A Boys' Life of Booker T. Washington/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
STRENUOUS DAYS
As Booker Washington began the second year of his school, he met a new obstacle. That was nothing unusual for him, however. He was usually facing a hard job. He spent his life working on difficult tasks, and he never found one that he did not finish with satisfaction. He tackled this problem at once and with confidence.
There were two parts to it. In the first place, although he had a fine farm of five hundred acres all paid for, he had no buildings, except that old kitchen, stable, and henhouse, in which to house his students. When school opened in the fall of 1882, there were about one hundred and fifty students present. These three or four little old shacks would not take care of that crowd. What was he to do? This was his first difficulty.
His other problem was this. His school was just outside the town of Tuskegee. It adjoined the town. A great many people in Tuskegee thought that this school ought not to be built. Many were opposed to Booker Washington. Many were opposed to educating negroes, and they believed that negroes went to school simply to get out of work, and that an educated negro was "sorry" and troublesome. Then there were some who said: "This man means well, but he is just a negro, and, of course, he can't succeed." Then, there were others who said: "This man Washington is all right. I believe in him and trust him. He is doing a good thing. He is going to succeed. I am counting on him." So, his second job was to win the friendship and good will of all the people in the town and round about and not to disappoint those who believed in him. He worked out these two problems together, as we shall see from what happened.
The very first thing needed by the students after all was not a building but something to eat. So the first move Washington made was to start the students to work on the farm in raising a crop. Every day, after the students had studied and recited their lessons, they would go to the fields and work. We have already learned how they found out what a "chopping bee" was. Now they were working in the fields where they had previously cut down the trees. Some of them did not like this work at first. They said: "We did not come to school to do work like this. We have had enough of this at home." But Washington kept right on, working hard himself and showing his students that he was not ashamed to do hard work with his hands.
The next thing in order was a building—a good building, large and comfortable and useful. He began to make plans for it. He knew he had to have it, and, although he really did not have any money at all in hand, he went right ahead and planned a fine building to cost six thousand dollars. He did not know where he would get the money, but he had a firm belief that in some way the money would be secured.
When it was learned that he expected to put up this building, a man who lived near Tuskegee and who owned a sawmill came to Washington and said to him: "I have been watching you. I know what kind of a man you are. You will keep your word, and you will pay your debts. I see that you need some help. I just want to say that I will furnish you all the lumber you need for this building at once, and you can pay just whenever you are able." Washington explained that, while he hoped to be able to raise the money to pay for the building, he had not yet secured any of it. The man replied: "That's all right. Your credit is good with me; I will trust you."
We can see from this incident how well he was succeeding in making friends with his neighbors.
As soon as he had raised a part of the money, he let the man put the material on the ground. Then the building was begun, and again the students did all the work. They first digged the foundations, and some of them became so disgusted with this work that they left the place altogether. Washington was sorry that they left, but he said that any one who was too proud to work with his hands and help out at a time like this did not belong in his school. However, most of the students remained and were perfectly willing to do the work. Rapid progress was made, the foundations were finished, and they were ready for the laying of the corner stone.
The laying of the corner stone of this building is an important event in the history of the education of the negro. There was a great crowd present. Washington, his teachers, his students and their parents, and a large number of other negroes were there. There were present, also, a large number of white people,—the mayor of the town, the councilmen, the sheriff and all the other county officers, and all the prominent business and professional men of the community.
In a way this ceremony marks an epoch in Negro history in America. Just seventeen years before, it was against the law for a negro to be taught books at all in Alabama. Just seventeen years before, the negroes were slaves,—for this was in 1882 and in the "Black Belt," in the very heart of the South. That this large group of white men should gather with the negroes for the purpose of dedicating a building to negro education shows what wonderful change of sentiment had taken place. It shows also how thoroughly Booker Washington had won the confidence of all the people among whom he was working.
All his students were from Alabama. Most of them were from the country. He knew that most of them would spend their lives on the farm or in occupations of some kind. He wanted them to be practical; to know how to do well the things they would surely be compelled to do. So he determined from the very beginning that his students should learn how to do practical things as well as learn from books. He had them clear the land for the school; he had them farm the cleared lands; he had them do the cooking; he had them make the brick and build the buildings of the school. He says that his idea was to teach the students the best methods of labor and how to derive the greatest benefit from their work. He wanted them to learn new ways of work,—how to use steam, water, and electricity. He also wanted to teach them that work was dignified and honorable and that no man should be ashamed to do any kind of honest work.
He followed this plan till his death, and nearly every one of the many buildings that stood at Tuskegee when he died was built entirely by the students themselves.
They planned to build this first large building— "Porter Hall" they called it—of brick; so they went out to make the brick right there. The students did not like this work. It was hard and it was dirty. However, they went at it and, after several trials, found some brick clay.
They molded the brick, built the kiln, fired it, and waited. When the burning was done, they found that they had made a complete failure. None of the brick could be used. At once they built another kiln. This also turned out to be a failure. Some of them were discouraged at this, and said: "Let's quit." But others said: "We must succeed." So a third kiln was built. This kiln seemed to be burning splendidly when suddenly, on the last night, it fell.
This was surely discouraging, but Washington was not to be stopped by failure. He was now without a dollar to continue this work. He happened to think, however, of a watch he owned. He took the watch to Montgomery, Alabama, near by, pawned it for fifteen dollars, came home, called the workers together once more, built another kiln, and this time the kiln was a success.
Later, when he went back to get his watch, it was gone; but he never regretted losing it in such a good cause.
Now that he was successful in making bricks, the work progressed on the buildings, and soon Porter Hall was finished, and other buildings were started.
There were two other things Washington wanted for his school. One was a place for his students to board, and the other, a place for them to room. Washington said that he had nothing but the students and their appetites to begin a boarding department with. However, they got busy, dug a large amount of earth from beneath Porter Hall, and opened this basement up for a dining room. They had no dishes, no knives and forks to speak of, at first; they had poor arrangements of every kind. And they had bad luck. Something went wrong almost every day at first. They would spill the soup, burn the meat, or leave the salt out of the bread. Meals were served with no sort of regularity.
Washington says that one morning he was at the dining room when everything went wrong. The breakfast was a failure. One of the girls who failed to get any breakfast went to the well to get a drink of water, and found the well rope broken. Washington heard her say: "You can't even get water to drink at this school."[1] He says that remark came nearer discouraging him than anything that ever happened to him.
He may have been discouraged, but he kept on, and in a little while things were coming out all right. And to-day, one of the greatest sights at Tuskegee is the great dining hall with its white tablecloths, napkins, and vases of flowers, with elegant meals served in excellent style and order and on time.
The next thing was rooms for the boarders. Students were coming from a distance. There was no place for them at the school. Besides, Washington wanted them at the school so that he could help them learn best how to keep their rooms and live as folks ought to live. They used the cabins first for sleeping quarters, but they had almost no furniture. They made mattresses of pine needles. Their bedclothes were so scant the first winter that several were frostbitten.
Soon a good house was built, however, for all the students, and now they began to live as people ought. Among other things, Washington insisted that they use toothbrushes. He said that perhaps no one thing meant more in the real training of the negro than the proper use of this article. He went from room to room himself to see whether the students had them. "We found one room," he says, "that contained three girls who had recently arrived at the school. When I asked them if they had toothbrushes, one of the girls replied, pointing to a brush, 'Yes, sir, that is our brush. We bought it together yesterday.' It did not take them long to learn a different lesson."[2]
In many ways, he was able to help these students learn the proper ways of living—how to sleep properly, how to care for their bodies, and how to take care of their clothes.
This second year of the school was truly a strenuous one in clearing land, raising a crop, making bricks, building Porter Hall, starting a boarding department and a rooming department. Everybody had been busy doing good work, and everybody was happy. They were making a great beginning.
A very important event of this year was the marriage of Washington to Fannie M. Smith. They had known each other back in Malden, and, as soon as Washington's work was well begun, they were married. She lived only two years after her marriage, dying in 1884, and leaving a daughter, Portia M. Washington. Several years later Washington married Olivia Davidson, the teacher who had been associated with him in the school almost from the first, and who had done so much to help him in getting the school started.