Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization

by Emmett J. Scott; Lyman Beecher Stowe

In my opinion, the time has come when you must consider seriously the getting rid of, or shifting, some of your older teachers. You have teachers in your department who have been here a good many years, and experience proves that they do not adapt themselves readily and systematically to your methods. I think it would be far better for the school to find employment for them outside of the Academic Department, or to let them take some clerical work in your department, than for them to occupy positions of importance and influence, which they are not filling satisfactorily and where they have an influence in hurting the character of the whole teaching.

All these matters I hope you will consider very carefully. I am sure that the time has come when definite and serious action is needed.

Booker T. Washington, Principal.

First and last on these apparently aimless strolls with a stenographer he visited not only the classrooms and shops but every corner of the great institution. He would return to his office with a notebook full of memoranda of matters to be followed up or changed, and of people to be commended or censured for their efficient or inefficient handling of this, that, or the other piece of work. Once after writing a series of letters calling attention to ragged tablecloths, unclean napkins, and uncleanliness in other forms in kitchens, bakery, and dining-rooms without the desired result, he personally took charge of the situation, organized a squad of workers, put things in proper condition, and then insisted that they be kept in such condition.

His passion to utilize every fraction of time to its maximum advantage led him even to smuggle a stenographer into the formal annual exercises of the Bible Training School so that he might during the exercises clandestinely dictate notes for the head of the Bible school as to those features in which the program was weak, failed "to get across," did not hold the interest of the people, seemed to be over their heads, or whatever might be his diagnosis of the difficulty. He was not interested in the program for and of itself, but was keenly interested in its effect upon the people. If it interested and helped them, it was a good program; if it did not, it was a poor program and no amount of learning or technical perfection could redeem it. He sometimes reduced his more scholarly teachers to the verge of despair by his insistence that there should be nothing on the program at any exercise to which the public was invited which the every-day man and woman could not understand and appreciate.

In opening the chapter we mentioned Booker Washington's faculty for giving attention to apparently trivial details without losing sight of his large policies and purposes. This was part of his habit of taking nothing for granted. He never assumed that people would do or had done what they should do or should have done any more than he assumed they would not or had not done what they should. He neither trusted nor distrusted them. He kept himself constantly informed. Every person employed by the institution from the most important department heads down to the men who removed ashes and garbage were under the stimulating apprehension that his eye might be upon them at any moment. He harassed his subordinates by continually asking them if this or that matter had been attended to. He would sometimes ask three different people to do the same thing. This resulted in wasted effort on somebody's part, but it always accomplished the result, which was all that interested him. He took nothing for granted himself and he insisted that his subordinates take nothing for granted. He was a task master and a "driver" but he taxed himself more heavily and drove himself harder than he did any one else. Like other strong men, he had the weaknesses of his strength, and probably his most serious weakness was driving himself and his subordinates beyond his and their strength.

His eye was daily upon every part of the great machine which he had built up through an exhaustive system of daily reports. These reports were placed on his desk each morning when at the Institute and mailed to him each morning when away. They showed him the number of students in the hospital with the name, diagnosis, and progress of each case. From the poultry yard came reports giving the number of eggs in the incubators, the number hatched since the day before, the number of chickens which had died, the number of eggs and chickens sold, etc. Similarly daily reports came from the swine herd, the dairy herd, and all the other groups of live stock.

He received also each morning a report from the savings department giving the number of new depositors, the amounts of money deposited and withdrawn, and the condition of the bank at the close of the previous day. There was, too, a list of the requisitions approved by the Business Committee the previous day giving articles, prices, divisions, or departments in which each was to be used and totals for different classes of requisitions.

Mr. Washington was a great believer in the sweet potato. He personally supervised the work of preparing for sweet potato planting.