Evidences of Progress Among Colored People

by G. F. Richings

The influence of the school is still further extended by means of the farmers' conferences, with which the public is very generally acquainted. These conferences are held annually, towards the latter part of February or the first of March, and are largely attended. The men are advised to buy land and to cultivate it thoroughly, to raise more food supplies, to build houses with more than one room, to tax themselves to build better school houses, and to extend the term to at least six months, to give more attention to the character of their leaders, especially ministers and teachers, to keep out of debt, to avoid law suits, to treat their women better, and where practicable, to hold similar conferences in their several communities. A woman's conference is held on the afternoon of the same day, and topics relating to the home and the care of children are discussed. The next day there is a congress of workers, which is attended by teachers and others who labor for the elevation of the colored people.

Tuskegee not only advises the people to get homes, but, through the generosity of a friend who established a fund for this purpose, she has been enabled to help several families to this end. The sum of $4,500 was given to be loaned in amounts ranging from $30 to $300, to graduates of the school or to other worthy persons. Already more than twenty homes have been secured in this manner, and, as a result, Greenwood, a model little community, is growing up just beyond the school grounds.

The Summer Assembly furnishes help of another kind. This is a sort of Southern Chautauqua, modified to meet the needs of the section and of the people for whose benefit it is held. Here tired teachers, preachers, and others meet annually and combine pleasure with instruction, holding daily morning sessions at which papers on subjects of practical importance are read and discussed, and spending afternoons and evenings in rest and recreation.

These are influences emanating directly from the school, but what of the work of its graduates, of the indirect influences thus set in motion? Their name is legion. These graduates and undergraduates are scattered throughout the South, engaged in the great work of trying to elevate a race. We find them in the shops, comparing favorably with their white fellow-workmen, at the head of industrial departments in smaller schools planned after the order of the Tuskegee Institute; preaching among the people, trying to clear their minds of ignorance and superstition, and seeking to raise the standard of the ministry of which they form a part; teaching in remote country districts, probably for salaries hardly more than sufficient to pay their board, perhaps building with their own hands the schoolhouse they have induced the people to assist in erecting; on their own little pieces of land farming after the improved methods they learned at school; nursing, sewing, caring for their own homes and children—all, we trust, many, we know—lights in the communities in which they reside and living embodiments of the principles for which the beloved parent institution stands.

The aim has always been to have the instructors at Tuskegee persons of ability; frequently they have been also persons of considerable reputation. One of the most remarkable characters ever connected with the school and the one to whom, more than to any other, with the exception of Mr. Washington himself, is due Tuskegee's phenomenal progress, was Mrs. Olivia Davidson Washington, the now deceased wife of the principal. She was Mr. Washington's assistant almost from the first, and being a woman of great enthusiasm, earnestness, and fixity of purpose, and being, besides, widely and favorably known in the North where she received her education, she made many friends for the institution, and brought to it many gifts.

Mrs. Warren Logan, who is yet teaching in the school, was associated very early in the work with Mr. Washington and Miss Davidson, she and Miss Davidson being for some time the only women teachers in the school. Mrs. Logan helped to train many of the teachers who have gone out from Tuskegee, and has done other work in that line, having been appointed at various times to hold teachers' institutes in different parts of Alabama and of Georgia.

Mr. Logan, the secretary and treasurer, holds a position in the institution second in importance only to that of the principal, and has proved his worth by long years of faithful service. The head teacher, Mr. Nathan B. Young, is a graduate of Oberlin College; he is a close student and a man of recognized scholarship.

Mr. R. R. Taylor, who is in charge of the department of architectural and mechanical drawing, was graduated from the Boston School of Technology.

Rev. E. J. Penney, at the head of the Phelps Hall Bible Training School, is of the Yale Divinity School.