knowledge that the work, study, or manufacture (call it what you will) is very productive, especially in the confines of the girls' broom-factory at Tuskegee Institute. The poultry-yard bought the seeds threshed off the broom-stalks; the hundreds of old handles collected cost nothing, and when the wiring, stitching, and clipping were finished and the girl saw the first broom turned out, there was triumph in the fact that the industry was the most inexpensive and still the most productive of credit of all the girls' industries under the roof of Dorothy Hall. The evolution from the flag-straw broom used in cabins of the South to the ones now completed and labeled, creates the sensation of the girl-world in the trades school. The wonders brought out in the theory class in connection with broom-making were marvelous. Broom-making has come to remain with our other girls' industries.

Work in the Laundry presents another aspect to the onlooker, and he doubtless decides on the spur of the moment that all is drudgery here. Girls are then assorting countless pieces received on Mondays from students and teachers. They are placing the assorted articles in cages in the basement. Two boys are filling three washers with bed-linen, and in another apartment two girls are weighing and measuring materials to make more soap to add to the boxes standing in the soap-room. Girls up-stairs in the wash-room are busy rubbing at the tubs. Some girls are starching, and others are sending baskets down on the elevator for girls below to hang in the drying-room. Others are in the assorting-room putting away clothes-bags into numerous boxes. The ironing-room farther on is filled with busy workers. Days come during every week when time is spent in the study of laundry chemistry. Rust and mildew stains and scorching are some of the problems of the Laundry, and they find solution. Soap, starch, water, and bluing have their composite qualities and are analyzed, and no more interesting correlation is there than that of the laundry with the class-room.

Although each Tuskegee girl is expected to become proficient in one trade at least, all are required to attend the cooking classes. Girls belonging to certain classes are scattered in the various divisions, each busily engaged at her chosen trade. At the ringing of the bells in each division at stated hours, classes form and pass to the training-kitchen for their lesson in cooking. Both night-school and day-school girls report every day until every girl has received her lesson weekly. The normal classes have theory and practise one hour each, the preparatory girls one hour weekly for their trades.

This is true also of girls in the normal classes. They spend one hour in basketry study, making in all three hours away from their individual trades each week. Theory is combined with practise, and many a fanciful thought is woven in with the reed and raffia of the Indian baskets, African purses, belts, and pine-needle work-baskets. The shuck hats and foot-mats are so foreign in design that one often wonders how it were possible to utilize the same material in so widely different purposes. But our girl is progressive, and not a few instances have occurred when one has been informed of the presence of a Tuskegee student in a remote country district, by the inevitable shuck hat prettily designed and worn by an utter stranger. So remunerative has been the work that many have earned money enough from the sales of these hats to purchase books for the school year and pay their entrance fees.

Few girls work at typesetting. Those learning the trade are in the Boys' Trades Building. The same is true of the girl tailors, who are as capable workers in the trade as the boys. The majority of these girls are in night-school, and of late years have not earned much for their work. In former years the greater body of the students were working their way through school, and by their labor would earn enough to complete their education in the Academic Department and the Industrial as well. Last year the pay schedule was reduced, and many appeals for assistance came from those battling their way through. A young girl whose monthly statement warned her that she owed the school $15, at the end of the school year wrote the following:

"DEAR MRS. WASHINGTON: I write to inform you of the enormous sum that I owe on my board bill. I am not satisfied, because I want to earn something in life, but it seems that means and opportunity will not permit me. I can't help from crying when I think how anxious and willing my people are to help me to be something, and yet they are unable to help me.

"My mother has struggled to bring up eight of us, and now is to the point where she can give me no more help, and that leaves me alone to be something by myself. I am anxious to enter day-school so I may finish my course of study and my trade, and at last let my mother see me a good, noble woman, who will take care of her.

"I will thank you very much for your kindness, if you will look into my board bill and help me as soon, and as much, as possible. Yours gratefully."

As the day girls have put in so many hours of work recently under the new system, it eliminates the necessity of so many night-school girls being paid for their work. It is to the interest of the school and its day-students that fewer work their way through school, and the time has come to teach this fact. The boy or girl for a time will stagger in the attempt to gain education, but will be all the more able, later, to reach the desired goal.

All girls are taught housekeeping incidentally in the care of their rooms; but the number assigned to the regular division yearly are instructed in all branches of home industry. The course covering two years is mapped out thoroughly, and when the girls reach the Senior class, all have their turn at housekeeping in the Practise Cottage of four rooms. No girl is graduated from the school without the finishing touch of the little home. Marketing, the planning of meals, table-setting, the care of table- and bed-linen, dusting, sweeping, and everything else pertaining to a well-kept house, are taught by the teacher in domestic science who is in charge of the training-kitchen where the senior girls received their first lessons in cookery. The young housekeepers have reached the stage of efficiency when they may prepare a meal for a distinguished guest.

A red-letter day in the history of the cottage came when a warm-hearted and much-beloved trustee of the institution expressed a wish to dine with the girls during one of his visits to the institution. The flowers that graced the small table on this day were brought by the distinguished visitor, who came from a stroll in the "piney" woods. The girls, apprehensive of their success in preparing the dinner for one with so cultured a palate, felt visibly relieved on the disappearance of the roast, the vegetables, and the dessert. The corn bread was voted the best ever eaten, and the dinner, as a whole, a delicious preparation. If ever, in the years to come, any of the four forgets the kindly heart that made all forget station or condition, "the right hand will forget its cunning."

Days pass all too quickly in work and study. After the supper at six, the girls in the normal classes go to their rooms or the Carnegie Library for study, the girls in the preparatory classes go to the study-hour, and those who have been working at the trades during the day spend two hours in night-school covering half as much ground as those in day-school, and consequently spend a longer period in school. At the ringing of the bell at half past eight all the girls form in line to pass to the Chapel for prayers.

School and work over for the day, every girl seems to lose her personality in her blue braided uniform, with her red tie and turnover on week-day evenings at Chapel, and her white ribbon on Sundays when she passes the platform as she marches by out of the Chapel to her room. Her carriage at least identifies her class-standing, and one may easily note the difference in the manner of her who has newly arrived and another who has been in school with the advantages of several years.

Friday afternoons mark an hour for lectures, girls' clubs, and circle entertainments. Saturday evenings are spent optionally. Time for class gymnastics or sewing or swimming is always spent pleasantly on schedule time during the week. Our girl attends the Christian Endeavor Sunday mornings at nine, Chapel at eleven, Sunday-school at one, and, after dinner is out of the way, spends the enforced quiet hour in her room from three until four o'clock reading. The band concert on the lawn calls all to listen, some walking, some sitting on the seats on the green, but all presenting a picturesque appearance in the blue skirts and white waists of the spring season.

Thus the days and weeks pass, mingled with the sorrows and joys of school-life, its encouragements and disappointments. The months and seasons come and go, and, before one is scarcely aware of the fact, the Commencement Week is here and the hundreds of young people whose lives have come in touch with one another pass on to their homes. Some go out as helpful workers, giving useful service to others; many will return to complete the course begun, but all, we hope, will give out the light that will not fail. Some are workers with ten talents, some with five, some with one; but all, we trust, will be using them for the upbuilding of the kingdom here on earth.



V

HAMPTON INSTITUTE'S RELATION TO TUSKEGEE

BY ROBERT R. MOTON

In his eloquent address in May, 1903, at the memorial services of General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, Founder, and for twenty-five years Principal, of Hampton Institute, Dr. Booker T. Washington said: "A few nights ago, while I was driving through the woods in Alabama, I discerned in the distance a large, bright fire. Driving to it, I soon found out that by the glow of this fire several busy hands were building a nice frame cottage, to replace a log cabin that had been the abode of the family for a quarter of a century. That fire was lighted by General Armstrong years ago. What does it matter that it was twenty-five years passing through Hampton to Tuskegee and through the Tuskegee Conference to that lonely spot in those lonely woods! It was doing its work very effectually all the same, and will continue to do it through the years to come."

The relations existing between Tuskegee Institute and Hampton Institute are much like those existing between a son and the father who has watched the growth and development of his child through the formative transition periods of his youth, and looks with pride upon him as he stands forth in the full bloom of manhood, enumerating successes already achieved, with large promise of greater and more far-reaching achievements for the immediate future. The child never reaches the point where he does not seek the approval and blessing of the parent, or where he refuses to accept advice and assistance if needed.

In the early days of Tuskegee Mr. Washington turned naturally and properly to Hampton for anything that was needed, as he so beautifully and repeatedly testifies in his autobiography, Up from Slavery. For a long time the men and women who helped him were from Hampton, more than fifty such having been there.

While there is a large number of Hampton graduates in the Industrial Departments of Tuskegee, the teaching force, especially in the Academic Department, represents a dozen or more of the best colleges and universities in this country. The same may be said of Hampton.

Up to about eight or ten years ago we at Hampton spoke of Tuskegee as a small Hampton, but "small" no longer describes Tuskegee, and I doubt seriously if large Hampton would be altogether proper.

While Tuskegee was founded on the Hampton plan, and has consistently followed that plan as far as possible, and while these two great "Industrial Universities" are very much alike in spirit and purpose, they are, on the other hand, very dissimilar in external appearance as well as in internal conduct. Each sends out into the benighted districts of the South, and Hampton also into the Indian country of the West, hundreds of men and women who are living influences of civilization and Christianity in their deepest and most far-reaching sense, adding much to the solution of the perplexing questions with which the nation has to deal.

The conditions surrounding the two schools have necessitated certain differences in their evolution. The personnel of the two institutions is different. Hampton has always been governed and controlled by white people, and its teachers have come from the best families of the North. Tuskegee was founded by a Negro, and its teachers and officers have come from the best types of the American Negro and from the best schools opened to them. Hampton deals with a different class of student material, including the Indian, who is almost as different in traits and characteristics from the Negro as he is in feature and origin. These are, in a sense, external differences which must of necessity affect the character and internal machinery of the two institutions.

This is no reflection upon either school, for each is unique and complete in its way, and any marked ethnic change in the management of either would be unfortunate. Hampton is a magnificent illustration of Anglo-Saxon ideas in modern education. Tuskegee, on the other hand, is the best demonstration of Negro achievement along distinctly altruistic lines. In its successful work for the elevation and civilization of the children of the freedmen, it is also the most convincing evidence of the Negroes' ability to work together with mutual regard and mutual helpfulness. When Tuskegee was started there was a serious question as to whether Negroes could in any large measure combine for business or educational purposes. The only cooperative institutions that had been successful among them were the Church and, perhaps, the secret societies.

In material development, in the rapid and steadily improving accession of student material, in enlarging powers for greater usefulness, in influence upon the educational methods of the country and the civilized world, and in the sympathy and respect it has gained for the Negro through the writings and speeches of its Founder and Principal, the Tuskegee Institute has without doubt passed beyond the expectations of those who were most sanguine about its future.

The Tuskegee torch, from the Hampton fire started so many years ago by General Armstrong, has spread and is spreading light to thousands of homes and communities throughout the South, and is the greatest pride and glory of Hampton Institute, and a constant source of inspiration and encouragement to the devoted men and women who have always made Hampton's work possible.

At the conclusion of an address in a Northern city in the interest of Hampton, in which I had quoted Dr. Curry's saying that, "if Hampton had done nothing more than to give us Booker Washington, its history would be immortality," a New England lady of apparently good circumstances and well informed, in the kindness of her heart, took me to task for distorting my facts in saying that Tuskegee had grown out of Hampton. She was sure that it was just the other way—that Hampton was an offshoot of Tuskegee. She certainly could not have paid a higher tribute to Hampton, and likewise to Tuskegee.

For the past few years Mr. Washington's deserved popularity and prominence have brought Tuskegee conspicuously and constantly before the public. This has in no sense been a disadvantage to Hampton, but has been a distinct gain in enabling Hampton to point to the foremost man of the Negro race, and to the largest and most interesting and in many ways the best-managed institution of the race, as the best and most conspicuous product of the peculiar kind of education for which Hampton stands.

While Tuskegee is, perhaps, in many respects, better known than Hampton, its antecedent, Hampton, is without doubt much better known and more highly thought of because of the existence of Tuskegee.

Tuskegee in its present state of development would be one of the marvels of the age, even if the personality of its Principal were left out of consideration.

Two thousand Negroes who are scarcely a generation removed from bondage, being trained, disciplined, controlled by 200 or more of the same racial type; 2,000 Negroes being educated, morally, industrially, intellectually; an industrial university with 100 large buildings well equipped and beautifully laid-off grounds, with a hum and bustle of industry, scientifically and practically conducted by a race considered as representing the lowest ethnic type, upsetting the theories of many well-meaning people who believe the Negroes incapable of maintaining themselves in this civilization, incapable of uniting in any successful endeavor without being under the direct personal control of the dominant Aryan—this is one of the greatest achievements of the race during its years of freedom.

Hampton, though a dozen years older, the pioneer in industrial education, equally well equipped, quite as well conducted, doing as great a work in the elevation of the races it represents, and holding just as important a place in the scheme of modern education, is not so interesting or so wonderful, because its conception and execution are the product of Aryan thought and Aryan ingenuity. New ideas, new discoveries, new inventions and organizations, new methods and new institutions, have been conspicuous among the white race for a thousand years. General Armstrong's wisdom and foresight were truly wonderful, as indeed are also those of his worthy successor, Dr. H. B. Frissell, under whose direction the school's influence and usefulness have steadily increased, and along lines that General Armstrong would approve; but had Hampton been founded and brought to its present state of proficiency by a Negro, and its dominating force been of the African race, it would be a more wonderful and interesting institution. In other words, the white race has long since passed its experimental period. It now is the standard of measurement for all other races. The Negro's achievements, then, are considered largely with reference to the impression which they make upon the race of whose civilization and government he is a part.



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 attitude 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 Constitution. 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 institution, 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 institutions 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. Washington 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. Washington 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 relationship, 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 assistant 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 Institute, 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. Washington, 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 assurance which I have never since assumed, 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 scholarship 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. Washington 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 coarse. He was afraid we would not stay there three months. We assured 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 Institute, 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 assurance 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. Washington, superintendent of industries, brother of Mr. Booker T. Washington, 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 assigned 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 space 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. Washington, 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. Washington, 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. Washington 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. Washington was present, I made some remarks relative to the agnosticism of the late Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. The following day Mr. Washington sent for me, inquired my age and class 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 friendship, which, despite my oft-proven unworthiness, he has ever since given me in unstinted measure. After that second year my hardships 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 Saturday, 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 circumstances, 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 brass band and the orchestra, blew the bugle for the battalion, and taught two classes in the night-school, for each of which duties I received pay; and even though I broke down under the accumulated strain soon after my graduation, I carried my point and completed the course of study as I had planned.



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 scholarship, and also the valedictory of my class, graduating in 1898.

I was immediately sent to the Schofield School, a Quaker institution for Negroes in Aiken, S. C., to organize farmers' conferences on the order of those conducted by the Tuskegee Institute, and to serve as a teacher in the school. After one year's service in that position Mr. Washington asked me to accept the position of Assistant 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 assigned 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 principal was needed for the Swayne Public School of Montgomery, Ala., and this in the middle of the school year. Mr. Washington 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 principal 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 institution, 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 Principal of Tuskegee; and in my desk are views of the institution 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 God 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. Washington.



II

A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'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 assault 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.

Our family was increasing rapidly, and to keep the children even roughly clothed and fed was about all that could be done under the circumstances. When the school exhibition took place and every girl was expected to have a white dress and every boy a pair of white pantaloons, my mother was often put to her trumps to get these things. Father would not trouble himself about them, as he said they were useless. But the teacher said they were necessary, and his word was law and gospel with most parents in our community. An exhibition was near at hand and three of us had no white pantaloons. Mother manipulated every scheme, but no cloth yet to make them! Finally the day arrived, but not till mother solved the problem by getting up before dawn that morning and making three pairs of white pantaloons for us out of her Sunday petticoat. Mother was of a determined disposition, and seldom failed to solve a domestic problem. We looked about as well as other people's children in that exhibition—at least we thought we did, and that was sufficient. But it must be remembered that there is just so much cloth, and no more, in a petticoat. So our suits were necessarily made tight. I had to be careful how I got around on the stage.

I usually had different teachers every year, as one teacher seldom cared to stay at a place for more than a session. I well remember the disadvantages of this custom. One teacher would have me in a Third Reader and fractions, another in Fifth Reader and addition. When I reached the point where the teacher ordered me to get a United States History, the book-store did not have one, but sold me a biography of Martin Luther instead, which I studied for some time, thinking that I was learning something about the United States. I did not know what the United States was or was like, although I had studied geography and knew something about South America and Africa; and my teacher did not tell me. My teacher at this time was a good man, but that was all. Many of my teachers knew very little, but I thought they knew everything, and that was sufficient, for their teaching was wholesome. I remember one or two, however, whose work, under the circumstances, would be hard to match even now.

As soon as I was old enough I was hired out for wages, to help support the family. My school opportunities were now almost gone, and for this reason, together with a desire for more excitement, I began to grow restless on the farm. I grew morose. I pulled myself loose from all public functions, ceased to attend any public meetings, save regular monthly church meetings, and betook me to the woods, where I read everything I could get. It was during this time that accidentally, I may say providentially, I got hold of a book containing the life of Ignacius Sancho; and I have never read anything that has given me more inspiration. I wish every Negro boy in the land might read it. I read and worked, and helped to support the family. I had vowed that as soon as I was twenty-one I would leave for some school and there stay until I was educated. I was already a little in advance of the young people in my community, so I spent my long winter evenings teaching a little night-school to which the young people of the neighborhood came.

All my life up to this time my father had been working as a tenant. He now determined to strike out for himself—buy stock and rent land. The mule he bought soon became hopelessly lame in the back. It was a peculiar sort of illness. Once upon his feet, he could work all day without difficulty, but when he lay down at night he had to be helped up the following morning. During that entire season the first thing I heard each morning was the voice of my father, "Children, children, get up! let's go and help up the old mule." A neighbor also was called in each morning to help. Toward the end of the season the school opened. We were so anxious to enter, that we determined to help the old mule. My brother and I hitched ourselves to the plow, and sister did the plowing. Early each morning we plowed in this way, and soon finished the crop and entered the little school.

My father and some others had built a little school out of pine poles which they had cut, and hauled to the spot on their shoulders. The teacher, a married man, easily won all his pupils, but I could never forgive him for winning and finally eloping with his pretty assistant teacher.

Christmas eve, 1889, I went to bed a boy. Just after breakfast the next morning I became a man—my own man. "Sandy Claw" did not come that night, although I had hung up my stocking, and I was feeling bad about it. After breakfast my father called me out into the yard, where we seated ourselves on the protruding roots of a large oak-tree, and there he set me free.

"Son," said he, "you are nearing manhood, and you have no education; besides, if you remain with me I will not be able to help you when you are twenty-one. We've decided to make you free, if you'll make us one promise—that you will educate yourself."

By that time my mother had joined the party. I cried, I know not why, and my mother cried; even my father could not conceal his emotion. I accepted the proposal immediately, and although we usually took Christmas till New Year's day, my Christmas that year was then at an end. Manhood had dawned upon me that morning. I tried to be calm, but inwardly I was like a fish out of water.

I struck out to find work, that I might make money to go to school. One mile across the forest brought me to a man who hired me, and promised me $9.25 a month for nine months.

At the end of six months I came across the Tuskegee Student, published at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. I read every line in it. On the first page was a note: "There is an opportunity for a limited number of able-bodied young men to enter the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute and work their way through, provided application is made at once. Booker T. Washington, Principal."

Work their way through! I had never heard of such a thing before. Neither had I heard of Tuskegee. I sent in my application. I did not know how to address a letter, and so only put "Booker T. Washington" on the envelope. Somehow he received it and gave me permission to come.

There ensued a general scramble to get ready to go by the opening of school. I broke off relations with my employer by compromising for a suit of clothes and $8 in money. My chum, a man of about forty years of age, seeing the struggle I was making to get off, offered to help me, or rather to show me how to get the money easily by stealing a few chickens and selling them. It was a tempting bait, but against all the previous teachings of my mother. He argued, and my mother, who was not there, also argued within me. I could not consent. My friend pitied me and offered to do the job himself.

To get a supply of clothes to take to Tuskegee was the question. Up to that time I had never worn an undershirt, or a pair of drawers, or a stiff-bosom shirt, or a stiff collar. All these I had not only to get, but had to learn to wear them. My shirts and collars were bought second-hand from a white neighbor and were all too large by three numbers.

The last day of September, 1890, I left for Tuskegee. When I reached there, although I was a young man, I could not tell what county I lived in, in answer to Mr. Washington's question. I was admitted, after some hesitancy on the part of Principal Washington, and sent to the farm to work for one year in the daytime and to attend school at night.

I was dazed at the splendor of Tuskegee. There was Armstrong Hall, the most imposing brick structure I had ever seen. Then came Alabama Hall, where the girls lived. How wonderful! I could hardly believe that I was not dreaming, and I was almost afraid I should awake. When I went to bed that night I got between two sheets—something I had not been accustomed to do. About twelve o'clock an officer came in, threw the cover off me, and asked some questions about nightshirts, comb and brush, and tooth-brush, with all of which I was but meagerly acquainted. He made me get up, pull off my socks, necktie, collar, and shirt, and told me I would rest better without them. I didn't believe him, but I obeyed.

The next morning I saw more activity among Negroes than I had ever seen before in my life. Not only was everybody at work, but every soul seemed to be in earnest. I heard the ringing of the anvil, the click of machinery, the music of the carpenters' hammers. Before my eyes was a pair of big fat mules drawing a piece of new and improved farm machinery, which literally gutted the earth as the mules moved. Here was a herd of cattle, there a herd of swine; here thumped the mighty steam-engine that propelled the machine which delivered up its many thousand of brick daily; there was another machine, equally powerful, turning out thousands of feet of pine lumber every day. Then there were the class-rooms, with their dignified teachers and worthy-looking young men and women. Amid it all moved that wonderful figure, Booker T. Washington.

I began at once a new existence. I made a vow that I would educate myself there, or I would die and be buried in the school cemetery. When Mr. Washington stood at the altar in the first service which I attended and uttered a fervent prayer asking for guidance, and for spiritual and financial strength to carry on that great work, I felt that the Lord would surely answer his prayer. Since then I have traveled practically all over this country, and in one foreign country, without once seeing anything that made so deep an impression on me.



Simultaneously with this opportunity for self-education came many real hardships—to say nothing of imaginary hardships—which nearly resulted disastrously to my health. I was poorly clad for the extraordinary winter then setting in. I had only one undershirt and one pair of drawers. I could not, of course, put these articles in the laundry, and therefore had to pull them off on Saturday nights, wash them, and get them dry enough to wear by breakfast on Sunday morning. It followed that many Sunday mornings found me sitting at the table wearing damp underwear. I could do no better, without leaving school, and this I was determined not to do. I was earnest in my work, and was promoted from a common laborer to be a hostler in charge of all boys dealing with horses, and then to the much-sought position of special assistant to the farm manager.

I was beginning to see the mistakes of my former life, the time I had lost, and now applied myself diligently. I carried a book with me everywhere I went, and not a second of time would I lose. While driving my mules with a load of wood, I would read until I reached the place of unloading. Mr. Washington took note of this, and upon one occasion, while admonishing the students to make good use of their time, said: "There is a young man on the grounds who will be heard from some day because of his intense application to study and diligence in his work." I listened. I knew he was speaking of me, and the fact that I was to be "heard from" later made me double my resolutions.

In September, 1891, I had to my credit in the treasury of the institution $100, and I was now ready to enter the day-school, to measure arms with the more fortunate students. But, alas! sickness overtook me, and when I emerged from the hospital, after about two months' sickness, my doctor's bill was exactly $100. My accumulated credit went to pay it.

This was the penalty for making the transit from a lower to a higher civilization. When I went without undergarments at home, my health was saved because of uniformity of habit. Now it was injured because I could wear them this week, but might not be able to do so the next—irregularity of habit. Then, too, Tuskegee gave me such living-rooms as I had never lived in, or hoped to. I had lived in log houses, which are self-ventilating. Now I had either overventilated or failed to ventilate my room. It is a difficult matter to make the transit from a lower to a higher civilization. There are many obstacles, and many have fallen by the way.

I went home to recuperate, but returned to Tuskegee in a few weeks, and as I had no money I was again permitted to enter the night-school and work during the day. This time I took up the printers' trade. Here I broke over the conventional rule of acting "devil" six months, and began setting type after one month in the office. In six months I was one of the school's regular compositors; and in one term I had sufficient credit with the treasurer to enter the day-school.

But I was not yet to enter. A letter came from my father, saying, "If you wish to see me again alive, I think it would be well to come at once." I went. My father died a few days after I got home, June 27, 1893.

All hope of future schooling seemed now at an end. My only concern was to do the best I could with the exceedingly heavy load now left on my hands. I pulled off my school-clothes, went to the field, and finished the crop father had left. There was a heavy debt, and I began to teach school to pay this debt. Of course I knew very little, but I taught what I knew—and, I suppose, some things I didn't know.

I think even now that I did the people some good. I had not learned much at Tuskegee in books, but I had learned much from Mr. Washington's Sunday evening talks in the chapel. I had listened carefully to him and had treasured up in my heart what he had said from time to time. Now I was teaching it to others. I felt I was to this little community what Mr. Washington was to Tuskegee. So I made the people whitewash their fences and fix up their houses and premises generally. They were very poor, and when the school closed they could not pay me. I told them I would take corn, peas, potatoes, sirup, pork, shucks, cotton-seed—in fact, anything with which they wished to pay me.

Wagons were secured and loaded, and for several days all sorts of provisions were hauled to my mother's house and stored away for winter. I went to the house of one good widow, who said:

"'Fesser, I ain't got nothin' to pay you wid but dis 'ere house-cat, and he's a good'n. I owes you twenty-five cents, and I wants to pay it. You done my little gal good—more'n any teacher ever did. She ain't stop' washin' her face yit when she gits up in de mornin'."

"Very well," I said, "I'll take the cat with thanks and call the debt square."

Another said: "'Fesser, I heard you was coming, and I hid all my meat in de smoke-house, and says: 'I'll tell him I ain't got none;' but when I seed you coming I tole de chillen to go open de smoke-house. Anybody who do my chillens as much good as you, can get every bit de meat I got." From that woman I got fifty pounds of meat.

Another good woman wanted me to take her only pair of scissors, and when I refused to do so, she put them into my coat-pocket, saying the man who taught her child so much must be paid.

For three years I taught school with one personal object in view—the support of my mother and her family. Mother was not satisfied with this; she wanted me educated. Finally she married again, for no higher reason than to permit me, and the other children growing up, to go to school. My hope for an education was again renewed, and I went back to Tuskegee.

Nearly everybody had forgotten that I had ever been there. Notwithstanding I had been out nearly three terms, I had kept pace with my class, making one class each year, the same as if I had been in school. Upon a very critical examination, in which I averaged ninety-three for all subjects, I entered the B Middle class in the day-school.

Financially I was very little better off than when I left, but I had learned how to manipulate things in such a way as to make it possible to remain in school. I knew a trade at which I could easily make a dollar a day in credit, and I could teach during the vacation. Things went smoothly for one year. Then my brother came, and I had to support him in part. Just about the time I was getting myself adjusted to this, my sister came. I knew I should have to support her almost wholly, so I felt like giving up under such a triple burden; but I held on. I had to deny myself many of the pleasures of school life in order to make two ends meet. I had to wear two pairs of pantaloons and one pair of drawers; and I remember one Sunday, while the school was enjoying a good sermon by a great bishop, I was in the shop melting some glue, with which I glued patches on my only pair of pantaloons, which had reached a condition where thread would no longer hold the patches on. I will not tell what happened when the patches had been on for a few days.

But amid all these conflicting affairs of my school-days ran an immense amount of pleasure, more than I had ever known before. I was gradually coming to see things as they are in the affairs of men. I thought then, and I still think, that no sacrifice was too great when there was such a golden opportunity. To sit and listen to one Sunday evening talk by Principal Washington was worth all the trouble one had to undergo for a year.

Two years before I graduated I began to inquire what I was made for—what calling should I follow? It was hard to decide. Mr. Washington's teaching had impressed me that I should do something to help those less fortunate than myself, and that in the very darkest place I could find. My father had called me to his death-bed and said to me: "Son, I want you to become a teacher of your people. I have done what I could in that direction. The people need your services." I recalled how in his last moments I had promised him I would carry out his wishes. There was nothing else left for me to do but to go into those dark places. But there was the rub; and every Sunday evening Mr. Washington thundered that same theme: "Go into the darkest places, the places where you are most needed, and there give your life with little thought of self." I knew about those dark places. I had been born in one of them. I had been spending my vacations teaching in them.

Once, while teaching in the State of Georgia, I boarded with a family where there were fifteen besides myself, all sleeping, eating, and cooking in the same room. There were three young women in the family. When bedtime came I had to go out of doors and amuse myself with the stars till all the women were in bed; then they would extinguish the hearth-light by putting some ashes on it and let me come in and go to bed. I had to keep my head under the cover the next morning while they got up and dressed. I used to sleep with my nose near a crack in the wall in order to get fresh air. One little girl in the family, while saying her prayers one night, begged the Lord to let the angels come down and stay with them that night. Her little brother promptly interrupted her by saying that she ought to have sense enough to know that there was no room in that bed for angels, as there were already five persons in it. I was used to the country and its worst conditions. I prayed over the matter till finally I gave myself, heart and mind, to whatever place should call me.

During my last year at Tuskegee I was made a substitute salaried teacher in the night-school. My financial burdens were now lifted and my school life became one great pleasure. Toward the end of my Senior year I decided to try for the Trinity Prize of $25 for the best original oration. I remembered what Mr. Washington had so often said: that a man usually gets out of a thing what he puts into it. I determined to put $100 worth of effort into this contest. I was awarded the prize.

A place was offered to me at Tuskegee as academic teacher, but I declined it. I had settled in my mind that I would go to the State of Mississippi, which I had found by two years of investigation was the place where my services were most needed. I could not go to Mississippi at once. I had not money to pay my way, so I accepted a position with my friend, William J. Edwards, at his school in Snow Hill, Ala., where I worked for four years, never losing sight of my Mississippi object. While at Snow Hill I married Miss Mary Ella Patterson, a Tuskegee graduate of the Class of '95. We put our earnings together and built us a comfortable little home. One child, William Sidney, was born to us, but lived only six months.

It took me just two years to convince my wife that there was any wisdom or judgment in leaving our little home and going to Mississippi, where neither of us was known. But finally she gave herself, soul and body, to my way of thinking.

The way was now clear for me to make the start. Just before I left for Mississippi, one of my old teachers from Tuskegee visited me. He inquired about my going to Mississippi, and when I explained the scheme to him, he said jestingly, "You know there is no God in Mississippi." I simply replied that then I would take "the one that Alabama had" with me.

I could not take my wife, for she was under the care of a physician at that time. I decided to leave nearly all my ready cash with her. I did not take quite enough for my railroad fare, for I had expected to sell my wife's bicycle when I reached Selma, the nearest town, and thus secure enough money to finish my trip. But when I got to Selma the wheel would not sell, so I boarded the train without money enough to reach Utica, the place in Mississippi to which I was bound.

I had not got far into the State of Mississippi when my purse was empty. I stopped off at a little town, late at night, where there were no boarding-houses, and no one would admit me to a private house to sleep. I wandered about until I came upon an old guano-house, and crawled into this and slept until the break of day. Then I crawled out, pulled myself together, jumped astride my bicycle, and made my way toward Utica, through a wild and unfrequented part of Mississippi. But before I could reach Utica my wheel broke down, whereupon I put it upon my shoulder, rolled up my trousers, and continued the journey to Utica. I soon met a young man who relieved me of my burden by trading me his brass watch for the wheel and giving me $2 to boot.

I had previously got myself elected principal of the little county school, which, if I could pass the State examination, would pay me a little salary, which would be a great help to me while I worked up the Industrial and Normal School which I had come to build. Much depended on my ability to pass the examination. Tuskegee's reputation was at stake—my own reputation was at stake; for, if I failed, the people would certainly lose confidence in me, and make it impossible for me to accomplish my purpose.

I was out of money, and this was the only way I could see to get any for a long time. If I failed, my wife—who was still in Alabama, and who believed in my ability to do anything—would perhaps lose respect for me, and, most of all, the failure to pass the examination might upset all my plans and blast all my hopes. I confess I went to that examination with a sort of anxious determination. I did not, however, find it half so difficult as I had expected. I soon succeeded in obtaining the necessary license to teach in the public schools of the State.

The little schoolhouse where the school had been heretofore was so much out of repair that we could not risk having pupils under its roof. I had hoped to open in the church, but the good deacons would not permit this. So the few pupils who came the first day were gathered together under an oak-tree, and there were taught. After some time a temporary cabin was fixed up, and in this we taught the entire winter. The cabin was practically no protection against the rain, and less against the winter winds. The wind literally came through from all directions—from the sides, ends, above, and beneath.

We soon had the floor stopped up with clay. This brought about another disadvantage: when it began to rain through the roof, the water would collect on the floor until it was two or three inches deep. Two young women were helping me to teach. They often amused me by trying to maintain their dignity and keep out of the water at the same time. They would stand upon stools and fire questions at their pupils, who were standing in the water below while answering them. On such days as this I usually wore my overcoat and rubber shoes. I would then stand in the water and teach with as much indifference as possible. We bored holes in the floor to let the water out, but it usually came through the roof faster than it could escape. There was much suffering at this time on the part of both teachers and students, but it was all a joy and pleasure to me, for I felt that I had found my life-work.

I was a stranger to the people, and they had very little confidence in me. Some of them questioned my motives in every direction. At the first meeting of the patrons for the purpose of raising money, seventy-five cents were collected and were turned over to me to hold. In a couple of days some one demanded that the collection be taken out of my hands. I quietly turned it over to them. Then they got up a scramble as to which one should hold it. They settled the quarrel by selecting a white man in the town of Utica, in whom all of them had confidence. I then went out canvassing and got $10, which I promptly turned over. Immediately they wanted to turn it back to me to hold, together with what the white man had. They never again questioned my sincerity.

My wife, who was still in Alabama, kept writing me to let her join me. Explanations would do no good. She laid aside all the comforts of home life and came to live in a hovel. We rented a little room, bought a skillet and a frying-pan, a bed and two chairs, and set up housekeeping. I did the cooking, for my wife was a city girl and did not know how to cook on the open fireplace. We never contrasted our condition in Mississippi with that in Alabama; we simply made the best of what we had.

At first there was difficulty in securing land for a location, and many of the patrons began to feel that nothing would be accomplished. To offset this idea I purchased lumber for a building, had it put in the churchyard, and cut up ready for framing. The enthusiasm had to be kept up. Land was soon bought and the building started. Everybody felt now that something was going to be done. At the end of the first year's work I was able to make to the trustees a creditable report, from which the following is taken:

As soon as we secured a cabin to teach in, the young people came in great numbers. We soon had an attendance of 200. One teacher after another was employed to assist, until seven teachers were daily at work. After three months in our temporary quarters conditions were very trying. There was no money to pay teachers or to meet the grocery bills for teachers' board. The winter was well on, and the structure in which we were located was little protection against it. The rain easily came through the roof, and water was often two inches deep on certain parts of the floor. Several teachers and students were suffering with pneumonia or kindred disorders, as a result of all this exposure. I confess that during this dark period only a carefully planned system and much determination prevented despair.

During all this time I was trying to secure the interest of the people. I went from door to door, explaining our efforts; then I made a tour of the churches; after riding or walking five or ten miles at night I would return, and then teach the next day. After a protracted struggle of this kind, and after visiting almost everybody for many miles, I found that I had secured about $600. This greatly relieved us. Forty acres of land were purchased, and a part of the lumber for a good, comfortable building was put upon the grounds. Some of our trustees in New York city and Boston now came to our assistance, and with this, and contributions from a few other friends, we were able to get through the year. Although it was a great struggle, I found in it some pleasure. To know that you were doing the work that the world needs, and must have done, is a pleasure even under trying difficulties.

Starting last October without a cent, in the open air, we have succeeded in establishing a regularly organized institution incorporated under the laws of the State of Mississippi, with 225 students and seven teachers, and with property valued at $4,000. Forty acres of good farm-land about a mile from town have been secured. A model crop is now growing on this farm. We have erected a building—a two-story frame—at a cost of something over $2,000.

I hope you will not get, from what I have said, an idea that I am measuring the success of my efforts by material advancement. I am not. There are forces which our labors have set to work here, the results of which can not be measured in facts and figures. One year ago religious services were held once a month, at which time the day was spent in singing, praying, and shouting. The way some of the people lived for the next twenty-nine days would shock a sensitive individual to read about it. Young people would gamble with the dice, etc., in a most despicable way, within a short distance of the church, during services; others would discharge revolvers at the church door during services; ignorance, superstition, vice, and immorality were everywhere present, notwithstanding the handful of determined Christian men and women who were trying to overcome these evil tendencies. I do not maintain that these evils have been crushed out. They have not. But what I do maintain is that the general current has been checked. The revolution is on; and if we continue the work here, as we surely will, these evil tendencies will soon be crushed out.

During this year the people themselves furnished $1,000 toward the support of the school. They have never before spent a tenth as much for education. The second year eleven teachers were employed and 400 students were admitted. The cost of operations was $10,000, all of which was raised during the year. We are now entering into our third term. Fifteen teachers have been employed, and the expenses of operation will be about $15,000, all of which I must raise by direct effort. Our property, all deeded to a board of trustees, is valued at $10,000.

I can not feel that I have accomplished much here in Mississippi, because I see all around me so much to be done—so much that I can not touch because of lack of means. But, being in the work to stay, I may, in the end, contribute my share to the betterment of man. If I have suffered much to build up this work, I can not feel that it is a sacrifice. It is a colossal opportunity. The greater the sacrifice, the more extensive the opportunity. Whatever may have been accomplished already is certainly due more to my wife's superior judgment than to my own activity. Whatever I have been able to do myself here in Mississippi for my people has been due, first, to the teachings of my mother, and, second, to the all-important life-example and matchless teachings of Booker T. Washington.



III

A LAWYER'S STORY

BY GEORGE W. LOVEJOY

I can give no accurate date as to my birth, as my mother was a slave and thus it was not recorded, but I think I was born in the month of February, 1859. I was born in Coosa, one of the middle counties of Alabama.

I am the third child and the second son of eleven children, seven of whom are still living.

My father I do not remember, as he died when I was very young, but I most vividly remember my stepfather, the only father I ever knew.

Childhood to me was not that long season of "painless play" of which Whittier so beautifully sings, but I do remember that I was early impressed that my feet must have been made for the express purpose of treading "the mills of toil." When seven years of age my stepfather put a hoe in my little hands and bade me go and help my mother weed the cotton-patch, and from that day to the present time I have been constant in my application to some form of labor.

When my mind reverts to that early period of my life I become my own photographer and get various pictures of myself, either as picking, hoeing, or planting cotton, of pulling fodder or splitting rails, for these were the things I did from childhood to manhood.

My stepfather had been the foreman, or "driver," for his master when he was a slave, and I am persuaded to believe that he must have been an excellent one, for I can not remember in all my life when a day's work had been so full, so complete, so well done, that he would not press for a little more the next day.

Mortgaging of crops was then in vogue, as it is to-day, and my mind revolts when I think of how my young life and the lives of my mother, sisters, and brothers were burdened with the constant grind of trying to eke out a living and, if possible, get even a little ahead.

Some years, when conditions had been favorable, we were able to clear ourselves of debt and begin anew. But, seemingly, this prosperity was not for us, for these years of plenty were almost invariably followed by one or two less fruitful ones that came and "swallowed up the whole," leaving us as forlorn and as wretchedly poor as we were before. This failure of the crops because of drouths unduly long, wet seasons, the ravages of worms, caterpillars, and other uncontrollable circumstances, not only meant that the whole of that year's labor was to bring no tangible rewards, but that much property accumulated in more prosperous times was to be dissipated as well. I can recall repeated instances when all of my stepfather's live stock was taken for debt under this crushing system. And thus it was that my stepfather, and my mother, and the rest of the farmers for miles around existed!

During all these years my brothers, sisters, and myself were growing up in ignorance. Until I was ten years old I had never heard of a school for colored children. Even after the privilege of attending school two months of the year—July and August—had been accorded me, I am certain that the instruction received was of that kind that hinders more than it helps. Year after year the course of study would be repeated. Perhaps this repetition was necessary for more than one reason:

First, ten months' vacation does not tend to firmly impress upon one's mind the knowledge acquired in two.

Second, the teachers themselves had such limited knowledge that two months were ample time in which to exhaust their store of knowledge, and, as examinations were so easy, it was not imperative that they do more than "keep school."

I remember quite distinctly that when I did go to school we used the proverbial Webster's blue-back speller. The majority of the pupils began with the "A, B, C," the alphabet, and went as far as "horseback," while apt pupils might be able to reach "compressibility." And so for years we went from "A" to "compressibility" on "horseback."

In those days the three "R's" were not confounded. Only one of them was given to us, and that in broken doses, for I reached manhood without being able to write a single word or to work a problem in mathematics.

Neither my mother nor stepfather could read or write a line; not a book, newspaper, or magazine was ever seen in our home. It was most unusual to see a colored man or woman who could either read or write.

When a mere boy I inwardly protested against this manner of bringing-up. I determined to make my life more useful, to make it better than it was. But how long these years were! However, the day came when I was twenty-one, and I began to create a "life" for myself.

I immediately went to work doing farm labor, and saved my earnings until I had twenty-five or thirty dollars ahead. I then decided to go to school somewhere and to learn something. I found my first opportunity in Montgomery, Ala. I went there in November, 1883, and entered the Swayne School.

Everything was new and strange to me. I had never seen so large a schoolhouse before. I was dazed, bewildered. There I was, a great, grown man, in the class with little children, who looked upon me as a curiosity, something to be wondered at. I, too, looked at them with amazement, for it seemed next to impossible for young boys and girls to know as much as they seemed to know.

I can not say that I was heartily received by the pupils. I was awkward, and I discovered that the city children did not find me pleasingly companionable.

It is probable that at this point I should have grown discouraged and given up had I not met that great and good man, Rev. Robert C. Bedford, who is now, as he has been for many years, secretary of the board of trustees of the Tuskegee Institute, and who travels among and reports upon the work of Tuskegee graduates and former students, but who was at that time pastor of the First Congregational Church in Montgomery. I regularly attended his church and the Sunday-school connected therewith, and received such help and encouragement from him as but few men can impart to others.

It was he who first told me of Tuskegee and advised me to enter there. I felt that this advice, if heeded, would work for my good. I was admitted to Tuskegee for the session beginning September, 1884, three years after the school had been opened.

When I entered Tuskegee I was filled with loathing for all forms of manual labor. I had been a slave to toil all my life and had resolved that, if it were possible for a colored man to make a living by doing something besides farming, splitting rails, or picking and hoeing cotton, I would be one of that number. I was compelled at the school, however, like the others, to work at some industry. I did some work on the farm and was one of the school's "boss" janitors.



Though I had no real inclination to learn a trade or to perform any kind of manual toil, I did desire to be useful, and throughout my whole school life at Tuskegee I had visions of myself seated in an office pondering over Blackstone, Kent, and Storey, with a "shingle" on the outside announcing my profession to all passers-by.

After spending some time in Tuskegee and diligently applying myself, I was much gratified to find that I was able to pass the State examination for a second-grade certificate, and to teach, during the vacation period, the very school in which I had so long before learned to spell "horseback" and "compressibility."

I spent four years in the Tuskegee Institute, graduating with the class of 1888.

Before graduating, I divulged to Mr. Washington my long-cherished ambition, and was somewhat chagrined to find that he did not think much of my dreams. He apparently sympathized with this larger vision, but seemed to think I ought to have more education. I suspect he was right. However, I was determined to make an effort to realize my ambitions. I insisted that he must help me to find a place to read law. After a while it was decided that I should begin in the office of Mr. William M. Reid, of Portsmouth, Va.

With this end in view, I taught in the State of Alabama from May, 1888, until April, 1889. I then left for Portsmouth.

Though I had worked for eleven months, I had but $1.25 when I reached Portsmouth. My salary had been meager, I had paid every cent I owed the school, and had met the many obligations necessary to living in a decently comfortable manner.

I found Mr. Reid to be an intelligent, studious, hard-working young man, with a fairly good practise, and in that hour of uncertainty and embarrassment he proved himself to be "the friend in need." With his aid I was not long in finding work by which I earned enough to pay my board and buy books to help me in my study of law at night.

I worked during the daytime at the United States Navy-Yard in Portsmouth, receiving $1.25 per day. I had never before earned so much money. I was able not only to meet my regular bills but to save something, and soon began to collect a law library. I worked at the Navy-Yard for three years. It was my privilege to work upon the second-class battleship Texas, and upon the steel-protected cruiser Raleigh, both of which rendered admirable service in the Spanish-American War.

In the spring of 1892 I felt that I had sufficient knowledge of law to begin practising. I left Virginia and returned to Alabama. The tug of war had now begun. I found it exceedingly difficult to get examined. After trying for five months, I succeeded in getting a lawyer, a Mr. Thompson, of Macon County, Ala., to recommend me to the chancery court of that county for examination. I was examined in open court before all the practising attorneys of that bar, and was given license to practise law in the State of Alabama.

I was elated, overjoyed—my dream was nearing its realization!

I selected Mobile, Ala., a city of about fifty thousand inhabitants, as my field of labor. I opened my office on September 8, 1892, and have practised law there from that time to the present date. Though I have met many obstacles and have had many difficulties to surmount, I have never had to close my office, or seek other employment to make a living. I have done well.

I have experienced no embarrassment because of prejudice. The judges and juries have discussed cases with me in the same manner that they would with any other lawyer at the bar. I have even had a few white clients.

To get the confidence of my own people is the hardest problem I have had to solve, for I find that men are still sometimes without honor in their own country.

I am daily confronted with many petty difficulties. I sometimes find that even a religious difference will come between me and a probable client. Some think I should be a Baptist, others would have me a Methodist, and others still suggest that I should embrace the Catholic faith. I should also belong to every secret society in the city, and attend every public gathering no matter what the hour, whether it be called at high noon or at dawn of day.

Despite these things to be expected of a people but forty years free, and used to white judges, and juries, and lawyers, and unused to dealing with one of their own, I feel that I am still winning my way. It is my desire to help my fellow men, and in return receive an appreciable share of their help.

After practising my profession for nearly two years, I was married to Miss Sarah E. Ogden, who was at that time a student at the Tuskegee Institute. We have been happily married for ten years and have been blessed with six children, only three of whom, I am sorry to state, are living.

I feel that I can not close this short sketch without paying a closing tribute to my alma mater—Tuskegee. Those lessons of thrift, industry, and integrity dwelt upon by Principal Washington and his coworkers, I shall never forget. My heart thrills and its pulses beat whenever I think of what it has meant to me to come in contact with the quickening influences of that school.

I lift up my voice and call her blessed, my Tuskegee!



IV

A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY

BY MARTIN A. MENAFEE

I was born on a plantation in Lee County, Ala., and, as my parents were very poor, I was placed in the field and did not see the inside of a schoolroom until I was twelve years old. I then had a chance to attend a three months' school for six months, or for two years, as we usually called it. Before this I had had one of my shoulders dislocated through an accident and have been able to use but one arm since.

At this period I made up my mind to secure an education, and a gentleman who was teaching school at my home took me to an Alabama college, thinking that he could perhaps get me in school there. I told the president of the college that I wanted an education, and offered him my services in return for such opportunities as he would open to me, but seeing my condition, he soon concluded that I could render but little in the way of services. I pleaded with him for a trial, but he refused me admittance, albeit in a very nice and polite manner.

I returned home, then at Oakbowery, Ala. Very soon after my return I heard of the Tuskegee Institute, and I think it was in July of that year when I made up my mind that I would start for this school, which was about forty miles from where I lived. After walking to Auburn, Ala., twelve miles, I waited for the train and, as she glided up, I walked in and took my seat. Before I left home I knew some walking would be necessary, and preferred doing it at the beginning of the journey. I was admitted on my arrival, after some parleying, and was promptly assigned to work in the brick-yard. After I had been there for two days I found that the sun had no pity on, or patience with, me; it seemed to blister me through and through. I finally concluded that the sun, together with the brick-yard, was blasting the hopes I had entertained and the determination I had fostered, of securing an education. I tried to get my work changed, but the Director of Industries did not see it as I did, and would not do it.

The next thing that I settled upon for relief was to get sick, but a day's trial of that showed that would not work. I decided that I would return home, where I was sure I would at least find no brick-yard to harass or disturb. My stay at the school was just about seven or eight days. I would like to add just here, however, that I am very glad that I was put on the brick-yard, as it certainly left in me the spirit of work after I got over that first affliction of heat.

Very soon after I had returned home I received a letter from one of the teachers of Talladega College, a Miss S. J. Elder, who met me when I was there seeking entrance, asking me to go to Jenifer, Ala., and attend a school there conducted by two white ladies; she said she would "foot" all of my bills. This greatly relieved me, and I considered it a great thing. Very soon thereafter I had my clothes ready, and was at Jenifer. I was there for one year, but Tuskegee was constantly on my mind; in fact, I had made up my mind to give it a second trial.

On October 29, 1894, I again went to Tuskegee and asked for admission. I was admitted with the understanding that I should stand up in the Chapel and make a public acknowledgment of the wrong I had done in leaving the school without permission. This seemed like a great humiliation, as I could hardly talk to one person, to say nothing of the thousand students and teachers then there, as I stammered so much. Mr. Washington seemed to understand the situation and was kind enough to help me out by asking questions.

I was given work on the farm, and started out again with renewed vigor and determination to complete a course of study. The farm manager, Mr. C. W. Greene, was very kind to me and gave me work that I could do. After I had been on the farm about two weeks he placed me at the gates to keep out the cows and hogs that might be tempted to walk in on the school-lawns. This work I enjoyed, and very soon established an "office" under a tree near the gate. I held this position and kept this "office" for two years.