Tuskegee Institute

“ A Tuskegee book, whatever its primary motive, is invariably expected to deal broadly with the entire problem of the Negro and his relationships of every kind. It must be more than a mere flesh-and-blood narrative, descriptive of the material progress of the men and women the Institute has produced and is producing. It must be a book free from ostentatious pretension, breathing the atmosphere of the life of the earnest people it describes. It must, of course, exhibit not only the achievements, but also the ideals, the possibilities of the Tuskegee trained man and woman. ”

“ If it is fair to estimate the ability and worth of men by real achievements, then it must be conceded that the foremost man for real ability throughout the entire South is a Negro, and we refer to the eminent founder and developer of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. It is unquestionable in our mind that the greatest enterprise conceived and executed by any one mind, in the entire South, during the past forty years, was that conceived in the brains of a single Negro, the child of a slave mother, that resulted in the world-renowned Tuskegee Institute. ”

“ I have always laid great stress on work as a means of developing power; I am called by some of my friends a fanatic on this subject. My experience at Tuskegee taught me that our racial salvation is to come through hard, ear [163] nest, intelligent, sincere work. I owe a world of gratitude to the Tuskegee Institute for the training I received there and for the great work it is doing for the Negro people.
I repeat, if I accomplish anything in life that is worth while, it will be due wholly to the Tuskegee Institute, to its officers and teachers. ”

“ It was at Deland that I learned of the magnificent opportunities afforded earnest young men and women at Tuskegee Institute. I at once made application to become a student. That morning I did not know that such a school existed; that night, while I slept, the Southern Railway was bearing my letter of application to Mr. Washington. My anxiety almost reached fever-heat during those few intervening days that I waited for an answer, and my joy was boundless when it came, setting forth the requirements for admittance. ”

“ It is because of the fact that the Tuskegee Institute began at the bottom, with work in the soil, in wood, in iron, in leather, that it has now developed to the point where it is able to furnish employment as teachers to twenty-eight Negro graduates of the best colleges in the country. This is about three times as many Negro college graduates as any other institution in the United States for the education of colored people employs, the total number of officers and instructors at Tuskegee being about one hundred and ten. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, work in wood and iron, however assiduously prosecuted, never erected in any human being's heart a passion for social service; a finer material must be used, a material finer than gold. And so the plan and deeper intent of Tuskegee Institute are incapable of realization without the incentives supplied by history and literature.
Finally, there is a trade for which the academic studies, supplemented by specific normal instruction, are the direct preparation—teaching school. ”

“ It is sufficient to say that the Tuskegee Institute is determined to become more and more a distinctive influence among the regenerative agencies that are gradually bringing order out of chaos, and justice, peace, and happiness out of the wretched disorders of a painful past. ”

“ Soon after her graduation from the Framingham institution, Miss Davidson came to Tuskegee, bringing into the school many valuable and fresh ideas as to the best methods of teaching, as well as a rare moral character and a life of unselfishness that I think has seldom been equalled. No single individual did more toward laying the foundations of the Tuskegee Institute so as to insure the successful work that has been done there than Olivia A. Davidson. ”

“ As measured by the Tuskegee standard of success, which is service to others, perhaps the most successful of all Tuskegee's graduates is William H. Holtzclaw, the Principal of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute of242 Mississippi. There is no school that has better emulated the best there is in Tuskegee Institute, and there is no graduate of Tuskegee that has followed more faithfully and effectively in Booker Washington's footsteps. ”

“ These ten million people can not be reached by any direct agency, but they can be reached by sending out among them strong selected young men and women, with the proper training of the head and hand and heart, who will live among these masses and show them how to lift themselves up. The problem that Tuskegee Institute keeps before itself is how to prepare these leaders. ”

“ So much has been said about Tuskegee Institute [19] as a training-school in which to prepare young colored men and women for earning a living in the world of trade and business, that the ideals and spirit behind all this training are to a very large extent lost sight of. ”

“ It should be understood rather that at such institutions as Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute, industrial education is not emphasized because colored people are to receive it, but because the ripest educational thought of the world approves it; because the undeveloped material resources of the South make it peculiarly important for both races; and because it should be given in a large measure to any race, regardless of color, which is in the same stage of development as the Negro. ”

“ Of the hundreds who have been trained at the Tuskegee Institute, less than five per cent have failed because of the any moral weakness. These graduates, as well as hundreds of other students who could not remain to finish the course, are now at work in the schoolroom, in the field, in the shop, in the home, or as teachers of industry, or in some way they are making their education felt in the lifting up of the colored people. ”

“ Some of the trustees in New York City and Boston came to his assistance and with this and contributions from a few other friends, he was able to get through that first year. Although it was a struggle, he found in it some pleasure. To know that you are doing the work that the world needs and must have done is a pleasure, even under trying circumstances. It is doubtful if any school started as a result of Tuskegee’s teaching ever accomplished more in the same length of time, during its first year of existence than was true of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute. ”

“ Hundreds of small schools have been established all over the South by these graduates, patterned on Tuskegee. It is impossible to overestimate the good they have done.
Tailoring Division, Tuskegee Institute
Tuskegee has grown to be one of the greatest schools in the country, and the greatest of all schools for the negroes. It has grown from 100 acres and three little buildings to a plant of 2100 acres and 111 buildings. Instead of one teacher with 30 pupils there are now more than 200 teachers 102and 1500 students. ”

“ In a section where those who work with their hands are marked off by the inexorable line of caste from those who work with their brains or not at all, this idea of making intelligent work more honorable than intelligent idleness is of constructive value in race development. The problem that the Tuskegee Institute is helping to solve is not only that the colored people shall do their proportionate share of the work, but that they shall do it in such a way that the benefits will remain with those who do the work. ”

“ They are in shop, field, schoolroom, home, or the church. They are busy because they have placed themselves in demand by learning to do that which the world wants done, and because they have learned the disgrace of idleness and the sweetness of labor."
No attempt has here been made to represent all of the industries; no attempt has especially been made to confine representation to those who are working at manual labor. The public, or at least a part of it, somewhat gratuitously, has reached the conclusion that Tuskegee Institute is a "servant training school," or an employment agency. ”

“ When an institution has, like Tuskegee Institute, reached that stage in its development that its system of instruction has aroused very general discussion, and has given to the world of varied industry an army of workers, numbering not less than 6,000, there is a natural curiosity on the part of the public to learn all that is possible of such an institution, and of the personality and methods of those administering its affairs. ”

“ During the twenty-five years and more that I have been accustomed to go North every year to obtain funds with which to build up and support the Tuskegee Institute, I have made the acquaintance of a large number of exceptional people in that part of the country. Because I was seeking aid for Negro education, seeking assistance in giving opportunities to a neglected portion of our population, I had an opportunity to meet these people in a different and, perhaps, more intimate way than the average man. ”

“ I tried to let 46them see that the presence of Tuskegee Institute in the community means better farms and gardens, good housekeeping, good schools, law and order. As soon as the average white man is convinced that the education of the Negro makes of him a citizen who is not always “up in the air,” but one who can apply his education to the things in which every citizen is interested, much of opposition, doubt, or indifference to Negro education will disappear. ”

“ Washington's duties as the wife of the Principal of the Tuskegee Institute are many and various. She has charge of all the industries for girls. She gives much time to the extension work of the school, which includes the 'Mothers' meetings' in the town of Tuskegee and the 'plantation settlement' nearby. Her most characteristic trait, however, is a boundless sympathy which has made her a sort of Mother Confessor to students and296 teachers of the Institute. ”

“ One other feature of the kind of education that Tuskegee stands for ought to be mentioned, and that is the extension work. This work has become a very large part of the Institute. The extension work is not so much a matter of teaching, of education in the usual sense, as it is an effort to give direct and practical help to people outside the college walls. Most of this extension work has been done in Macon and adjoining counties. From the first month of his school, Washington began to go into the country round about and mingle with his people. ”

“ As for good manners, Lord Chesterfield himself would scarcely ask more than is insisted upon by Tuskegee precision. A man must first be con [22] scious of being a gentleman before he can be recognized as such by others, and a girl's good manners are only outward evidences of her individual worth and passport to respectful treatment. Tuskegee Institute, then, insists upon these things because they make for character, and are a part of the ideals toward which all training tends. ”

“ It appears, therefore, that the pathway of emancipation has not led the negro out of the ranks of humble toil and into racial equality. In order to equip him more effectively for a place in the world, industrial schools have been established, among which the most noted is the Tuskegee Institute. ”

“ This race-loving spirit gives it a largeness of view and purpose that saves both its teachers and pupils from being narrow and self-centered. Take from Tuskegee all this "vision splendid," and it will at once shrink into common-place insignificance. "Set your ideals high," says the distinguished man who here is Principal as he was founder, "and in your efforts to reach them you become strong for greater things." It is but truth to say that no institution in all the land, whether for white or black education, stands for higher and more generous ideals. ”

“ It is easy to trace the influence of such well-established institutions as Harvard and Yale in the progressive life of the American people. The sons of Harvard and Yale almost dominate civilization in America. In another sense, it is possible for Tuskegee to have a like influence in the many things that must be accomplished in the South, before love and justice shall supplant race prejudice and race antagonism. ”

“ If you go there now and see the many fine buildings, the broad acres, the hundreds of students, and everything that goes to make up a great and wonderful college, it would be very hard to realize that it started off with one little shanty with a leaky roof, one teacher, and thirty students. From this simple and humble, but very earnest beginning, Tuskegee grew by leaps and bounds until it came to be the most remarkable negro school in the South. ”

“ Tuskegee's germ principle is to be found in its unboasted ideals, in the things that of necessity can not be listed in catalogue or report, rather than in its buildings, shops, farms, and what not. The school dwells upon the saving power of land, and learning, and skill, and a bank-account—not as finalities in themselves, but as tangible witnesses to the Negro's capacity to compete with others. ”