A Boys' Life of Booker T. Washington/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
BACK AT HAMPTON
There is an old saying that "opportunity knocks but once" upon our door. This is not true. Opportunities will certainly continue to come to us. The important thing is to be ready for them when they come. We never know what incident may turn out to be our greatest opportunity. If we will do our best to meet every situation that confronts us, we may be sure that there will be plenty of opportunities for us. It is the boy that does not do his best on all occasions that loses out. So Washington, when invited to speak at Hampton commencement, worked hard for three months preparing that speech. When the time came, he did his very best. Then he forgot the matter and went home. Just a few days after he got home, he had a great surprise. There came a letter to him from General Armstrong. It said, "We need you here at Hampton. We want you to come and help us run the school."
That was a very happy moment in the life of Washington. He thought more of General Armstrong than of any other man in the world. To be asked by this man to come and work for him made Washington an exceedingly happy man. He immediately wrote that he would accept the position. Some weeks later he reached Hampton, ready to enter upon his new duties.
His job was a rather peculiar one. The Indians in the United States, who had been put upon certain territories out West, after being taken from their land in the South and Southwest, had no system of education and were entirely without schools of any kind.
General Armstrong wanted to help them. He said he believed that they could be educated, and he wanted to try it. The Government of the United States gave its consent and agreed to cooperate with him.
They brought from the West to Hampton about one hundred Indian boys to be educated. These boys were very ignorant; Booker Washington says that they were almost wild.
Washington's task was to live in the same building with these Indian boys and look after them—to be a sort of "house father" to them.
He had a hard job. The Indians are a very proud people. They felt themselves superior to the white race, as well as to the black race. They had a special dislike for the negro because he had been a slave, and the Indians would not be slaves; they preferred death to slavery.
These boys were not only very ignorant, but it was very hard to make them understand, as they did not know the English language well. Furthermore, everybody expected them to fail.
We usually do just about what people expect of us. If they think we are going to succeed, it helps us to succeed. If they think we are going to fail, it makes attainment of success harder for us. Booker Washington said: "I will succeed. I will show these people that these Indians can be educated." So for an entire year he worked with them. He soon won their confidence and respect. That they all liked him was evident, for they did everything they could to satisfy him and please him. He found them ready to work hard and intelligent enough to be taught. They learned the different kinds of trades just about as well as the negroes did. At the end of the year everybody was willing to admit that Washington had made a success of teaching the Indians. Ever since then Indians have been going to Hampton, and many of them are students there to-day.
Washington says his hardest task was to get them to give up some of their old habits and customs. They did not want to part with their long hair; they did not want to quit wearing blankets or quit smoking. However, since these customs were not customs at Hampton, they all agreed to do as the others did there.
Now came another very important work for Washington. After he had worked with the Indians for a year, General Armstrong said, "I have another hard job for you."
"Show it to me," Washington replied.
A great many people who did not have any money were trying to enter Hampton; they were as poor as Washington was when he entered. General Armstrong did not want to turn them away. He finally determined that he would arrange it so these people could work all day at some trade or other line of work and thus pay their living expenses and have something left over to go into the treasurer's office to their account. They had to work ten hours a day to do this. Then they went to school two hours at night. After a year or two they would have enough money saved up from their work to enable them to enter the day school. This plan proved to be a very fine one, and many of the best students from Hampton began in the night school.
It was this night school that General Armstrong wanted Washington to teach. He took charge of it and made a great success of it. There were about twelve in the class to begin with. The boys worked in the sawmill in the daytime, and the girls in the laundry. They were such good workers that he named them the "Plucky Class." After a boy or a girl had been in this class long enough to show that he or she meant business and was going to stick to the job, Washington would give a certificate that read as follows:
"This is to certify that James Smith is a member of the Plucky Class of the Hampton Institute and is in good and regular standing."[1]
The students were very proud of these certificates. It was not long before everybody at Hampton was talking about the "Plucky Class." In a little while there were twenty-five in the group. The number kept on growing the next year, and in a few years the class had several hundred members. It is a big part of Hampton and Tuskegee to-day, for Washington used the same idea at Tuskegee.
Washington had a way of succeeding in everything he undertook. This was because he determined to succeed and worked so hard and so well that success was certain.
- ↑ "Up from Slavery," by Booker T. Washington, p. 105.