CHAPTER XII.
ECKSTEIN NORTON UNIVERSITY.
This school was founded by one of the most successful educators of the race, the late Rev. Wm. J. Simmons, D. D., and his associate, Rev. C. H. Parrish, A. M., who is its worthy president. In 1890 it opened under the most favorable auspices, and each year has succeeded beyond the sanguine expectations of its friends. For purity of atmosphere, for development of the physical powers, for freedom from the allurements and unwholesome amusements of city life, no better place could have been selected than Cane Spring, Bullitt county, Ky., twenty-nine miles from Louisville.
Eckstein Norton University, Cane Spring, Ky.
The object is to teach the students how to work; to teach the dignity of labor, that hands must be used as well as heads and that both can be successfully used together. It teaches manliness and race pride; that skill tells regardless of skin or parentage. It gives, besides the industries, a literary training which begins with the primary and ends with the college. As much is required from the study of the Bible as from any other book.
This school has had its adversities in deaths of teachers and conflagration of buildings, yet it has bravely struggled through all.
Its session for 1896 opened with students from fourteen different States, and with prospects bright and encouraging. Students who enter this University must come with a purpose and must use with profit their time. Anything short of this will not be tolerated.
Eckstein Norton
Conservatory of Music
Cane Spring Ky.
Children who come as young as eight years are under a special matron who cares for them as a mother. In the Industrial Department will be found carpentry, blacksmithing, farming, printing, plain sewing, dressmaking, tailoring, cooking, etc. Business Department includes Shorthand, Typewriting, Bookkeeping, etc.
The Musical Conservatory is the first of the race manned by teachers from the best Conservatories of Music of this country. The course of study is in accord with Oberlin, Boston, Chicago and others. A Conservatory building is now being erected under the direction of Prof. Hattie A. Gibbs, who has traveled extensively through the East in its interest.
Many of the graduates who have gone out from this institution are successfully teaching in the various districts of their counties, and some are assistants in the schools of their towns. Many of these young men and women return after their schools close and take up their duties in the College Department. Classes and studies are so arranged that students may study what is most desirable, leave off at any stage, recruit their health or finances, and return to complete the course at any future time. The time to finish any course is the least possible, consistent with thorough work in all departments. The school recognizes annually the 16th of December (birthday of Honorable Eckstein Norton, after whom the school is named), Donor's Day, at which time the work is reviewed and the memory of those who have helped the institution, living or dead, is kept fresh and revered by students and friends; letters of encouragement are read and contributions announced.
The faculty is competent and consists of the following persons:
Rev. C. H. Parrish, A. B., A. M., President; P. T. Frazier, A. B; Mary V. Cook, A. B., A. M.; Alice P. Kelley, A. B., A. M.; Hattie A. Gibbs, Oberlin Conservatory; Minnetta B. James, Minnesota; Cornelia Burk, Virginia; Amanda V. Nelson, Matron.
REV. CHARLES HENRY PARRISH, A. B., A. M.
One of the most remarkable men among the Negro educators of this country is Rev. C. H. Parrish. He is a native Kentuckian, and worked his way up from errand boy in a dry goods store to the presidency of a flourishing school, and one of the most noted ministers in the Baptist denomination. In infancy his mother beheld a son in whom her soul could delight. Obedient, true and faithful were traits in his character so conspicuous that he was a favorite in his town among all people.
He entered State University, Louisville, Ky., September, 1880, with Dr. William J. Simmons as president, and graduated May, 1886, at the head of his class with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In 1886 he became pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church, where he still remains greatly beloved by a large membership, and enjoys the respect and confidence of all who know him as being an efficient minister and a Christian gentleman who loves truth for its own sake and pursues it faithfully regardless of everything.
Many honors have come to him as delegate to State, Educational and National Conventions—holding offices of trust in many. At this time he is President of the State Teachers' Association, and Chairman of the Executive Board of the General Association of Colored Baptists.
He stands at the head of the Eckstein Norton University, an institution devoted to the training of the head, heart and hand, and therefore gives to the Negro youth the kind of education best adapted to his development. He has traveled extensively in the interest of the school, and by his strict attention to business he has made the work a success.
CHAS. H. PARRISH, A. B., A. M.
Though Rev. Parrish leads a busy life, he finds time to look after race interests. He is author of "What We Believe," a hand-book for Baptist Churches. So highly was this work prized that the American Baptist Publication Society compiled it with works by Dr. John A. Broadus, Dr. Alvah Hovey, Dr. J. L. Burrows and others. Rev. Parrish ranks high as an educator, pulpit orator, president and author. He is clear, comprehensive and convincing in the presentation of his views upon all subjects, and adds to this fact a beauty of language, grace of rhetoric, and forceful logic, which stamps him at once as extraordinary in his gifts and acquirements.
MISS MARY V. COOK, A. B., A. M.
The subject of this sketch is a native of Bowling Green, Ky. Her life was uneventful till she reached school age, when her ability for learning asserted itself. By her persistent efforts and her insatiable desire for knowledge, she soon outgrew the educational facilities of the place, and was chafing for better advantages, when Dr. Wm. J. Simmons made it possible for her to enter the State University at Louisville, Ky.
After her graduation she was elected permanent teacher and made principal of the Normal Department, and professor of Latin and Mathematics in the State University, which position she held until a few years ago, when she was called to a like position in the Eckstein Norton University.
Miss Cook has appeared on the programmes of some of the most noted bodies of the race, read a paper on Afro-American women at the Educational Congress in Chicago, 1893, and has addressed crowded houses throughout the New England States under the auspices of the Baptist Women's Home Mission Society.
MISS MARY V. COOK, A. B., A. M.
In 1892, when a fight was made against the enactment of the Separate Coach Law, she, with three other ladies, was invited to the State Capital to enter protest before the Legislature. She has traveled extensively through the South land and made a close study of her people, their progress, etc. She has gone as far west as California in the interest of the work in which she is engaged, and the school is now reaping the benefits of that trip. She has recently accepted a place on the Executive Board of the National Federation of Women, of which Mrs. Victoria Mathews is chairman.
Miss Cook is a thorough business woman; her industry and close application to affairs intrusted to her is of marked comment. She is conscientiously consistent with an honest conviction of right, to which she adheres with admirable fearlessness. She is, by her very constitution, compassionate, gentle, patient, self-denying, loving, hopeful, trustful, and by the power of her own pure soul she unconsciously molds the lives of those under her. It would be utterly impossible to live on day after day with Miss Cook, and not feel the desire for as noble a life springing up in your own heart. She has a wonderful influence over her pupils, who love her with the love that casteth out fear. And she not only influences them, but all who come in contact with her are wonderfully impressed.
Miss Cook is an intelligent little woman, a deep thinker; keeps abreast of the times and holds no mean place in the galaxy of distinguished colored women.
The women of her own State delight to honor her and have conferred upon her some of the highest offices in the organizations of which she is a member. Miss Cook has a literary inclination; being a strong, graceful writer, she has contributed much that is good to colored journalism.
When she has appeared on the public platform, she has never failed to carry her audience by the force of her terse style and convincing argument. She was recently appointed Commissioner of the State of Kentucky to the Women's Congress which convened at Atlanta, Ga., December, 1895, before which body she read an interesting paper.
Slowly and surely, step by step, Miss Cook has risen to this high plane of usefulness and her life is an inspiration, modestly displaying the great unselfish heart of the woman, whose highest ambition is to be of use to her race and humanity.
MISS HATTIE A. GIBBS.
Miss Hattie A. Gibbs is the youngest of five children of Hon. Mifflin W. Gibbs, of Little Rock, Ark., and his amiable wife, Mrs. Anna Alexander Gibbs.
Miss Gibbs entered the Oberlin Public School at six, and began the study of music at nine under the direction of her sister, who at that time had made considerable advancement in that study. At eleven she entered the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and also kept up her studies in school for three years, after which she entered the high school and devoted all her time to those studies. After two years of hard study of Greek, Latin and Mathematics, she graduated with honors before her fifteenth birthday.
As a student she was an untiring worker, her hours for study encompassed almost the entire day. She accustomed herself to rising at four o'clock to begin her practice.
PROF. HATTIE A. GIBBS.
In the Conservatory Department of Oberlin College the attendance is about 500, and out of this number the average attendance of colored students is eight or ten. Students are required to finish a course of three studies before a diploma is awarded. Besides finishing the studies of piano, pipe organ and harmony, she had the advantage of several terms in voice culture, and since her graduation she has made special study of the violin in order to better prepare herself as director of Eckstein Norton Conservatory of Music, of which she was a founder and of which she is now in charge.
The women of the race should be proud of her. The people of Kentucky should be proud that one so able has placed her services within reach, and ought to show the colored peoples' appreciation, by contributing money toward erecting such suitable buildings, as will stand long after the founder is numbered with the dead—a race monument in itself.
In disposition Miss Gibbs is amiable; in mind she is great; in heart she is noble; in manners she is gentle; she has a steadfast and undeviating love of truth, fearless and straightforward in action and integrity and an honor ever unsullied by an unworthy word or deed, and after all, these traits so prominent in her make-up make her greater than her worldly success in her art, for in themselves they constitute greatness.
She has a clever handicraft at all the arts commonly styled "woman's work." Not only have her hands been trained to glide dexterously over the keyboard, but she has made every day of her life tell, and the result of her industry is that she is skilled in painting, crayon work, artistic embroidery, dressmaking, cooking and all that goes to make up an accomplished woman.
This brief sketch has been given with the hope that young people, who wish to accomplish any particular pursuit in life, may herein find an example of what a woman can do, and the truth may be brought to them that "there is no excellence without great labor."
GLOUCESTER AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL.
PROF. W. B. WEAVER.
Professor W. B. Weaver, the principal of the Gloucester Agricultural and Industrial School—was born April 7, 1852, at Winton, N. C. The first school he attended was taught by his oldest brother under a cart shelter, from there to a log hut which had been used as a barn, making seats out of boxes and plank boards. In 1869 he spent a few months in a public school, where he was advanced to the grade from which he could enter Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Va. He worked his way through, and in 1873 began teaching his first school, in his native State, having in his school 112 pupils. In 1875 and 1876 he taught in the Valley of Virginia, in 1878, at Williamsport, Pa., and in the fall of 1879, he returned to Virginia, and looking for a fruitful field, was sent by Gen. S. C. Armstrong to Gloucester county, where he began this noble effort for the uplifting of his race. He opened school in December, 1879, in a little log cabin, which was used by slaves as a meeting-house before the war. In this dark room he taught over 75 pupils. He soon caused the people in the community to see and feel the need of education; and securing the co-operation of the School Board and by the aid of the colored people, a two-story building was erected known as Bethel Public School-house. Here 196 pupils were in attendance and three teachers employed. His school did not close at the end of the public school term of five months as other schools; but by keeping the people interested, he raised money enough to continue for eight months.
THE LOG CABIN.
Seeing the need of an industrial school for Gloucester and surrounding counties, he gave up the public school work and entered upon the work of establishing an industrial school. An educational mass-meeting was called in which the Board of Trustees were elected. Prof. Weaver then commenced the work of raising money for the proposed school. In October, 1888, he opened school with four pupils in a board house once used for a store. Coming out of a well-arranged crowded school-room into this dilapidated make-shift with only four pupils, made him feel strange. But having made a start in the direction which he believed to be right, he did not look back, but daily pressed on the work of teaching.
BETHEL PUBLIC SCHOOL.
In 1890, thirty-three acres of land were bought and Richmond Hall commenced. In October of that year he opened school in this building though only partly finished.
RICHMOND HALL.
Since that time 120 acres more of land have been purchased, a large farm put under cultivation, other buildings erected, and industrial shops opened. One large building known as Douglass Hall has recently been erected and in use, though not completed. It is a three-story building 78 × 60 in size and will cost, when completed, upward of $6,000.
The school is located in Gloucester county, on York river, and is accessible by a daily line of steamers plying between Baltimore and West Point.
It is in easy reach of over 30,000 colored people. It has sent out several graduates, who are doing good work among their people and for their country. There are at present ninety-seven pupils on roll, and the school property is valued at $15,000.
DOUGLASS HALL.
Mrs. A. B. Weaver, the wife of Prof. Weaver, has been a strong helper with him in this work. He says that his success is largely due to her constant work, wise counsel and strong faith in God. Many times, when the way would be dark, and to continue in this industrial school work looked impossible, she would encourage him to hold on a few days longer. She graduated from the Albany High School of New York in 1880, and in '81 became one of his assistant teachers in the Bethel Public School, and she has stuck firmly to the work ever since.
MRS. ANNA B. WEAVER.
The object of this school is to make good and useful citizens, to train teachers, preachers, mechanics, farmers and leaders for the race.
The school depends largely on charity for support. The colored people in Gloucester are very proud of this school, its work and its workers, and contribute freely of their small means to its support. It is an outgrowth of the Hampton school and is known as Hampton's second son, and shows the wonderful influence of that school. It also shows how the colored people are striving to help themselves, and how they succeed when they have had a chance in such schools.
SCHOFIELD SCHOOL.
This school was established in 1868 by Martha Schofield.
It was started in a little frame schoolhouse which was soon crowded to its utmost capacity. To-day the property, entirely free from debt, is worth $30,000, and includes two substantial brick buildings, and two frame buildings in Aiken, S. C., with a farm of 281 acres three miles distant.
Through all these years it has influenced and moulded many lives. In the North and South, in the city and country, you will find colored men and women who will tell you that they received their education at the Schofield School.
Much has been done, much remains to be done. In the country places, in the towns and villages of the South, are hundreds of young men and women growing up in the densest ignorance—in ignorance of the commonest decencies and proprieties of life—with minds capable of greatest effort, but darkened and obscured; with immortal souls clouded with superstition and the teachings of ignorant preachers. They reach out their hands to us with the cry: "Come over and help us!" What can we do for them?
In our schoolrooms they receive thorough training in the branches of a common-school education. In the boarding department they may receive industrial instruction which will fit them to take up the duties of everyday life. Daily contact and association with refined, cultured teachers will develop latent possibilities, will arouse new ambitions and longings for a higher, purer life. Even a few months' sojourn at the institution leaves an indelible mark on the character. When a student comes back year after year until he has completed the required course of study, his growth is more rapid, the results of incalculable value. Not until one realizes the narrowness, the poverty of the environment from which such a student comes, can one fully estimate the benefit of such an institution. Nor does the good stop with the one directly benefited. As the scholars go out into their homes to be teachers and workers, they carry the knowledge gained, and the light in their own hearts, and thus reach multitudes with whom we never, directly, come in contact.
There are those whose lives are consecrated to this work, whose daily time and strength are spent among these people for their uplifting. There are constant calls on their sympathy, constant appeals for help, but unless the help and support comes from the North they cannot respond.
Their greatest need is a larger Endowment Fund to meet the current expenses, that the labor and care connected with the raising of money may be rendered unnecessary, when there would be more time and strength to meet the demands of the work at their doors.
Can there be a greater privilege than to use the money the Lord has sent them than bringing into the fold some of His stray lambs? "For I was an hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; I was naked and ye clothed me; I was sick and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye came unto me."
Who will open the door of knowledge to these minds, held in the bondage of ignorance; who will help to feed the souls hungering and thirsting for the bread of life; who will aid them in their attempt to clothe these rude, untrained spirits in the garments of refinement and culture, in which even they may stand arrayed? "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto me."
THE REED ORPHAN HOME.
The Reed Orphan Home, at Covington, Ga., was founded by Mrs. Dinah P. Pace, who was graduated from Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga., in 1883. During this year (1883) Mrs. Pace went to Covington to teach for a few months only, but while there she became greatly interested in the work of uplifting her race. Her labors did not end with the routine of ordinary school duties, for she visited the homes and assisted in caring for the little ones of the families, very few of which did not greatly need her services. Her interest in both mother and children soon caused her to take under her roof several children who were left orphans.
The institution has grown considerably during the last few years. The work is quietly carried on without attracting any great amount of notice from other towns or cities. With the aid of Northern benefactors and a few friends of the neighborhood, several buildings have been erected, but these are fast becoming insufficient, owing to the rapid growth of the school.
Mrs. Pace is assisted by three other teachers, who are also either graduates or under-graduates of Atlanta University.
MRS. DINAH P. PACE.
The children of the "family" spend their vacation in the country, taking care of a farm upon which many articles of food for the winter are produced. As far as the means at hand permits, the children are being trained industrially, as well as intellectually. The work is not confined to any one denomination; It is entirely unsectarian. Especial effort is being made to prepare those under her charge for the higher duties of life, both as citizens and Christians. Like most institutions of this character, the "Reed Home" is greatly in need of means. It is to be hoped, however, that a brighter future awaits it, and that the noble work may be abundantly prospered. No one can realize what it is to care for a large number of children, bestowing upon each a mother's affection—none can know but those who have undertaken such a labor of love.
THE A. & M. COLLEGE, GREENSBORO, N. C.
The A. & M. College, at Greensboro, N. C., is a State school for the education of the colored youth of North Carolina. The buildings and appointments are the best of any school in the South, except Fisk University. While the main object at this institution is to prepare teachers for the State, they have a splendid industrial department. In the machine shop a young man made a perfect steam engine, which was the first made by a colored man in the State. Another student made in the wood shop a valuable office desk and another a handsome pulpit. I think I can safely say that the wood shop and machine shop have the best set of tools and machinery I have seen anywhere. Prof. Jas. B. Dudley, A. M., who is president of this school, is a native of Wilmington, N. C. He received his education at the public schools of Wilmington, and he also attended the Institute for colored youths at Philadelphia, Pa., and Shaw University at Raleigh, N. C. Prof. Dudley began teaching in the public schools of his native State in 1876, and has been thus engaged ever since. As president of the State College he has improved the condition of the school and also increased the attendance very much. He has been prominent in the literary world as a writer for both papers and magazines.
PROF. JAS. B. DUDLEY, A. M.
THE GEORGIA STATE INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE.
The Georgia State Industrial College is a State institution, the only one of its kind in Georgia for colored youths. It is endowed by the General Government and supported by the State. The grounds contain about eighty-six acres, consisting of thirty-five acres in the campus and fifty-one acres in the college farm. The campus, shaded by tall live-oaks, festooned by pretty pendant moss, is, for natural scenery, the most attractive in the State. The location is perfectly healthful.
The college farm is separated from the campus only by the railroad, by which passengers are conveyed from the city to their grounds. There are at present the following buildings on the grounds: Dormitory, two school buildings, chapel, farm house, blacksmith shop, wheelwright and carpenter shops and four cottages for the professors.
The courses at present established are the industrial, sub-normal and collegiate.
Richard R. Wright, A. M., LL. D., who is president of the Georgia State College, was born of slave parents, and is a very remarkable man, and one of the best-educated men of his race, and one of the most prominent educators in the country. I was very much impressed with the most excellent work at the State school, both in the class-room and workshop. There is no doubt but a great work is being done for the colored youth through Prof. Wright's very able efforts.
PROF. RICHARD R. WRIGHT, A. M., L.L. D.
In the late war with Spain Mr. Wright was appointed as one of the regular paymasters, and did the work with great credit to himself and his race. He has been something of a political leader in the State of Georgia; but his greatest work has been as an educator. In 1878 he called the first convention of colored teachers ever assembled in Georgia, and for three years was president of that convention. Mr. Wright is the founder of the Ware High School at Augusta, Ga., the first high school for colored youths, and the only one supported by city funds in the State.
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.
The Slater Industrial Academy was incorporated September 28, 1892. The State Normal School was established March 13, 1895; the Legislature appropriating $1,000 per annum for its maintenance. This institution is located at Winston-Salem, N. C.; Prof. S. G. Atkins, A. M., Principal.
The Governor of North Carolina has the following to say for him:
State of North Carolina,
Executive Department,
Raleigh, June 21, 1894.
Prof. S. G. Atkins is a distinguished educator, and a man of great moral worth and fine intellectual capacity.
He is deeply interested in the moral, intellectual and material advancement of his race, and his untiring efforts in this direction should have the recognition and support of all who desire the improvement of their fellow-beings.
His high standing in this State is beyond question, and entitles his claims to your earnest consideration, and I trust that you will lend him what assistance you can.
Prof. Atkins has been an earnest worker in the field of education, and his example and personal endeavors have exerted a beneficial influence on the fortunes of his race. I take pleasure in endorsing him. I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully yours,
Elias Carr, Governor N. C.
Mr. Atkins may feel proud of the high praise given him by the Governor. His school opened in a small building, 20 × 40, with one teacher and 25 pupils. The school now has twelve teachers and last session enrolled 250 pupils in all departments, and has property valued at $25,000.
PROF. S. G. ATKINS, A. M.
This institution is founded on the idea that intellectual development and industrial training should go hand in hand.
The departments of instruction may be denominated as follows: 1. Industrial. 2. Literary. 3. Musical. The literary department has in view chiefly the preparing of teachers for the public schools of the State.
Both races have contributed help, and especially white men of means in Winston-Salem.
DELAWARE STATE COLLEGE.
Established in 1891.
The State of Delaware has at last been aroused to a sense of its duty toward the education of the Negro, and in 1891 the Legislature of Delaware gave $8,000, and in 1893 $1,000. The first $8,000 was for buildings. The school is located two miles north of Dover, the State Capital, on the Loockerman farm, a tract of about one hundred acres. A workshop has been erected and fitted with tools and machinery for teaching the industrial arts. Rev. W. C. Jason, A. M., D. D., a very able young colored man, has been elected president of this State Institution. Mr. Jason is a graduate of Drew Theological Seminary. Professor Lorenzo D. Hileland has charge of the departments of Mathematics and Physics, also is superintendent of industrial work.
This Institution is the most northern State School now in operation for the education of the race.