Part 15 (1/2)
Booker Was.h.i.+ngton was always keenly interested to get at the reasons which had impelled the new students to come, and they would naturally state these reasons more freely to a friendly unknown person than they would to the Princ.i.p.al of the school. As previously mentioned, Booker Was.h.i.+ngton always kept his ear to the ground. These raw boys and girls brought him fresh and frank messages as to how the people were thinking and feeling about Tuskegee and those things for which it stands.
Some time after Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton's death the students of the Senior Cla.s.s were asked to write brief themes describing their first impressions of him. In one of these themes the boy writer says, ”His general att.i.tude did not bear out my idea of how a great man should appear. I expected to see him with a diamond ring and riding in an automobile on a pleasure trip, which most great men do. He was quiet, not overdressed, nor yet self-conscious of the position he held and the influence he wielded among the people. He seemed to me a man of great thoughts, yet not realizing his greatness.” Another boy writes: ”One of my first questions after arriving at Tuskegee, September 9, 1912, and registering as a student was to ask, where is Mr.
Was.h.i.+ngton? I was told that he hardly ever stayed here but was often in the North. Two weeks later he came, and my first opportunity to see him was one day on the street. I was so enthused over him that I went to my room and wrote a letter home trying to describe him.
”The following Sunday night he lectured in the Chapel. His t.i.tle was, 'Have a Place to Put Everything and Put Everything in That Place.' In his talk he said: 'There are many people who have no system about their work nor home. Often you visit persons' homes and every member of the family is looking for the broom. The same is true of a match when the time comes to light the lamp.'
”That talk was the most impressive one that I ever heard before or since. From that talk I have reaped more benefit than any other. It was the talk that I took in and began practising. I first started in my room having a place to put everything and putting everything in that place. After getting my room systematized I then began putting this talk in practise at my work, etc....”
The next quotation is from the paper of a native African boy. He says: ”My first impression, or, at least, the first time I heard the name of Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton, was about the year 1902. I was then a young boy, just arrived in one of the Native Training Inst.i.tutions existing in South Africa. These schools train young native boys primarily to become teachers in their communities. As a native African I had just acquired the elementary use of the English language, when the following incident took place: One, a native teacher from the upper part of the country, was announced and that he was to give a lecture to the 'Boys' Sat.u.r.day Evening Society.'
”The meeting a.s.sembled, and I at once heard that the lecture was about a boy--Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton--who obtained an education through his struggles.... I did not hear or understand more. But it is strange to say that this name was pinned in the bottom of my heart....
”It was during the coronation of King George V of England that I saw this name. I had now finished that school and was teaching. It was printed in a native paper that Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton, an American Negro, made an excellent speech. I cannot, however, say the exact words of the editor, which were in greatest praise of that man, nor do I recall the circ.u.mstances under which Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton had spoken.
”When I wanted to come to school in this country I made up my mind to find the school--as I found later he was princ.i.p.al of one--where this man was leader; and so I came to Tuskegee Inst.i.tute. I found the editor had well described the man's character and disposition.”
Still another boy writes: ”I first saw Dr. Was.h.i.+ngton at the Appalachian Exposition held at Knoxville, Tenn., in 1912. It was Negro Day and there were thousands of Negroes out to hear Dr. Was.h.i.+ngton speak.... At times he would make the people laugh and then again he would have a few crying. When I saw the tears in the eyes of his listeners, I looked at Dr. Was.h.i.+ngton and thought of him with awe because he was so highly honored. I thought of him with admiration because he could speak so well, and I thought of him with pride because he was a Negro.... His speech made me feel as if there were really a few Negro men and women in the world who were making a mark, and that there was a chance for more.”
Booker Was.h.i.+ngton's interest in the lives of his students, as in all things else, showed his combination of breadth of view and attention to what less-thorough persons would have considered trivial details.
When, for instance, in 1913 Tuskegee was visited by one of the very infrequent snowstorms which occur so far South, he himself went from building to building to see that they were properly heated and to many of the rooms, particularly of the poorer students, to make sure that they had sufficient bed-clothes. During the last three winters of his life he had a confidential agent make an early morning tour of all the dormitories to make sure that they were so heated that the students might dress in comfort on getting up in the morning.
Also when the weather was unusually cold he would make sure that the boys who drove the teams that hauled wood and other supplies were provided with gloves and warm clothing. One cold night he sent for Mr.
Palmer, the Registrar of the school, and said to him: ”I wish you would seek out the poor worthy students and see that it is made possible for them to secure proper shoes and warm clothing. Some of the most deserving of them will often actually suffer before they will ask for a.s.sistance. We'll look out for the expense some way.” He was, in fact, as insistent that the students should have comforts as he was that they should not have luxuries.
His attention to details and the comfort of the students was well ill.u.s.trated in the close watch he kept over the dining-rooms and kitchens which he inspected every day he was on the grounds. Tomkins dining-hall is the largest building on the Inst.i.tute grounds and is one of the largest dining-halls in America. It can seat over two thousand persons at one time. Adjoining this hall is a s.p.a.cious dining-room for the teachers as well as extensive kitchens and a bakery. Underneath it is a great a.s.sembly hall which seats twenty-five hundred. Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton would usually appear before breakfast to a.s.sure himself at first hand that the stewards, matrons, and cooks were giving the students warm, nouris.h.i.+ng, and appetizing food upon which to begin the day's work on the farm and in the shops and cla.s.srooms. Nothing made him more indignant than to find the coffee served lukewarm and the cereal watery or the eggs stale. For such derelictions the guilty party was promptly located and admonition or discharge followed speedily. Probably in nothing was his instinct for putting first things first better shown than in his insistence upon proper food, properly prepared and served for both students and teachers.
He once said to his students, as previously quoted, ”See to it that a certain ceremony, a certain importance, be attached to the partaking of food, etc....” To carry out this idea each table in this great hall has a centrepiece of ferns, mosses, or flowers gathered from the woods by the student selected by his or her companions to decorate the table for that week. Boys and girls sit together at the tables. On Sundays and holidays first and second prizes are given for the tables most artistically decorated. Frequently these prizes take the form of some coveted delicacy in the way of food. Each day when at the Inst.i.tute Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton would walk through the dining-hall during the noon meal and criticise these centrepieces, and things generally. He would point out that a certain decoration was too gaudy and profuse and had in it inharmonious colors. He would then remove the unnecessary parts and the discordant colors and point to the improved effect. He would next stop at a table with nothing in the way of decoration except a few scrawny flowers stuck carelessly into a vase. Picking up the meagre display he would say, ”The boy or girl who did this is guilty of something far worse than bad taste, and that is laziness!” At the next table he would have a word of praise for the simple and artistic effect which they had produced with a centrepiece of wood mosses and red berries. These comments would be interspersed with an occasional admonition to this boy or that girl for a slovenly manner of eating, or an inquiry of a newcomer as to where he had come from and whether he thought he was going to be happy in his new surroundings. An oft-repeated cause of merriment was his habit of stopping in the middle of the hall, calling for attention, and then asking the students if they were getting enough of various articles which he would name, such as sweet potatoes, corn, and blackberries. Cutting red tape was one of his special delights. Sometimes he would discover, for instance, that certain vegetables were not being served because the steward had objected to the price charged by the Farm Department.
He would immediately order these vegetables served and tell the protesting steward that he could fight it out with the Farm Department while the students were enjoying the vegetables. From the dining-room he would finally disappear into the kitchens in his never-ceasing campaign for cleanliness. Over and over again would he repeat to students, teachers, and employees alike that the public would excuse them for what they lacked in the way of buildings, equipment, and even knowledge, but they would never be excused for s.h.i.+ftlessness, filth, litter, or disorder.
One of the opportunities which he most highly prized and one of his most effective means of influencing the whole body of students was through his Sunday evening talks in the Chapel. Over two thousand students, teachers, teachers' families, and townspeople would crowd into the Chapel to hear these talks. They were stenographically reported and published in the school paper. In this way he influenced not only the undergraduates, but a large number of graduates and others who subscribed to the paper largely for the purpose of following these talks. We here quote from a previously unpublished (except in the school paper) collection of these talks, delivered during the school term of 1913-14, under the t.i.tle of ”What Parents Would Like to Hear Concerning Students While at School.” The first talk was called, ”For Old and New Students.” In it he said in part: ”I suspect that each one of your parents would like to know that you are learning to read your Bible; not only to read it because you have to, but to read it every day in the year because you have learned to love the Bible; because you have learned day by day to make its teachings a part of you.... Each one of you, in beginning your school year, should have a Bible, and you should make that Bible a part of your school life, a part of your very nature, and always, no matter how busy the day may be, no matter how many mistakes, no matter how many failures you make in other directions, do not fail to find a few minutes to study or read your Bible.
”The greatest people in the world, those who are most learned; those who bear the burdens and responsibilities of the world, are persons who are not ashamed to let the world know not only that they believe in the Bible, but that they read it.”
And this was the advice of a man who never preached what he did not practise and who only a few years before had been denounced by many of the preachers of his own race as a G.o.dless man, building up a G.o.dless school!
A little further on he said: ”In many cases you have come from homes where there was no regular time for getting up in the morning, no regular time for eating your meals, and no regular time for going to bed.
”Now the basis of civilization is system, order, regularity. A race or an individual which has no fixed habits, no fixed place of abode, no time for going to bed, for getting up in the morning, for going to work; no arrangement, order, or system in all the ordinary business of life, such a race and such an individual are lacking in self-control, lacking in some of the fundamentals of civilization....
”If you take advantage of all these opportunities, if your minds are so disposed that you can welcome and make the most of these advantages, these habits of order and system will soon be so fixed, so ingrained, so thoroughly a part of you that you will no longer tolerate disorder anywhere, that you will not be willing to endure the old slovenly habits which so many of you brought with you when you came here.”
And later, in speaking of the haphazard, slipshod, irregular meal, he said: ”Instead of bringing the family together it has put them wider apart. A house in which the family table is a mere lunch-counter is not and cannot be a home.”
And just before concluding this talk he said: ”Now what is true of this school is true of the world at large. This is a little world of itself. It is a small sample of civilization, an experiment station, so to speak, in which we are trying to prepare you to live in a manner a little more orderly, a little more efficient, and a little more civilized than you have lived heretofore. If you are not able to live and succeed here, you will not be able to live and succeed in the world outside. If we do not want you here, if we cannot get on with you here, it will mean that the world outside will not want you, will not be able to get on with you.”
Probably no educator ever kept more constantly before his own mind and before the minds of his students and teachers that the purpose of education is preparation for right living than did Booker Was.h.i.+ngton.
Everything that did not make for this end he eliminated, regardless of customs and traditions, everything which did make for this end he included, equally regardless of customs and traditions.
In a talk called, ”Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother,” the second of this series, he made this rather touching statement: ”Many of your parents are poor. Not only that, but many of them are ignorant, at least, so far as books are concerned. Notwithstanding all this, in every case they have done something for you. It may have been, in many cases I know that it has been, a very little, but out of their poverty and out of their ignorance they have done something. They have made it possible, in the majority of cases, for you to come here, and no matter how poor they are, no matter how ignorant they are, their ambition is largely centred in you.”