VACATIONING.
PROF. A. K. SPENCE, FISK UNIVERSITY.
“What did your students do during vacation?” Various things. But with few exceptions they did not rest. Quite a number are young and went to their homes in town and country—the girls to help their mothers, the boys their fathers. Some hired out for house and farm labor. One farms on his own account. One was head waiter in a summer hotel in Tennessee. Two worked on a farm in Minnesota and two, sons of a professor, on one in Ohio. Some ran on sleeping cars in the North, and made up the beds you lay on. One worked in the railroad exposition in Chicago. One kept store and studied law in West Tennessee. One preached in Florence, Ala., with the usual blessing of God on his labors. One was employed by the State of Texas in holding institutes. Former students of ours were also employed in the same way. But, as usual, the most of those advanced enough to do so taught school. Not to mention those of low grade, out of seventy-eight enrolled in the collegiate department last year, fifty-seven taught school. The colored man seems by taste and circumstances to be a school teacher. Occasionally a student teaches who ought to rest. It is the thing to do. It is rather a shame not to. The long-instructed desires to instruct. The young fledgling wants to try its wings, the Demosthenes his oratory, the Hercules his club. Long before vacation begins we teach thinning classes, and lament many an empty seat the first Monday in September. This is hard on scholarship, but necessary for the purse, and good for their own manhood and the people whom they teach.
Schools must be taught when they are held, and held when the children can be spared from the farms. This varies with latitude and the products raised. In the cotton region it is when the crop is “laid by,” that is after the last hoeing and before the first picking, and begins in April or May. In the wheat and grass regions schools commence in June, July or even August. Those whom we lose by early schools in the spring we get promptly in the fall, and the reverse.
The most of the teachers who have returned report nothing remarkable, no doubt the best kind of a report to have to make. Honest, legitimate labor has never much to say for itself. Among the things mentioned in addition to the paid labor of the work are these: securing libraries, papers, Testaments for Sunday-school, teaching infant class, teaching Bible class, leading singing, superintending; and one did all this, organizing his entire school into one class. He also rented an organ which he played. One or more held prayer meetings. All had religious exercises in school. A few gave temperance lectures. One had a temperance glee club. Several gave musical entertainments, especially at close of school, white and colored in attendance. One county in this State is almost exclusively occupied by students from Fisk. They organized themselves into an institute, meeting once a month for the discussion of methods and the interests of education in general. By invitation Prof. Bennett attended the last meeting, delivering addresses and preaching on the following Sunday. He found the colored people gathered en masse and the interest up to fever heat.
About the usual number of misfortunes has befallen our students this year. One is shortsighted and wears spectacles; he is also quite light colored. Both these damaged him. He was taken for a Jew trying to pass himself off as a colored man. White and colored alike looked upon him with suspicion. He succeeded in persuading the colored people that he was one of them, but the whites had no use for the “white nigger in spectacles.” By continued insult and threats his nervous system was so worn upon that he fell sick and left after teaching a month. Two young men teaching in a river county in Mississippi had, briefly told, the following experience: The boat could not land at the place sought, but they were put ashore at midnight, three miles away. There were two houses at the landing, one being unoccupied. In this they got permission to spend the night. They lay on bags of cotton-seed. There being no means of fastening doors, one of them put his money, two dollars and fifty cents, in his shoe, under his foot, for safe-keeping. The next day they walked through mud and rain to the town, and from there set out in search of schools.
To secure a school is frequently a thing of no small difficulty. The young men or women must make a journey of miles through blind ways on foot or with such conveyance as can be found. The neighborhood being reached, the leading colored people must be approached as the first step. The community is Baptist or Methodist, and the school will be held in the church. “What are you?” “I am a Congregationalist.” “What is that?” If denominational difficulties are overcome, the next thing to do is to meet the white trustees. They may be in favor of home talent. These foreign students carry money out of the country. They look independent and may teach things not in the book. But here is Sam. He can read. He owes ’Squire So-and-so. If he gets the school he will pay him. We favor Sam. If, however, Sam cannot by every contrivance pass the examination, the Fisk student appears before the County Superintendent. But here a new difficulty. The Superintendent holds an institute to prepare persons to pass his own examination, charging them five dollars apiece. Those who attend are quite sure to pass. It is wise for the Fisk student to be at that institute, pay his fee and pass, for when that institute is over the time for getting a school in that county is up. This state of things does not exist in all places, let us hope not in many, but it does in some. It is quite a common rule never to give a first-class certificate, no matter what the scholarship, to a colored student, as in most States it increases his pay, and perhaps it would not seem fit for a colored boy or girl to get a better certificate than some white young man or woman. There are exceptions to this rule. In one examination in which there were forty candidates, two got first-class certificates. These two were from Fisk.