SECOND PAPER.
WILL THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO SOLVE THE RACE PROBLEM?
BY PROF. J. R. HAWKINS.
JOHN RUSSELL HAWKINS.
John Russell Hawkins, the oldest son of Ossian and Christiana Hawkins, was born in the town of Warrenton, Warren County, North Carolina, on May 31, 1862. At the age of six years, he began attending the public school of his native town and made rapid progress in his studies.
When old enough to help his father work, he had to stop attending school regularly and apply himself to work on his father's farm. In the mean time, he kept up studies by attending night school and employing private tutors. At the age of fifteen, he went with four members of the highest class in the regular graded school to take the public examination for school teacher. Of the five examined, he made the highest grades and received an appointment as assistant teacher in the same school where he had received his first training.
In 1881, he left home and went to Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va., where he spent one year in special study preparatory for business.
In 1882, he left Hampton and accepted a position in the Government service, as railway postal clerk, on the line between Raleigh, N. C., and Norfolk, Va. Here he soon made a record that classed him among the best clerks in the service. In 1885, Mr. Hawkins returned to his native town and was elected as principal of the graded school. Here he spent two years teaching and reading law under private tutors.
In 1887, he was asked to go to Kittrell, N. C., to fill the position as business manager and treasurer of Kittrell College, then known as Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute. So acceptably did Mr. Hawkins fill this position that in 1890 he was elected to the Presidency of Kittrell College, which position he has filled with credit.
During the first eight years of his work at Kittrell, he developed that work so rapidly that the trustees deemed it wise to accept his recommendations and broaden the work so as to cover a regular college course. Mr. Hawkins has always been an ardent advocate of higher education for the Negro and worked hard to fit himself for giving such advantages to his students. For five years he spent his summers in the North, where he could get the best school advantages and keep himself in touch with best school methods.
Mr. Hawkins has been one of the most successful educators of the South and has raised large sums of money by public canvass among the philanthropists of the country. In his native State, North Carolina, he is a recognized leader among his people, and by his ability and standing has won the confidence and respect of all classes. A ripe scholar, a deep thinker, a ready writer and a polished orator, his services are almost constantly in demand. Indeed, it has been said of him that he is one of the finest public speakers on the stage. He speaks with such power of conviction as to touch the heart of his audiences and at once lead them into the subject under consideration with interest and profit.
In 1896 he was elected by the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as Commissioner of Education and filled that office so acceptably that at the end of his first term in 1900, he was re-elected by acclamation. He is regarded as among the strongest laymen in his church and one of the best financiers of the race.
One of the finest qualities of Mr. Hawkins is his devotion to his family and his high ideals in home life.
In 1892 he married Miss Lillian M. Kennedy, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, whose companionship and devotion has been a most important factor in contributing to her husband's success. They are the happy parents of two children, a girl and a boy, and are pleasantly located at Kittrell, N. C., in a very beautiful home.
Every nation of recognized merit and ability, chronicled in the world's history, is proud to revert to some special feature of its life, and point with pride to some one thing that has given character to its institutions and added to its national glory. As far back as history runs, we find nations, classes and races, pointing out different things as the stronghold, the ground work, the pillars on which their fame rests.
The thing to which the Negro can point with most pride, is the activity and progress made in the development of an ideal home life and the providing of a liberal education for his people. Indeed, it is worthy of note, that in both church and state, there is a growing interest in behalf of extending to all classes the privileges and benefits of at least a limited education. Nations that once thought of nothing but war and conquest are throwing their influence in the scale of popular education.
Countries that have long wielded the scepter of power, and held thousands subject to the will and opinion of one man or set of men, are being aroused to the importance of individual thought and individual responsibility. Churches and organizations that necessarily began their work with one or two as leaders, who had to do the thinking for hundreds of others, are now turning their attention to the work of training and developing the faculties and character of each one so as to enable him to think and act intelligently for himself; this is the spirit of the present age. In this lies the hope and destiny of all classes and all races.
Hence, if there be any particular problem as connected with the Negro race, in my opinion the solution of that problem will come only by following the rule of action applied to the uplifting and development of others.