A Boys' Life of Booker T. Washington/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
SCHOOL DAYS AT HAMPTON
At the close of the Civil War one of the most important needs of the country was to provide some kind of education for the negroes. They had never had any schools. If they were to become good citizens, they must have the proper training. A great many good men in the North and in the South recognized this fact, and set to work to establish schools. Among these men was General Samuel C. Armstrong. The General's parents had been missionaries to Hawaii. He had been educated in the United States, had entered the army as soon as the war began, and had made such a brilliant record as a soldier that, when the war was over, he had risen to the rank of general.
He had seen a great deal of the negro as a soldier during the war. He knew about the conditions in the South, and he felt that the greatest service he could render would be to give his life to the cause of education. He went to work at once, and, through the aid of a number of Southern men, he established a school for negro boys and girls at Hampton, Virginia, and called it Hampton Institute.
His main purpose was to give negro boys and girls an opportunity to learn some useful trade. He believed that people must first learn to make a good living before they could make much progress in any other direction. He wanted the negroes to have good food and good clothes and good homes. He wanted them to be able to earn these things. Likewise, he wanted them to be good farmers, good carpenters, good brick masons, good mechanics, and good workmen in all kinds of trades. He wanted these trades taught in the schools. Then, as the race progressed, he wished to have the higher branches of study given, such as Latin, mathematics, and literature.
Thus was begun one of the greatest schools in America. Every negro boy knows about Hampton. Thousands of the best negroes in the country were trained there. General Armstrong was president of the school and did a wonderful work.
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He seemed to inspire every student who entered to become a good and useful citizen. Too much cannot be said in praise of him and the great school he founded.
It was here that Booker arrived in the fall of 1872, with a little satchel of clothes, fifty cents in his pocket, a happy heart, and a determination to succeed.
Just as soon as he was able to get an interview, he went to the head teacher, Mary F. Mackie, and told her that he wanted to enter school. She stared at him. He was dirty after his long and hard journey. His clothes were soiled. He realized at once that he was making a bad impression, and it was not his fault. Miss Mackie would not say whether she would admit him or not. She made him wait. He was worried. All he wanted was a chance to show her that he meant business. Then a very interesting thing happened. Booker Washington tells the story himself. He called it his examination.
"After some time had passed," he says, "the head teacher said: 'The adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it.'
"It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. Never did I receive an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner had thoroughly taught me how to do that when I lived with her.
"I swept the recitation room three times. Then I got a dusting-cloth and I dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table, and desk, I went over four times with my dusting-cloth. Besides, every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner in the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that in a large measure my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning of that room.
"When I was through, I rapped on the door, and reported to the teacher. She was a 'Yankee' woman who knew just where to look for dirt. She went into the room and inspected the floor and closets; then she took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls, and over the table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor, or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly remarked, 'I guess you will do to enter this institution.'
"I was one of the happiest souls on earth. The sweeping of that room was my college examination, and never did any youth pass an entrance examination into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine satisfaction. I have passed several examinations since then, but I have always felt that this one was the best one I ever passed."[1]
As a result of his sweeping the room, he was permitted to enter his classes and was also given a job as janitor, and his college career began. It was a new, strange life. He sat down at a table, which had a cloth on it, to eat his meals. He slept in a bed that had sheets on it. These sheets gave him trouble. The first night he slept under both of them. He didn't think that was right, so the next night he slept on top of both of them. The third night he watched his roommates,—there were seven of them in the same room,—and he saw how the thing was done. After that, he did as the others did and slept between the sheets.
"I sometimes feel," he says, "that almost the most valuable lesson I got at Hampton Institute was in the use and value of a bath. I learned there, for the first time, some of its value was not only in keeping the body healthy, but in inspiring self-respect and promoting virtue. In all my travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton Institute, I have always in some way sought my daily bath. To get it sometimes when I have been the guest of my own people in a single-roomed cabin has not been easy to do except by slipping away to some stream in the woods. I have always tried to teach my people that some provision for bathing should be a part of every house."[2]
For some time he had only one pair of socks. He had a time of it with these socks. When they were too soiled to wear, he would wash them out at night, hang them by the fire and dry them out, and put them on the next morning. He also had a hard time with his clothes. They had inspection every morning. The students were lined up, and General Armstrong passed along the lines and carefully examined every one. If a button was off, or if the clothes were torn or soiled in any way, the General would see it. Booker had a hard time keeping his clothes in such a condition that they would pass muster.
His work as janitor was very hard. He often had to work late at night, for he had many rooms to clean. He always got up at four o'clock in the morning to build his fires and do some of his studying. He had a hard time working and making expenses too. He usually borrowed his books from other students. He soon got some more clothing from the barrels of clothing sent to the school by people from the North. Board was ten dollars a month, part of which he could pay by his work as janitor, but a part of it he was supposed to pay in cash, and he had no cash. His work was so satisfactory, however, that in a short while he was told that his work would pay all of his board. S. Griffitts Morgan, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, paid his tuition. At the end of the year he owed the college only sixteen dollars.
When the college closed at the end of the term, all the students went home. Booker could not go. It was too far, and he had no money. He wanted to get away and get a job, so that he could pay the sixteen dollars he owed. He had an extra second-hand coat; so he decided to sell that to get money to go away on. He cleaned and pressed the coat, and then let it be known that it was for sale. After a while a man came to see it. He looked at it and asked the price. Booker told him three dollars. The man said, "Well, I think I will take it. I will tell you what I will do. I will pay you five cents cash, and the rest as soon as I can get it," How do you suppose Booker felt about that?
He finally got a job as a waiter in a restaurant at Fortress Monroe. They did not pay him enough for him to save anything. One day when he was cleaning up the place, he found a nice, crisp ten-dollar bill under a table. He was very happy. Now he could pay back the money he owed at Hampton. However, he thought he ought to tell the proprietor about finding the ten dollars. He did so, and the proprietor coolly took the ten-dollar bill, saying that, since the place belonged to him, everything that was found in it naturally belonged to him.
After vacation was over, he returned to Hampton and was told that he could have as long to pay the sixteen dollars as he wanted, and that he could have a job as janitor again. So, his second year passed much the same as the first. He devoted much of his time this year and the next to the debating societies. He says that he never missed a single meeting while he was at Hampton. He also organized a new society. He had twenty minutes every night after supper before work began. Most of the students, he observed, wasted this time. He proposed that good use be made of this period in reading and speaking, and he organized a society for that purpose. He says that no time he spent in college was more valuable than this.
After the close of his second year, he went home to Malden to spend his vacation. His brother John had sent him some money, and he had earned some extra money. So he had enough to take him home. Everybody was delighted to see him, but most of all, his mother. All the neighbors insisted on his visiting them and taking a meal with them and telling all about his college days. He also spoke at Sunday schools, at the day school, and at churches, telling about his life at Hampton. This was all very nice, but he wanted some work, so that he could earn enough to take him back to Hampton in the fall. He was unable to find any work because the salt furnaces and the coal mines were closed. One day he went further than usual looking for something to do but without success. On his way home he became so tired that he went into a deserted cabin by the road to spend the night. About three o'clock some one woke him up. It was his brother John, who told him that their mother had just died.
This was a terrible shock to Booker. He had had no idea his mother was so ill. He had always wanted to be with her and care for her. He had looked forward to the time when he might make enough money for her to live in comfort. He loved her very dearly, and her death was the hardest blow he had ever received.
It was not long after this that he got some work and saved enough money to take him back to Hampton. During his third year at college he worked harder than ever. He was still working as janitor, but every single minute he had after his work was done he spent on his studies. College boys in those days did not have time to play football, baseball, and tennis. They did not have time to go on picnics or have dances. 
He had done a good job. He had done the kind of work that makes real men. He had trained his mind and his hands. He had built character. He was not ashamed. He could hold his head up and look the world in the face. He had learned to help himself. He was independent and had gained self-confidence and self-control. He knew little of Latin, but he knew much of labor. He knew no Greek, but he knew how to dig. He knew the soil. He knew people. He was ready for the great work that lay before him.