A decade of negro extension work, 1914-1924

by O. B. Martin

THE MOVABLE SCHOOL

A development peculiar to negro extension work is the movable school. This is an automobile truck carrying equipment for demonstrations and accompanied by an automobile conveying instructors. (Fig. [8].) The equipment consists of farm and home tools and utensils necessary to illustrate better methods of farming and home making. The school goes to a home where arrangements have already been made by the local agent, and stays from one to three days. The novelty of the outfit and the rather spectacular nature of the occasion guarantee a good attendance of people from the vicinity where the work is to be done.

Fig. 8.—Negro movable school which carries equipment and instructors to local communities where the better ways of farming and home making are demonstrated. Such movable schools have supplemented the work of the local negro extension agent, who follows up and impresses on the community the lessons brought out.

The local agents and the instructors agree in advance upon what is to be done. The program includes such things as pruning trees, terracing land, plowing properly, building a chicken house, building a sanitary privy, grading fruit, eggs, and vegetables, dressing chickens, making fireless cookers, canning, making work dresses and aprons, and whitewashing or painting the house and outbuildings. The people in attendance are divided into small groups and several enterprises are carried on at the same time. After the various jobs are completed, the whole crowd makes a tour of inspection and much incidental instruction is driven home by those in charge. In addition to having specialists in farming and home making, the school usually carries a public-health nurse who gives much needed instruction and demonstration. A necessary part of the equipment is a projector for showing films and slides during meetings at the school or church. Equipment is also carried to facilitate games and play for a short time every day after the regular work is done.

In view of the fact that much interest has been manifested in the movable school, it may be desirable to consider it from a strictly extension point of view. First, in the communities where the negro population is densest and where their welfare has been most neglected, more simple instruction and demonstration by the specialists and agents themselves are necessary. Just as fast as the farmers can make object lessons and assume leadership themselves, just so fast should that responsibility be passed on to them. Second, the movable school supplements the work of the local agent and is supplemented by it. When a home with its premises has been renovated and practically reconstructed by the visit of a movable school, and when the farmer and his family revolutionize their methods on the farm, then the question arises as to how many more farmers can be influenced to do likewise. The movable school does much to lay out the work of the agents, and if they do not follow up such work and impress its lessons, then little benefit is derived. However, the influence can be measured more successfully a year after the visit of the movable school than the day after.

By request of leading white citizens of Dallas County, Ala., the movable school concentrated there for a month and covered the whole county. Many plantation owners, bankers, and business men visited the school and saw it in action. Their commendation was most encouraging and inspires the hope that this enterprise may be used to facilitate the reform and readjustment of farm and home life among negro farmers who are to remain in the South and improve their conditions. A prominent English woman, who recently visited a movable school, was most favorably impressed. Her only criticism was that it was liable to cause confusion because of the wealth of instruction given in so short a time. She thought that the instruction included more than could be assimilated and utilized in a week. She rather facetiously remarked that it would not surprise her if some of the women were to go home and put their babies down in water glass and make “pinless outfits” for the eggs. Her observation still further confirmed the belief that the movable school and the local agents should be mutually helpful.

STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT

A few typical stories taken from numerous narratives of success quoted by negro extension agents will suffice to give trends and tendencies. Floyd Stokes, of Gloucester County, Va., told the following story of the help given him through extension work (fig. [9]):

When I got married back in 1903, I left home to begin life as a renter. The little house to which I moved was on 3 acres of land which I worked when not engaged in fishing or oystering. After having lived on this place three years, a young man, the first demonstration agent I had ever heard of, came to me and began talking soil improvement and how I could make a living out of it. Just about this time the agent induced me to buy 9 acres of land near by which were for sale. Four of these acres had been cleared and there was an old house on the land that had been used as a barn. I sawed some timber, had some doors and windows made for the barn, and moved into my own home.