Another example of the effect of the training given at the Tuskegee Institute on the mind of the student occurs to me. A few weeks ago it was decided to modify the Day School system. To make any change in a great organisation like ours requires great discriminating judgment and care. The faculty discussed the change in its every phase, and I finally called the students of the four upper classes together, presented to them our plans, and explained to them the reasons for the proposed change.
Their response was not a negative acquiescence, but a series of direct and searching questions. They were alert and quick to see minor defects, and to give direct and constructive criticism in regard to many details. Their work in the shops and on the farm had brought them into touch with real issues and real things—their daily work in constructing and equipping our buildings and in helping to build the institute had brought with it an intelligent interest in the school and an enlightened appreciation of values; in other words, it had taught them to think.
It is obvious that a man cannot build wagons or run a farm with continuous success who is unable to read, write, and cipher. But, far deeper than the mere commercial advantage of academic studies, is the fact that they afford incentives to good conduct and high thinking. To make a boy an efficient mechanic is good, for it enables him to earn a living and to add his mite to the productiveness of society; but a school must do more—must create in him abiding interests in the intellectual achievements of mankind in art and literature, and must stimulate his spiritual nature. And so Tuskegee has always maintained an Academic Department, at present housed mainly in four buildings. The most important of these are Porter Hall, a three-story frame building, the first building erected after the opening of the Institute, though poor in appointments, yet rich in traditions; Thrasher Hall, a handsome three-story brick building with well-equipped physical and chemical laboratories; and the Carnegie Library, a beautifully proportioned brick structure, which is the center of Academic interests. The collection of books is well selected, and the generosity of Tuskegee's friends keeps it constantly growing. The admirable Collis P. Huntington Memorial Building will be the largest building on the grounds, and is to be used exclusively for academic purposes.
STUDENTS FRAMING THE ROOF OF A LARGE BUILDING
On the faculty of the Academic Department are twenty-eight men and women of Negro blood with degrees from Michigan, Nebraska, Oberlin, Amherst, Cornell, Columbia, and Harvard. In order to display the character of work done in the Department, it may be well for me to explain the course of study in some special branches.
The aim of the work in English in the preparatory classes is to bring about familiarity with the mother tongue, and correctness and ease in its use. From contact with good models of spoken or written discourse the pupil learns to appreciate and interpret thought well expressed. From the careful attention given his own language, he learns to feel the correctness or incorrectness of an expression, without slavish reliance upon rules. In other words, in these classes language is taught as an art; the necessary rules and definitions, when they occur, are treated as working principles, and abundant practice in applying them is given. In the advanced years of the course, technical grammar is taught because at this stage the pupil has already become familiar with good usage, and has attained a certain facility in employing the mother tongue. He should now be taught more thoroughly the fundamental principles governing the correct or incorrect use of an expression, while in the preparatory classes, oral exercises in narration, description and reproduction predominate. The pupil is encouraged to talk simply and naturally about something he has seen or heard or read. He is taught to exercise care for unity, logical sequence of ideas, and smoothness of transition. To the narration and description of the lower grades, argumentation and exposition are added in the advanced work, these subjects being expanded to form the basis of a course in public speaking.
The pupil obtains material for themes and debates from his experience in shop and field and from literature technical to the subject. The themes are submitted for correction and in due course committed, and, after preliminary training, delivered at the monthly public rhetoricals of the class. Except for the written brief required of each disputant, debates are extemporaneous. In the preparation of a program like the following, considerable experience and research must necessarily be involved.