Working With the Hands / Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee

by Booker T. Washington

Nearly three years ago, three of our graduates, under the leadership of one of our teachers, Mr. J. N. Calloway, went to Africa under the auspices of the German government, to introduce cotton-raising among the natives. At the end of the second year the German officials were so pleased that they employed three other students. At the end of the fourth year the experiment was successful to the extent that a hundred bales of cotton have been shipped from the colony of Togo, Africa, to Berlin. Only a few months ago the German officials were kind enough to send me several pairs of hose made from cotton raised by our students.

Since beginning this experiment, we have received applications from both English and Belgian cotton-raising companies that wish to secure Tuskegee men to introduce cotton-raising in their African possessions. The Porto Rican Government makes an annual appropriation for the purpose of maintaining eighteen students at Tuskegee in order that they may learn our methods. The Haytian Government has recently arranged to send a number of young men here, mainly with the view of their being trained in farming. Besides, we have students present from the West Indies, Africa, and several South American countries.

While speaking of the Tuskegee missionary spirit, it is interesting to note the effect that the industrial training given by our graduates has had upon the morals and manner of living among the natives of Africa in Togoland. Missionaries have been working among these people for many years, and very effectively, and yet training in carpentry and cotton-raising had results that the academic and religious teaching had not accomplished. When the natives are taught the Bible, and the heart and the head are educated, the tendency is for them to become teachers or traders. In the latter case, their learning brings them too frequently into contact with unscrupulous European traders from whom they acquire habits of gambling, cheating, drinking, etc. In addition to this, when they begin merchandising, the natives find that it is to their advantage to have more than one wife, since their wives are able to help them in selling in the markets and through the country districts. The young people who went to Africa from Tuskegee found that this problem greatly perplexed the missionaries, but wherever these natives were given work on the plantations, and employed their muscles as well as their brains, a change for the better was soon apparent.

It is usually true that when a native is kept employed in one place, he will begin to build a home, consisting of a number of huts; he will clear a farm or plantation, and stock it with cattle, sheep, pigs and fowls. He will plant vegetables, corn, cassava, yams, etc. This happened among the Africans who were employed on the plantations cultivated by our graduates. The wives and children of these labourers were given work on the farms, and it has been found that few of them gamble, steal and cheat, as do those who wander to and fro without employment. Such natives as these cotton-growers are more easily reached by missionary effort, and when they are converted to the Christian religion, if they remain on the farms, they seldom fall back into paganism.

I have been informed that it is a general opinion among the missionaries in Togoland that industrial education will be a main-stay in future effort, and that such teaching will be introduced in the missionary institutions as rapidly as possible. Since the young men went out from Tuskegee, a decided change has been noticed in the sanitation and mode of living in the towns near which they are located. Much of this betterment has been the direct result of the lessons learned by the natives from seeing our carpenter build houses, and observing our graduates' habits of life. The natives seemed anxious to learn, and the Tuskegee colony received many applications from the women to have their daughters come and live with the American women in order that they might learn the new customs, especially the art of sewing, cooking, and doing housework.

Few of the huts had shutters or doors when our graduates first went to the colony—bedsteads were unknown; but now many of the huts have outside shutters, and their inmates have learned how to construct comfortable beds for themselves. Many who formerly bathed in streams now have bath-houses back of their huts. On Sunday, all work on the plantations of the Tuskegee party was suspended, except caring for the stock and other necessary duties, and this, too, had its effect on the natives, who were inclined to accept our religious observance of the day. Many now dress in holiday attire on Sunday, and go to the nearest mission.

The Tuskegee party settled about sixty miles from the coast, where no wagons or carts were used for conveying produce or material. The native men and women carried all freight in sixty-pound loads on their heads, and were able to travel fifteen to twenty miles a day. On these round trips of ten days, the women carried their small children with them, and during their frequent halts came into contact with the rough and demoralising element of the trading-post, and with other degrading influences. This mode of transportation seemed very unsatisfactory to the Tuskegee young men, who introduced carts and wagons drawn by men. This allowed the women and children to remain at home and look after the farms and their household duties, while the men made the trips to the coast.

Young girls, just growing into womanhood, are no longer compelled to meet the many bad influences formerly encountered on the trips to the coast. The use of farm machinery in the colony has relieved the women and girls of much drudgery. They used to prepare the land with the crudest hoes and plows. This is now done with improved American implements. The Germans have been so strongly impressed with these effects of industrial training upon the natives, that they have decided to introduce into all the schools of that colony a system for the training of boys in hand work. With the assistance of the chiefs, improved methods of agriculture and handicraft will be spread among the tribes of that region.

I do not wish my readers to get the impression that all of Tuskegee's men and women have succeeded, because they have not. A few have failed miserably, much to our regret, but the percentage of failures is so small that they are more than overshadowed by those who have been, in the fullest sense of the word, successful.

Despite all that I have said, the work has merely begun. I believe we have found the way. Our endeavour will be to continue to pursue it faithfully, actively, bravely, honestly. With sufficient means, such work as I have indicated could be greatly increased.