“One of our students in his commencement oration last May gave a description of how he planted and raised an acre of cabbages. Piled high upon the platform by his side were some of the largest and finest cabbages I have ever seen. He told how and where he had obtained the seed; he described his method of preparing and enriching the soil, of working the land, and harvesting the crop; and he summed up by giving the cost of the whole operation. In the course of his account of this comparatively simple operation, this student had made use of much that he had learned in composition, grammar, mathematics, chemistry, and agriculture. He had not merely woven into his narrative all these various elements that I have referred to, but he had given the audience (which was made up largely of colored farmers from the surrounding country) some useful and practical information in regard to a subject which they understood and were interested in. I wish that any one who does not believe it possible to make a subject like cabbages interesting in a commencement oration could have heard the hearty cheers which greeted the speaker when, at the close of his speech, he held up one of the largest cabbages on the platform for the audience to look at and admire. As a matter of fact there is just as much that is interesting, strange, mysterious and wonderful; just as much to be learned that is edifying, broadening, and refining in a cabbage as there is in a page of Latin. There is, however, this distinction; it will make very little difference to the world whether one negro boy, more or less, learns to construe a page of Latin. On the other hand, as soon as one negro boy has been taught to apply thought and study and ideas to the growing of cabbages, he has started a process which, if it goes on and continues, will eventually transform the whole face of things as they exist in the South to-day.”[[28]]
It can be readily seen from these two accounts just what kind of education Washington believed in and tried to give his students at Tuskegee. It was quite different from most of the training that had been given the negro after the war. In those early days of freedom, many of the negroes seemed to have the idea that the bigger the book and the harder the words in it, the better the education was that they secured. Some of them thought, too, that they were not educated unless they studied Latin and Greek and higher mathematics, and other similar subjects. Booker Washington did not mean that history, literature, and foreign languages should not be studied and had no value. What he was emphasizing was the fact that boys and girls should first get a clear idea of things about them. Then they would be able better to understand and appreciate such subjects as history and literature.
One other feature of the kind of education that Tuskegee stands for ought to be mentioned, and that is the extension work. This work has become a very large part of the Institute. The extension work is not so much a matter of teaching, of education in the usual sense, as it is an effort to give direct and practical help to people outside the college walls. Most of this extension work has been done in Macon and adjoining counties. From the first month of his school, Washington began to go into the country round about and mingle with his people. He went to their homes, their churches, their schools. He saw their poor farms, their lean stock, their dilapidated houses, their lack of the comforts and necessities of good living. The homes, the churches, the schoolhouses were in bad condition. Washington had the greatest sympathy for these people, knowing why they were in poverty and ignorance, and he had a great desire to help them. And it is through this extension work that these people are helped.
The students’ band of this rural school is instructed by a band student of Tuskegee Institute.
The Institute sends its workers throughout the surrounding country to show the farmers improved farm machinery, better methods of farming, better breeds of live stock of all kinds, better methods of dairying, and better ways of preparing food, keeping house, and caring for the children. They insist on improving the school buildings, the churches, and the homes. As a result of this work, there are now in Macon County a number of neat new schoolhouses, with a teacher’s house alongside each school, several acres of land adjoining, and a good church close by. Thus clean, pleasant, and thoroughly happy communities are created. In such communities there is the smallest amount of crime, and there is the largest amount of prosperity and contentment and enjoyment.
All the graduates of Tuskegee are enthusiasts for education and community builders. Wherever they go, they stand for the best in life. They are devoted to Tuskegee and its spirit and its ideals. It is this devotion which makes them industrious and capable and law-abiding and helpful in every possible way in the communities in which they live. Hundreds of small schools have been established all over the South by these graduates, patterned on Tuskegee. It is impossible to overestimate the good they have done.
Tailoring Division, Tuskegee Institute
Tuskegee has grown to be one of the greatest schools in the country, and the greatest of all schools for the negroes. It has grown from 100 acres and three little buildings to a plant of 2100 acres and 111 buildings. Instead of one teacher with 30 pupils there are now more than 200 teachers and 1500 students. The institution has a large endowment, and it owns 20,000 acres of land given it by the United States Government. It keeps a large dairy herd, runs a large farm, a poultry farm, and keeps a large number of pigs, horses and sheep. Every phase of education is taught, but the main work is industrial,—carpentry, brick masonry, basket making, metal working, draughting, auto-mechanics, blacksmithing, telegraphy, farming, dairying, lumbering, building, cooking, sewing, nursing, housekeeping—all these and a large number of other callings are taught. It is through such training as this that Washington believed that the negroes, in largest numbers, would first get their best start in life.