Life is strenuous in this school. Here is an outline of the daily work: “5 A.M., rising bell; 5:50 A.M., warning breakfast bell; 6:00 A.M., breakfast bell; 6:20 A.M., breakfast over; 6:20–6:50 A.M., rooms cleaned; 6:50 A.M., work bell; 7:30 A.M., morning study hour; 8:20 A.M., morning school bell; 8:25 A.M., inspection of young men’s dress in ranks; 8:40 A.M., devotional exercises in chapel; 8:55 A.M., ‘five minutes with the daily news’; 9:00 A.M., class work begins; 12:00 M., class work ends; 12:15 P.M., dinner; 1:00 P.M., work bell; 1:30 P.M., class work begins; 3:30 P.M., class work ends; 5:30 P.M., bell to ‘knock off’ work; 6:00 P.M., supper; 7:10 P.M., evening prayers; 7:30 P.M., evening study hour: 8:45 P.M., evening study hour closes; 9:20 P.M., warning bell; 9:30 P.M., retiring bell.”[[29]]
Washington has done more for the education of the negro than any other one man, white or black. His work at Tuskegee, his great educational campaigns, and his speeches and writings have combined to make his accomplishments of supreme value. Not only has he done this for the negro, but his work has helped the cause of education for the white people very greatly. All education in the South was backward. Like his great teacher, General Armstrong, Washington realized that in their progress the two races were bound together in the South, and that they must grow or step backward together. It is impossible for the negro to make his best progress unless the white man does so at the same time. And of course this works both ways. Because he believed this, Washington was anxious for school conditions for white people to change just as well as the school conditions for negroes. Besides, he wanted all the people to have the advantages of education. He did not hate anybody, and consequently did not want anybody to be deprived of the best there was in life. He did not want anybody, white or black, to fail to have his best opportunity. So he worked for the advancement of the cause of the white schools as well as the black, and his services to the white schools were great.
The future of negro education is very bright. Schools and colleges are being built every year. Better teachers are being prepared. Children are going to school in larger numbers than ever before, and their work is more satisfactory.
Every year the states appropriate more and more money for negro education. The negro is now able to pay a large part of the cost of his own education, and he is very willingly doing so.
The negro is determined to get an education. When he gets it, he will be a better citizen. And the better the citizens of a country are, the better life is in every way, and the more completely are all our problems solved.
CHAPTER XII
LEADING HIS PEOPLE
Immediately following Washington’s great speech in Atlanta in 1895, there came the statement from all parts of the country, “Here is the new leader of the negro race.” During the last years of slavery, and the Civil War, and on for years after the war, Frederick Douglass, as has been said, was the acknowledged leader of the negro in the United States. Douglass had died in the early part of the year 1895. It seemed that this man Washington had been raised up to take his place. The Atlanta speech continued to be a topic of discussion throughout the country, and coupled with this discussion was invariably the statement that here was the new leader of the race.
Washington says that he was at a great loss to know what people meant when they referred to him as the leader of his people. Of course, this leadership was not a thing that he had sought. The people thrust this duty upon him, and of course no man has a right to shun or dodge responsibility that is thus bestowed.
He was not in doubt long as to what it meant to be a leader. One of the first things that happened was the large number of invitations that came to him to deliver addresses. These requests came from all parts of the country and from all sorts of organizations. A very large number of these invitations he was compelled to refuse. However, when he felt he could serve his institution and his people, he always accepted. He represented the Negro at the unveiling of the monument of R. G. Shaw, in Boston; and at the Peace Convention in Chicago in 1898, at which time President McKinley spoke. He attended most of the large religious gatherings of his people throughout the country, and spoke before them. Almost immediately there began to pour in on him a perfect flood of letters from all parts of the country, from white and black, high and low, rich and poor, asking a thousand different questions. Now it would be a letter from a railroad president asking about some problem of dealing with his employees; now from a school man asking about the segregation of the races in schools. Again, from a legislator, asking advice on some legislation; but principally the letters came from his own people, asking all sorts of questions about a multitude of things. One man wanted Washington to use his influence to secure the adoption of a flag for the negro race; another wanted his backing for a patent medicine that would take the curl out of the negro’s hair. Another wanted to know if the negro race was dying out; another, if the race was being blended with the white race; another, if he thought the negro was being treated right politically. Perhaps the most remarkable request, however, was from a woman, who wanted him to find her husband who had deserted her some years before. And in order that he might be easily identified she describes him: “This is the hith of him 5–6 light eyes dark hair unwave shave and a Suprano Voice his age 58 his name Steve.”[[30]]
To all of these letters he replied in the fullest and frankest and kindest way.