Heretofore, the absorbing purpose of the Institute has been to establish the character of the schools; not so much to produce uniformity as to encourage and to strengthen the individual characteristics of each, while developing an “Institute character” in all alike. This had been well accomplished by Mr. Bishop. The Institute could now look out with confidence upon the mission of the schools to the life of their constituencies. The supreme need of the time was, and is, for teachers properly equipped and with adequate development in Christian character to be the builders of others. So the schools have been impressed with this great motive to which the broad culture of class-room work, domestic trade, and agricultural training all contribute, to the great advantage of the teacher. The word “teacher,” as here used, comprehends all callings, from pulpit to farm, through which others may be guided. At the same time special care is taken to train teachers, technically so called, for service in schools both public and private.
In 1914, St. Paul’s School, Atlanta, was added to the list of Institute Schools. But in 1916, a disastrous fire carried the building away, along with many city blocks.
In 1920, the Okolona Industrial School, Mississippi, and the Gaudet Industrial School near New Orleans, applied for admission among those under the Church Institute. The Okolona School was accepted by the Diocese of Mississippi and by the Institute, and began life under the new relation, January 1, 1921. Its founder and strong administrator ever since, is President Wallace A. Battle, one of the foremost Negroes of his native and adopted States, Alabama and Louisiana, a Negro of the Negroes. His father was a landowner, and on the farm young Battle won the title, “the hardest worker on Cowikee River.” He attended Talladega College, Alabama; and, still later, Berea College, Kentucky, where he graduated, with the B. A. degree. Summer courses in Agricultural Colleges in Illinois, and in the University of Wisconsin, further fitted him for his chosen life-work.
“It was at Talladega,” he wrote, “ten years before Okolona was founded that I resolved that there would be an industrial school with high standards in the most needy State in the Union, if the Lord would give me strength to finish. I kept my vow, and Okolona is the result.” Nothing has ever been able to tempt him from this child of his consecrated love. In the most lean and trying years, he declined the Presidency of Alcorn, the State Agricultural College for Negroes, and other flattering offers. Through all, and from the beginning, among white friends, two stand out as unfailing sympathizers—The Hon. Benjamin J. Abbott, an old Confederate veteran, after whom the first large permanent building is named; and Capt. A. T. Stovall, a distinguished lawyer, and son of another old Confederate officer. There was prejudice to be overcome and these two were friends at home to keep watch as fathers while the infant enterprise proved its right to live. A disastrous fire soon swept away the first building. Capt. Stovall sought home-aid to replace it. Prejudice was not yet dead. Approaching a group he asked aid. Quickly the response came from one, a stammerer, “I will g-g-give you a h-h-h-hundred dollars to b-b-blow the d——d thing up.” Many responded in better kind, the building was restored and the stammering friend, now a staunch supporter as everybody is, told this anecdote on himself at the last Commencement with the announcement that Battle’s School had converted him completely, and that it had no warmer friend than himself.
There are four hundred acres of fertile prairie land bordering the town, which, with the buildings, is worth quite $180,000. The farm was the best in the State during the year 1921. The work done is similar to that at Fort Valley. The industries are adapted to its prairie home. Its graduates prepared for teaching are accorded the Teachers’ Certificate of the State, and places are always ready for them. Many choose agricultural and industrial pursuits.
The Gaudet Normal and Industrial School, named for its founder, was tendered to Bishop Sessums of Louisiana, and accepted by the Diocese and by the Church Institute, between 1920 and 1921. Mrs. Francis Joseph Gaudet was led to found the school through the tragedies witnessed in her long and remarkable work in the interest of prison reform. Little children of her race, the offspring of criminals, were often committed to prison because the State had no other provision for them. Their morals were early corrupted in such surroundings. Mrs. Gaudet championed their cause, and the story of her fight for reform is one of the heroic romances of modern times. She brought the matter before the Prison Reform Association who represented her cause to the authorities.
“We cannot change conditions; we have no money,” was the answer.
“I vowed,” she said, “that I would build the home and school for these neglected ones if God would help me.”
Shortly after this event, she was appointed to represent the Woman’s Temperance Union in their International Convention at Edinburgh, Scotland. Hoping to further the cause of the Home and School, she accepted, mortgaged her home for the money needed for the journey, and set forth upon her double mission, determined to suffer any privations needful to fulfill her mission. After the close of the Convention, Lady Henry Somerset, President of the Temperance Union, kept Mrs. Gaudet busy upon a lecture tour in Europe for six months. She returned to New Orleans with about $1,000 towards the Home and School. Soon a suitable site was found upon the outskirts of the city, and a first payment made. The farm of 105 acres now has three main buildings, a barn and other small industrial houses, and a beautiful campus, shaded with pecans and adorned with shrubs.
“Through God’s agents,” wrote Mrs. Gaudet, “the buildings are furnished throughout, even to an ice pick. The whole plant is worth about $100,000. I place this plant in the hands of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Bishop Davis Sessums.”