FOURTH PAPER.
WHAT IS THE NEGRO TEACHER DOING IN THE MATTER OF UPLIFTING HIS RACE?
BY PROF. H. L. WALKER.
PROF. H. L. WALKER, A. B.
Prof. H. L. Walker was born near the city of Augusta, Ga., in the year of 1859. His parents, Wesley and Adline Walker, were the property of slave owners to whom they rendered allegiance until 1864 and 1865, when Sherman took his triumphal march through Georgia and the Carolinas. At the fall of the Confederacy young Henry went with his parents to Wilmington, N. C., where they spent about a year, during which time young Henry for the first time saw the inside of a school, taught by those pioneering teachers from the North. At the close of this year the family left Wilmington and went to Augusta, Ga., which city has been the scene of our subject's boyhood and the basis of his literary career. The public schools of Augusta were completed by 1874 and upon the recommendation of all of his teachers young "Henry," as he was familiarly called, was matriculated at the Atlanta University, one of the most noted of Negro colleges in the South. In this institution he studied for eight years, coming out in 1882 with the class honor and the degree of A. B. His parents died during his early boyhood, even before he had entered the Atlanta University, so that in his efforts to complete his collegiate career he had to rely largely upon his own resources, and the very kind assistance of his foster parents, and other friends whose protege he was.
Prepared for his life work, he left school in June, 1882, and was immediately elected principal of the Mitchell Street Graded School, Atlanta, Ga., his examination papers being the best offered for this position. In the following month—July—he was also elected President of the Georgia State Teachers' Association for Colored Teachers, of which body more will be said later. As a student at College our subject was studious, popular with professors and students, and acquired that assiduity and strict adherence to business that has since characterized all his subsequent life. In the profession of teaching he continued to rise higher and higher each year, holding positions of trust and honor under each of the State's superintendents of education down to the present incumbent. For eighteen years he has held sway in the public school of the city of Augusta, during which time Mr. Walker has officered the Second Ward Grammar School, the famous Ware High School and at present the First Ward High School, which position he still fills with dignity and credit to himself and race. As Peabody expert, Mr. Walker, by appointment of the successive State superintendents of education, has occupied the lecture platform in all parts of the State, with the best lecturers, white and Colored, that money could command, and they have all cheerfully conceded his ripe ability to master and handle successfully such subjects as have been assigned him from year to year. As a practical school man and well-informed scholar, Mr. Walker is always at home. As a Peabody lecturer he has often been pronounced one of the best in the State. Every Summer his services are in demand in various parts of the State. For ten years Mr. Walker was the honored President of the Georgia State Teachers' Association, Colored, and no man has since filled that honored chair whose administration has in any way rivaled the success of Mr. Walker. During his ten years the association was built up as it has never been since. The intelligence of the State—white and Colored—came together in these annual meetings and made this gathering of educators and leaders the most representative body in the State.
Mr. Walker is easy of address and modest in all things, never contending for honors. Several years ago, at its annual exercises, his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of A. M. as a deserved tribute and recognition of the literary work he has accomplished. As a polished orator Mr. Walker has been heard with profit and delight in all parts of the State. Some of his addresses before the State Teachers' Association are considered real gems of literature.
After a lapse of some thirty-eight years, or a little better than a generation, we are asking the question, "What is the Negro Teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race?" In so brief a period of years it would seem to savor of arrogance to ask a question so seemingly fraught with significance, so inopportune and, too, about a people so recently freed from bondage that they have not yet had the time to grow a generation of teachers. It took England more than a generation to grow an Arnold at Rugby. It took France more than several generations to produce a Guizot, and Pestalozzi, whose reputation as a teacher widens with the universe, is the product of years of experimental accumulations of Swiss ingenuity. And yet it may be pardonable arrogance on our part to say that at this first milestone in our educational career we pause here long enough to take an inventory of what the Negro teacher has done and is still doing in the matter of uplifting his people. In the pioneering or experimental period of Negro education there were no Negro teachers, but it is safe to say that as early as 1875 a few Negroes, daring to rush in where angels would fear to tread, began the profession of school teaching. It is from this date that we may safely begin to reckon the services of the Negro teachers as a class. I make bold to lay down the proposition that wherever God has ordained intellect that intellect is capable of the highest development; for mental ability is a divine endowment. The intellect may be the possession of an Indian, a Mongolian, an Arab, a Negro, a Hindoo or a Caucasian. Textures may differ, but all mental organisms are the same in color, fiber, and mode of operation and development. It must then follow that the proper training of the intellect must produce the same results upon all races when properly applied. That training which has made the Mongolian, or the German, or the Caucasian race great and powerful will of necessity, under similar conditions, produce like results in the Negro race. Let us now see what the facts show. It is largely through the instrumentality of our schools that Negroes have been taught to place a higher and a proper valuation upon their citizenship, and the importance of the ballot when it is wielded for the maintenance and perpetuation of good government. As a class of citizens Negroes are peaceable and law-abiding, and must not be reckoned with the migratory hordes of anarchists, nihilists, and the wreckers of law and order that infest our Eastern and Western shores. In our schools, too, Negroes have learned that it is theirs to petition respectfully for the enjoyment of their rights, and the redress of grievances so often unjustly imposed upon them. In the last two decades the influence of the schools, colleges and industrial institutions and seminaries of all kinds has wrought wonderful changes in the home life of the Negro race. Purer homes now abound; intemperance is giving way to sobriety and economy; love and order have driven out hate and confusion; the golden rule and the Bible are taken as the measurement of conduct; and, where-ever Negro communities are found, cozy little cottages, and often palatial homes with thoughtful and convenient appointments, have taken the place of the very many little one-room huts in which all the whole range of domestic life was wont to be performed. In these new homes a better and more intelligent class of children is being reared to fit in the scheme of our advancing civilization. These are very hopeful signs of a better generation and a brighter day for the American Negro.
Our Negro teachers and leaders have instilled into the race a desire for the accumulation of property and wealth, and the keeping of bank accounts. "Put money in thy purse," "Put money in thy purse." This advice from Shakespeare is ripening in the minds of all thoughtful Negroes, and the results are being universally manifested. In the United States the valuation of Negro property runs far into the millions. In the state of Georgia alone Negroes are paying taxes on $15,629,811 worth of property; of this amount $1,000,000 represents the increase of a single year—1900 to 1901.
In the domain of literature and the varied professions the education of the Negro has furnished us as lawyers, Hon. D. Augustus Straker, Detroit, Michigan; Hon. R. B. Elliott, late of Columbia, South Carolina; Hon. Jno. R. Lynch, Washington, D. C., paymaster United States Army; Hon. J. W. Lyons, Augusta, Georgia, register Treasury, Washington, D. C.; Hon. H. M. Porter, Augusta, Georgia, lawyer at the bar.
As statesmen Negro education has produced Hon. Frederick Douglass, "The old man eloquent," late of Washington, D. C.; Hon. B. C. Bruce, ex-registrar Treasury, late of Washington, D. C.; Hon. Geo. W. Murray, ex-member Congress, Columbia, D. C.; Hon. Geo. H. White, ex-member Congress, North Carolina.