| CHAPTER | ELEVEN |
MANAGING A GREAT INSTITUTION
BOOKER WASHINGTON'S chief characteristic as an administrator was his faculty for attention to minute details without losing sight of his large purposes and ultimate ends. His grasp of every detail seems more remarkable when one realizes the dimensions of his administrative task. Besides leading his race in America, and to some extent throughout the world, and raising between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand dollars each year, he administered an institution whose property and endowment are valued at almost four million dollars. Although the original property of the school was only a hundred acres of land with three small buildings, it now owns twenty-four hundred acres, with one hundred and eleven buildings, large and small, in its immediate vicinity. In addition to these twenty-four hundred acres of land the school now owns also about twenty thousand acres, being the unsold balance of a grant of twenty-five thousand acres of mineral land, made by the Federal Government as an endowment to the Institute in 1899.
The organization of the Institute ramifies throughout the entire county in which it is located. It has a resident student population of between fifteen hundred and two thousand boys and girls, with a teaching force of about two hundred men and women. It enrolls in its courses throughout the year from thirty-five hundred to four thousand persons. The receipts of its post office exceed those of the entire postal service of the Negro Republic of Liberia in Africa. In a given year the revenues of Liberia were $301,238 and the expenditures $314,000. In the same year the receipts from all sources of Tuskegee Institute were $321,864.87 and its expenditures $341,141.58.
Booker Washington so organized this great institution that it ran smoothly and without apparent loss of momentum for the nine months out of the twelve, during the greater part of which he was obliged to be absent raising the funds with which to keep it going. The Institute is in continuous session throughout the twelve months of the year. During the summer months a summer school for teachers is conducted in place of the academic department. For the purposes of this summer school all or most of the trades and industries are kept in operation.
The school is organized on this basis. There is, first, a Board of Trustees which holds the property in trust and advises the principal as to general policies, etc., and aids him in the raising of funds; second, the principal, who has sole charge of all administrative matters; third, an executive council, composed of the heads of departments, with the principal as its chairman. The following officers serve as members of this executive council: Principal, treasurer, secretary, general superintendent of industries, director mechanical industries, director department of research and Experiment Station, commandant, business agent, chief accountant, director agricultural department, registrar, medical director, dean women's department, director women's industries, chaplain, director extension department, superintendent buildings and grounds, dean Phelps Hall Bible Training School, director academic department.
The position of general superintendent of industries is held by John H. Washington, brother of Booker T. Washington. Mrs. Booker T. Washington fills the position of director women's industries.
After this executive council comes the faculty made up of the leading teachers who have charge of the instruction in the various divisions of the agricultural, industrial, and academic departments. This faculty Mr. Washington in turn subdivided into a series of standing and special committees having particular charge of certain phases of the work such as repairs, cleanliness, etc. The committee on cleanliness would, for instance, be expected to see that the boarding department was insisting upon the proper use of knives and forks and napkins—was serving the food hot and in proper dishes, and that the kitchens were at all times ready for inspection and models of cleanliness.
Some of Mr. Washington's humble friends. (See [page 136])