FISK UNIVERSITY.
J. G. MERRILL, D.D., DEAN.
There was romance in its birth. Regimental bands headed the procession; army officers, men of renown, North and South, gathered in the hospital barracks; thousands of ex-slaves, were there. One passion animated this dusky throng. To learn to read was the ambition of the bright colored boy, of his sedate but none the less eager sire, and of the veteran grandparent with white hair and with eyes that must learn the alphabet by the aid of spectacles.
JUBILEE HALL.
Builded with money earned by the original Jubilee Singers.
THE RAW MATERIAL.
It was a moment of inspiration. The man to appreciate the hour and give utterance to its meaning, was there. He had hardly surrendered his commission as chaplain in the army. He had fought to win the freedom of a race. To make that race true free men was a task much more vast than to emancipate them. The parting of the ways had come. An illiterate people must be taught. No longer should it be a crime to instruct them. The rather was he the criminal who should deny them an education. It was an hour for the voice of a prophet. With the ken of a seer, Chaplain Cravath, representing the American Missionary Association, Jan. 9th, 1866, made the proclamation, that the founding of the school inaugurated that day was the beginning of a great educational institution, that should give to the emancipated race the opportunities and advantages of education which had so long been furnished to the white race in their colleges and universities.
FISK'S FINISHED PRODUCT.
Gen. Fisk, the brilliant soldier and ardent philanthropist, lent invaluable aid and consented to have the institution, so problematical in its existence, bear his name. Governor Brownlow and the pioneer educator of colored youth, Professor John Ogden, added the weight of their words and helpful deeds, and Fisk had come into being.
Romance attended the early life of the University.—Nearly four years had passed, when the Professor of music started out with a band of colored youth, who had been named the Jubilee Singers. That they could sing with incomparable sweetness he knew. That the songs they were to sing had incomparable pathos no one who heard them doubted. But nothing short of sublimest faith could have sent forth this band of friendless youth on their mission. They often were penniless as they went from town to town. They arrived at Oberlin and were permitted to sing before the National Council, then in session at that stronghold of the colored man. The tide turned. It rose with rapidity. Plymouth, Brooklyn, and other churches were opened to them. The entire North gave them welcome. They crossed the Atlantic; that gracious friend of humanity Queen Victoria, gave them audience. Her incomparable prime minister, Gladstone, made them his guests at Hawarden. Germany and France heard them. At the end of seven years they returned to Nashville and laid at the feet of the University the munificent sum of $150,000, a large part of which was devoted to the erection of Jubilee Hall and the remainder to the paying for the campus of thirty-five acres, once a slave plantation, now the most commanding location in the Athens of the South, as Nashville, the seat of four universities, is justly called.
A BAND OF KING'S DAUGHTERS.
There has been romance in all its life. Never for a year has the hard work, the distasteful drudgery, the, at the time, apparently fruitless toil been undertaken on the basis of cold calculating judgment; from its birth to the present hour, ideals that to most men would have seemed dreams and wild fancies, have animated the leaders of this enterprise—such ideals as have underlain the world's greatest achievements and have given heart to the world's victors.
LIVINGSTONE HALL.
A gift mainly from Mrs. Valeria G. Stone.
Wisdom and Painstaking attention to the material interests of the University, that have challenged the admiration of those who have watched its growth, have been coupled with all this romance. The ideal has been made actual. This has not been due to one man, nor one sex, nor one race. For a quarter of a century and more, have men and women, white and black, worked with an unanimity rarely equaled, with patience and self-sacrifice. As the outcome there is
FISK MEMORIAL CHAPEL.
Erected with the bequest of Gen. Fisk. Seats 1,000.
Fisk of to-day.
The building of Jubilee Hall set the pace for the progress of the institution. Thorough workmanship, good taste and belief in a large future, have prevented the erection of buildings which could be used only a short time and must be replaced by structures adapted to the work. Eight substantial buildings afford the facilities now needed and are so grouped that in the near future the Central and Music Halls can be erected, to complete the general plan. Already the large enrolment of pupils, coming, as they do, from more than a score of the states of our Union, is making the proposed buildings a necessity and affording other givers the opportunity to bless humanity that has been so handsomely met by those large-minded donors who have built the structures already erected.
THEOLOGICAL HALL.
Builded mainly by the A. M. A., a band of Jubilee Singers assisting.
THE 1899 FOOTBALL TEAM.
The every-day life of the University is first of all religious. With no cant, with the avoidance of undue emotion, with a constant appeal to Christian manhood and womanhood, men and women loyal to Jesus, seeking less their rights than to faithfully perform their duties, are being reared. For nine months in a year the faculty of Fisk, like those who in large cities man college settlements, day and night seek in every way and by all means to arouse and perpetuate the highest Christian ideals. Added to these are intellectual training, musical culture and a spirit of true gentility. The student body honors scholarship, awakens ambitions, cultivates good manners, frowns upon untidyness of appearance, while by firmly sustained legislation the faculty forbids any display of extravagance in attire. Patches and darns are expected; soiled or neglected garments the school will not permit. In a word, what one would expect to find in a Caucasian institution, composed of pupils of moderate means, with high ideals and gentle manners, are found at Fisk. The choicest of the recently emancipated race are here seeking a training. As always and everywhere, none reach the highest ideal. Some are found who fail to aspire to it; a few are intractable, but to one who recalls the life of the race and the treatment it has received before and since it was freed, life at Fisk is a constant miracle.
INDUSTRIAL BUILDING AND GYMNASIUM.
Erected through a legacy by Mr. Howard, of Nashville, and gift of Dr. A. J. Burrell, of Oberlin, O.
"AS GOOD AS NEW."
The Fisk Idea is an expression often on the lips of its alumni. It may be summed up in this: The rudiments of learning for all, manual training for those that are adapted to it and will use it in their after life, the best of culture for those who are capable of receiving and employing it. In a word, capacity not color, Christianity not caste, is to decide the question as to the kind of education a youth is to receive, whether he dwell in the North or South, whether he be an Ethiopian or an Anglo-Saxon. Exceeding few in comparison with the vast multitude of their race will be those who receive their diploma at Fisk; but they are to be the leaders of a people sorely needing leadership. And Fisk's determination to rear such leaders is an abiding protest against the spirit which denies to any human being a chance, and a declaration that the Church, like its divine Master, is to minister especially to those who most need help.
Fisk Products are the test of its work. Each year it publishes to the world its list of graduates, and over against each name what he is doing for the world. It does not hesitate to compare this list with a like catalogue of any institution with equipment equal to its own. It has faith to believe that the demon of prejudice will not always hold its flaming sword to bar true manhood deserving success at the threshold of life. It would do its part to overcome this demon by producing self-respecting manhood, which in the eyes of all true men commands respect.
Fisk's Needs are great. It needs such an endowment as shall enable it to decline help from that truest foster mother—the A. M. A. Its chairs professorial and for instructors should be placed upon a permanent footing. In no other way can its fine plant be utilized. If Northern institutions of learning must rely upon endowments to pay from two-thirds to three-quarters of the cost of educating their students, certainly an institution educating the youth of a race scarcely forty years out of the house of bondage, and hence poor beyond all expression, needs vastly more the income of an endowment to supplement the meagre tuitions which its pupils pay. Here is an opportunity for the man of large means to bestow a princely gift, while the man of slender means none the less can invest in the same undertaking.
The man or men who shall thus endow Fisk, will have ever the favor of Him who has declared Himself the friend of the poor and needy.
DANIEL HAND MODEL SCHOOL.
Erected by the A. M. A. with money from the income of the Daniel Hand bequest.
Fisk's greatest need is an answer to the prayer of God's people for that constant indwelling of the divine Spirit which shall keep in stout heart those who, with personal self-sacrifice, are doing its work.