Part 4 (1/1)
”I am now at this place, and am Principal of a school which opened Deceht and paid for fifteen acres of land, on which a two-storey building now stands A part of the glass s needed we have been able to put in We are now preparing to build a dorrounds for our students next ter you can in the way of readingto establish a library for the people of this community”
In some instances, as, for exaroes are beco prosperous men of business In his ave the picture of a large house of business owned by a coloured trader, and remarked:--
”While there are not many coloured people perhaps, as yet, n such valuable pieces of property in the South, still there arethe point Mr ---- has reached Mr ---- is not only a successful businessthe respect and confidence of both races in Nashville, but he and his wife are leaders in religious and charitable work in the city of Nashville, and their home is a constant resort for those who represent all that is best and purest in the life of the negro race”
The following extract froentleht even ex-planters theress:--
”Being more and more impressed with the importance of the favourable opportunity offered in this coain prompted to write you and more fully explain the situation and the need of help to accomplish this iroes-- to the towns Thirty white persons in less than two years--none co the premises vacated The fehite people here are anxious to see the negro educated up to a higher standard of citizenshi+p in morality, thrift and econoro school building is under way, but they have not thehich to furnish it, nor sufficient means to pay the teachers necessary for the school I know of no community where the needed funds would bethe negroes' interest along educational lines”
Thus, no one can foresee whereunto the ever-developing work at Tuskegeeforth, becoe as it is, the number trained is still too few
CHAPTER X
VISIT TO EUROPE--RETURN TO TUSKEGEE
In the suton had a suiven the a tour in Europe The travellers, after a prosperous voyage, landed at Antwerp and, after seeing soland, where they were entertained by a number of friends
On Monday, July 3, Dr and Mrs Brooke Herford gave a reception to ton, which took place at Essex Hall, Essex Street, Strand, and after this reception a uished persons were present, also took place, and at which Mr J H Choate, the United States Ambassador, presided The nificance to this , and testified in no equivocal ton and his ere held in Great Britain The following summary of the Aiven in _The Times_:--
”The Chair been asked to preside and to introduce to the ton There were 10,000,000 coloured persons in the United States living side by side with soroes had been deprived for more than 200 years had been restored to them, but the question was how best they could be enabled to take advantage of it The blacks were an interesting race Fidelity was their great characteristic During the Civil War, when the South was stripped of every man and almost every boy to sustain their cause in arht say, of these slaves, and no instance of violence or outrage that he had been able to learn was ever reported He thought it would be admitted, therefore, that on that occasion they amply manifested their loyalty and fidelity to their masters The black people had done much for themselves About one-tenth of the men had acquired some portion of land, and they had ton was a pupil of the late General Ar, who devoted many years of his life to the establishinia Mr Washi+ngton had qualified hi's path He also had founded a school, or training college, at Tuskegee, Alabaiven a pri a livelihood There were now 1100 pupils in the school About half the nuh it went out as teachers to spread the light and the knowledge they had acquired there a their own race, and the other half were put into a position to support themselves by ht well of the work It gave the school a grant of 25,000 acres of land in Alabama only last year The State of Alabaave it an annual donation In addition it derived soe Peabody, and from another fund founded by an American philanthropist The re on the work--some 15,000 a year--was derived from voluntary contributions, which were stiarded as the leader of his race in A speeches at this reception and after ton hi the condition and outlook of the coloured race in the United States He said:--
”Iroes, for the ot into debt, and they had not been able to free themselves to the present day In many places it was found that as many as three-fourths of the coloured people were in debt, living on ree between fifteen and forty per cent The work of i their condition was far froed If his people got no other good out of slavery they got the habit of work But they did not kno to utilise the results of their labour; the greatest injury which slavery wrought upon them was to deprive them of executive power, of the sense of independence They required education and training, and this was gradually being provided
Starting in 1881 in the little town of Tuskegee with one teacher and thirty students, they had progressed until in the present day they had built up an institution which had connected with it over a thousand hty-six instructors, and in all that they did they tried to roes and to advance their material and moral welfare Industrial education was a vital power in helping to lift his people out of their present state Twenty-six different industries were taught, and every student had to learn some trade or other in addition to the studies of the class-room The coloured students came from upwards of twenty States and territories, and the labour which they performed had an econoht buildings upon the grounds of the college, including a chapel having seating capacity for 2500 persons, built by the students themselves The value of the entire property was about 300,000 Seeing that one-third of the population of the South was of the negro race, he held that no enterprise seeking the ard this eleood”
Mr Bryce, MP, also gave a brief speech, and showed that he was in agreeee had said in reference to the iroes on an industrial training:--
”Having ot an impression of the extreme coton was so nobly striving to solve It was no wonder that it should be difficult, seeing that the whites had such a long start of the coloured people in civilisation He believed that the general sentiment of white people was one of friendliness and a desire to help the negroes The exercise of political rights and the attainment to equal citizenshi+p must depend upon the quality of the people who exercised those rights, and the best thing the coloured people could do, therefore, was to endeavour to attainthe these trades and occupations which they began to learn in the days of slavery, and which now, after waiting for twenty years, they had begun to see were necessary to their well-being”
At the present tiee represents a value of 100,000, if we include the endow 1100 or more students is not less than 16,000 The work continues to expand, as must ever be the case with all healthy enterprises of the kind Perhaps the uine enthusiaston himself, who, happily for himself and for those whom he seeks to benefit, is, and must ever be, an optimist He believes that his race has a future, and that it is capable of being so uplifted as to becohtabout this new reformation; but, at the same time, we need not close our eyes to the fact that there are observers and even ishers of the coloured people who are not so hopeful By way of giving what arded as the e from an article in the _Daily Mail_ of October 23, 1901:--
”Frederick Douglass was an honoured guest in hundreds of Northern homes; his career as United States senator was marked with every token of respect and admiration, and many others like him were expected to appear But in the forty years since the war the North has becoh it has been untiring in its efforts to foster the negro's education, to direct his energy wisely, and tothe liberties of the American Republic In the South there ro's constitutional rights, but such a charge has never been ainst the North, even by the black man's rant social equality to the negro, the reasons are that it is considered not only ierous even to atte has deepened instead of being dispelled since the war, that the negro is greatly inferior by nature and will never be otherwise In his forty years of freedo to statistics, than he has in education or developether they form sixteen per cent of the entire population, and furnish thirty per cent of the penitentiary convicts Criainst the person especially constitute a ro allass said, shortly before he died, 'It throws over every coloured man a mantle of odium, and sets upon hi than the mark set upon the first murderer It has cooled our friends and fired our enemies' The race has, as a ht its own battles, and its probleht of lead around the neck of the A o on”
If the above is not actually too dark a picture, the evil is certainly one which a great Republic need not regard as an evil incapable of correction Booker Washi+ngton hinore difficulties; he foresees clearly enough that the earlier half of this present centuryservice on the part of those who are the ro race As lookers-on from afar on the European side of the broad Atlantic, we are able to descry ns Both in the North and the South, Booker Washi+ngton has ood deal of honest, practical help When Harvard University bestowed on hiro who had ever received that distinction That good Christian htened politician, the late President M'Kinley, paid a visit to Tuskegee at the end of 1899, and on behalf of the nation he was thankful for as being done His successor, President Roosevelt, entertained Booker Washi+ngton at dinner at the White House, thus showing that he was of the saoes on fro to the end of each year, the ai two races together, one being able to help the other because both have interests in common