Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt

by William James Edwards

“A third warning is, that we must not mistake the aim and end of education. You will find somewhere in the Bible a sentence like this: ‘And the word was made flesh and it dwelled among us.’ The word had been spoken by Abraham; Moses thundered it from Mt. Sinai’s ragged brow; Ezekiel preached it; David sang it; Solomon proclaimed it; Jeremiah prophesied it; Elijah saw it in the whirlwind; Moses saw it in the burning bush, and Isaiah saw it and in amazement cried: ‘Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bazroh? this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength?’ But my friends, none of this would do. Speaking the word would not atone; hearing it would not redeem; and seeing it would not save. The word had to be made flesh and blood in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and then come down on earth and live, move, and dwell among us.

“As with the word, so with education. You have been here a number of years trying to obtain it. You have heard education from your teachers; you have heard it in the class-rooms; you have heard it from the platform; you have heard it in the Sunday-School; you have gleaned it from your text-books; you have sung it; you have prayed it; you have spoken it; you have walked it; you have assumed it. But none of these will suffice. Education, in order to be real, must be applied; in order to be effective, it must be digested and assimilated. It must become a part of your flesh and blood; it must transform you into a new creature and then go out and move, live and dwell among us.

“And now a final word for the class of ’93. What of its loyalty to Tuskegee, our Alma Mater? It is true that at times our purposes and aims have been misunderstood and misconstructed; at times your attitude towards us has been misinterpreted, but not once have we doubted your love. We hope that you have never mistrusted ours.

“It is true that at times we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in dispair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. Through all of this, our love and loyalty to dear old Tuskegee has never wavered, and now as a token of this love and loyalty, I hand to Dr. Washington as a Memorial Scholarship for the class of ’93, a check for one thousand dollars.”

I think that this act pleased Dr. Washington more than anything that had ever been done by the class of ’93. We all were proud of this because we wanted Dr. Washington to see that we had not forgotten what he had done for us. We wanted to do this during his lifetime, and this we succeeded in doing.

An address before the Alabama State Teachers’ Association, held in Montgomery, Ala., the subject being:

“School Building Under Difficulties.”

“There is no work pertaining to the welfare of our race that is of more importance than that of the teacher, and no class of people has a harder task to perform than the earnest and conscientious Negro teacher of today.

“The problems that come before the large educational associations of this and other countries, are problems dealing largely with the child, such as the treatment of backward children, treating of abnormal children, care of the blind, of the deaf, special treatment for incorrigibles, the feeble minded, and many other kinds of mental and physical defectives.

“Other problems that demand the attention of such meetings, are problems dealing with the teacher, his preparation and qualification for the various grades of our schools, for instance, preparation of the teacher for the elementary school, for the secondary school, and for colleges and universities. These associations also give much time to such subjects as The Relation of Education to Real Life; The Defects of our Present School System; and how these defects may be remedied. In other words, how can the school better fit the student to take his place in the social and economic life of today? I repeat, these are the problems which largely consume the time of these educational meetings. They are vital and far-reaching, and demand the closest attention of our wisest and best educators. They are not racial; not sectional; not even national, but are universal in their scope and teachers in all parts of the world must contend with them.