Part 18 (1/2)
While sitting and thinking of home, of the past, and of the future, I took out my pocketbook and counted $7.50. Not one cent more had I, and as I looked at the money with the thought that $7.50 represented the entire savings of my life up to that time, gloom and despondency almost overcame me.
The next morning I went to the Princ.i.p.al's office. From there I went to be examined, and then again to see the Princ.i.p.al. Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton explained that board was charged for at $8 per month, and that my books would be sold to me at cost. He informed me further that if I entered night-school I would be able to work out my board and acc.u.mulate each month a balance to be used in paying my expenses when I entered day-school. I was made to understand that this offer was on condition that my work and conduct be in every way satisfactory. As the amount of money I had did not justify me in entering day-school, I matriculated as a night-school student. The blacksmith-shop being short of students, I was a.s.signed to this division of industry.
During the remaining part of the year, and the following summer, I worked in the shop ten hours each day, except Sundays, and devoted about two hours and a half at night to study and recitations. It is no easy task, during warm weather in Alabama, for one to work ten hours a day and spend two and a half hours at night studying in a room lighted by several large lamps suspended from the ceiling. Yet this is what hundreds of poor boys and girls have done at Tuskegee. Hundreds still attend the night-school, but electric lights have taken the place of the large oil-lamps. Tuskegee is now more modern than it was when I was a student there. Barrels and boxes are no longer used in the raw state for furniture, as was largely the case at that time. Day-students were required to work one school-day each week and every other Sat.u.r.day. I was a student nearly five years, counting the time when I was a night-student.
After I entered day-school it was necessary that I should work not only on my regular work-days and two Sat.u.r.days each month, but whenever there was work to be done and I could find time in which to do it.
During my entire life at Tuskegee I worked every Sat.u.r.day except three.
I was not long at Tuskegee before an indescribable force began to have its influence upon me. Whatever this power may be called, it was both refining and energizing. People who know the school and have been there and know of its influence, call this force ”the Tuskegee spirit.” This spirit, to the student possessing a spark of manhood, is irresistible.
The change in a student at Tuskegee is not sudden, nor is it wrought by any one element. Things that may seem small when taken separately, are invaluable when considered in the aggregate.
At Tuskegee one's attention is constantly called to little things. It was a habit of mine, I regret to say, to give little or no thought to my hat being on my head when I was in any of the boys' dormitories, or when pa.s.sing through the halls of the buildings containing the cla.s.s-rooms.
My attention was finally called to this habit by one of the lady teachers. Pa.s.sing me one day in the hall, she said: ”Canty, you have a habit of wearing your hat through the halls. It is a very bad habit.”
When I entered Tuskegee I had not worn a night-s.h.i.+rt since I was a child. Here it was soon impressed upon me that sleeping in a night-s.h.i.+rt was a sign of cleanliness, of civilization. If there is any place where cleanliness is regarded and practised as one of G.o.d's first laws, that place is Tuskegee.
One day Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton sent for me to come to his office. I received the message with fear and trembling. I had, before this time, had but one opportunity to speak to Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, and then only for a few minutes upon the day following my arrival. On my way to the office I wondered if any rule of the inst.i.tution had been violated by me. Though I had been there only three or four weeks, I knew a request for a student to report at the Princ.i.p.al's office meant that he was to be given notice of imminent punishment, or consulted upon some matter of vital interest.
When I entered the office, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton asked me to write to two or three worthy young men at my home and inquire if they desired a chance to work their way through school. Several days had pa.s.sed when I received an answer from one of the young men to whom I wrote. It so happened that on the day the letter was received I met Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton on his way to his office, and said, ”Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton [drawing the letter from my pocket], I have received a letter from--” Here my first sentence was cut short by Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton forcibly gesticulating and saying, ”Come to the office; come to the office and see me there.” That one lecture on business methods impressed me in a way that a chapter of this length could not have done.
One day I closed a door with considerable force, which attracted the attention of one of the teachers. The teacher, in my presence, again opened the door and gently closed it, noiselessly and without a word. I have never since forgotten the proper way in which to open and close doors. Little details are big essentials in the rounding out of character. They show the influence of the ”Tuskegee spirit.” But, after all, this spirit would not be so irresistible in its influence for good if the teachers and officers of the inst.i.tution were not the embodiment and living example of it. Here, as elsewhere and everywhere, example is more potent than precept.
Every inst.i.tution has policies peculiarly its own. It is necessary that every teacher and officer support that policy to make it effective.
Each instructor has a distinct individuality that becomes a part of the student, in smaller or greater degree, and at the same time gives force and strength to the policies of the inst.i.tution. Though I felt the influence of every one of the thirty-odd teachers then at Tuskegee, the individuality of some of these made a very great impression on me. I remember Mr. W. D. Wilson as a very quiet and effective disciplinarian.
Mr. Warren Logan, the treasurer, has the ability to teach the student the value of a dollar by making him sacrifice almost beyond the point of endurance. At the same time, with a smile and a cheerful disposition, he would make the student feel that his burden was light. Through the kindness and special interest manifested in me by Mr. M. T. Driver, who was in charge of wheelwrighting and blacksmithing, I made rapid progress at my trade. Miss Adella H. Hunt, who has since become the wife of Treasurer Logan, was then a teacher who had the faculty of touching a responsive chord in a student. Mrs. Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton, then Miss Margaret J. Murray, impressed me very much. Strong and resourceful in dealing with students, she always won the best that was in them. My student-days were almost at an end when she came to Tuskegee.
[Ill.u.s.tration: STUDENTS CANNING FRUIT.]
I shall ever feel grateful to Mr. J. H. Was.h.i.+ngton for the encouragement he gave me. Being superintendent of industries, he was then, as he is now, in constant touch with every male student. He is a believer in, and a firm advocate of, steady, thorough, earnest work, and is quick to see, appreciate, and encourage the smallest degree of ability shown by any student. No time seemed too valuable for him to give in trying to advance a student in his work. I might add here that the teachers here named are, with two exceptions, among the pioneers in the building of the school.
Mr. Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton's personality is the great thing at Tuskegee, and every student who goes there feels the strength of the man's rugged individuality. ”Mr. B. T.” is an affectionate term used by the students, but it springs from an indescribable, spontaneous feeling of love and veneration. His Sunday evening talks to the students are to me like the Book of Proverbs, always timely, encouraging, and applicable to the affairs of every-day life. It is from these family talks that the students learn, as they never have before, the beauty that lies in real, every-day Christianity, and in living a real and simple life. It is from these talks that the students learn so much of the great heart and center of the inst.i.tution. Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton still delivers Sunday evening talks when at school, and they are published in the school's weekly paper, The Tuskegee Student. Graduates throughout the country eagerly read these talks with the same interest and pleasure with which they listened to them while in school.
Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton taught then, as he teaches now, psychology to the Senior cla.s.s. The student has not become intimately acquainted with Mr.
Was.h.i.+ngton until he becomes a Senior. It is here that the members of the Senior cla.s.s talk of their past and future lives and receive the outpourings of a great but simple soul. Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton's long and frequent absences from the school are no less regretted by the teachers than by the students.
Soon after entering school I began to think of what I should do after graduating. My inclination led me to feel that success would be found along mercantile lines. In spite of this I applied myself zealously to my trade. During my last two years in school I did what teaching in blacksmithing my literary work permitted, the school being without an instructor in this industry for a short while. There was then no course in engineering or in machinery, so I did all the pipe-work and kept the machinery of the school in repair. In this way I learned something of machinery without an instructor. With some pride I recall the fact that I ”ironed” the first farm-wagons, the first two-seated spring-wagon, and the first buggy made at Tuskegee. I also ”piped” the school's first bathroom for girls.
In May of my Senior year I was very much surprised to receive a note from Princ.i.p.al Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton intimating that he desired me to connect myself with the school the following year. Later he stated the nature of the work he wanted me to do. I accepted the offer he made me.
I was asked to teach in the night-school and instruct in the blacksmith-shop one-half of each week-day.
A few days after graduation I visited my home with the intention of spending the summer there. I was there about three weeks, when I received a letter from Mr. John H. Was.h.i.+ngton requesting my return to Tuskegee the next week, if I could so arrange. He at that time was both superintendent of industries and commandant. On my return he informed me that the Princ.i.p.al had decided that since his duties as superintendent of industries were so important, he was to be relieved of all others, and that in lieu of instructing in the blacksmith-shop, I was to be offered the work as commandant.
At once I set about getting the boys' rooms in order for the opening of school. During the two previous years, even while a student, I had virtually been acting as commandant, since no one man could carry double responsibilities such as Mr. J. H. Was.h.i.+ngton had been carrying. I was appointed commandant, and placed in charge of the night-school for a year. I then resigned, looking forward to following my old-time inclination of engaging in some mercantile business. I knew that I could acc.u.mulate means for this purpose sooner by working at my trade, as I received two dollars per day working as a blacksmith during vacation seasons at Birmingham, Ala.
My first marriage occurred in 1891, my wife being Miss Sarah J. Harris.