CHAPTER XVII Some Tangible Results
Since the founding of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, in 1881, the total enrollment of young men and women who have remained long enough to be helped, in any degree, is about six thousand. From the beginning, the school has sought to find out the chief occupations by which our people earn their living, and to train men and women to be of service in these callings. Those who go out follow the industries they have learned, or teach in public or private schools, teaching part of the year and farming or labouring the remainder of their time. Some follow house-keeping or other domestic service, while others enter professions, the Government service, or become merchants. Many of the teachers give instruction in agriculture, or in the industries. The professional men are largely physicians and the professional women are mostly trained nurses.
After diligent investigation I have been unable to find a dozen former students in idleness. They are busy in schoolroom, field, shop, home or church. They are busy because they have placed themselves in demand by learning to do that which the world wants done, and because they have learned the disgrace of idleness, and the sweetness of labour. One of the greatest embarrassments which confronts our school at the present time is our inability to supply any large proportion of the demands for our students that are coming to us constantly from the people of both races, North and South. But, apart from their skill and training, that which has made Tuskegee men and women succeed is their spirit of unselfishness and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for others. In many cases while building up a struggling school in a community, they have worked for months without any fixed salary or promise of salary, because they have learned that helping some one else is the secret of happiness. Because of the demand for men and women trained at Tuskegee, it is difficult to keep a large proportion of the students in the school until they graduate. It is, therefore, not so easy to show the results of the work in concrete form as it would be if a larger number of the students finished. But the facts obtainable prove that the school is achieving its purpose in preparing its students to do what the world wants done.
Some years ago a young man named Williams came to Tuskegee from Mobile, Alabama. Before coming, he had nearly completed the public-school course of study at Mobile, and had been earning about fifty cents a day at various kinds of unskilled labour. He wished to study further in the academic branches, with the object of combining this knowledge with the trade of brick-masonry. To take the full course in brick-masonry, including mechanical drawing, he should have remained three years. He remained for six months only. During this time, he got some rough knowledge of brick-masonry and advanced somewhat in his academic studies. When he returned to Mobile, it soon became known that he had been working at brick-masonry. At once he was dubbed a full-fledged mason. As there was unusual building activity in Mobile at that time, he found himself in great demand, and, instead of having to seek odd jobs, he soon saw that, in spite of his rather crude knowledge of the trade, he could earn one dollar and fifty cents per day, and have more work offered him than he could do. When the three months' vacation expired, Williams debated whether he ought to return to Tuskegee to finish his course or remain at home and try to purchase a home for his widowed mother. Hence, seeing an opportunity to make two dollars a day at his trade, he decided not to return. As in hundreds of other cases, the Mobile man had unusual natural ability, and was able to get out of his six months at Tuskegee a mental, spiritual, and bodily awakening which fixed his purpose in life. Not only this, but he had made such a start in his trade that by close study and observation he was able to improve from month to month in the quantity and quality of his work, and within a few months he ceased to work for other people by the day and began to make small contracts. At the present time, Mr. Williams is one of the most substantial coloured citizens of Mobile. He owns his home and is a reliable and successful contractor, doing important work for both races. In addition to being a successful brick-mason and contractor, he owns and operates a dairy business, and his class of patronage is not limited by any means to members of the Negro race.
The value, then, of the work of schools, where the trade or economic element enters in so largely as it does at Tuskegee, cannot be judged in any large degree by the number of students who finish the full course and receive diplomas. What is true of the course in brick-masonry is true in larger or smaller measure of all the other thirty-seven industrial divisions of the school.
Another example: Crawford D. Menafee came to Tuskegee about 1890, and began taking the agricultural and academic courses. He was older than the average student, and entered one of the lower classes. Because he had no money to pay any part of his expenses, he was given permission to enter the night school, which meant that he was to work on the farm ten hours a day, receiving, meanwhile, lessons in the principles of farming and devoting two hours at night to the academic branches. He was never classed as a very bright student, and in the purely literary studies made such slow progress, after repeating several classes, that he left two years before completing either the agricultural or the academic course. It was noted, however, that, notwithstanding inability to grasp theoretical work, he manifested unusual enthusiasm and showed special ability in practical farm work. His ability was so marked that he was asked to take a place of responsibility as assistant to one of the school's farm managers. It soon became evident that he possessed extraordinary executive ability. He read constantly everything of value which he could secure upon agriculture, and soon began to show signs of considerable intellectual growth and the possession of a rarely systematic mind. Mr. Menafee was soon promoted to a higher position at Tuskegee.
TAKING AN AGRICULTURAL CLASS INTO THE FIELD