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Methodist Adventures in Negro Education:
Electronic Edition.

Stowell, Jay S. (Jay Samuel), 1883-1966.


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University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
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(title page) Methodist Adventures in Negro Education
Jay S. Stowell.
190 p., ill.
New York; Cincinnati
The Methodist Book Concern
[c1922]
Call Number: C378 B47E (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

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OTHER BOOKS BY JAY S. STOWELL


Methodist Adventures in Negro Education

BY

JAY S. STOWELL

THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN
NEW YORK
CINCINNATI


Page verso

Copyright, 1922, by
JAY S. STOWELL
Printed in the United States of America


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CONTENTS


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ILLUSTRATIONS


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INTRODUCTION

         FOR the first time in the long years in which the Methodist Episcopal Church has labored for the education of the American Negro, a coordinated presentation of the remarkable story is now presented. It is a romance in education, and brings to the thousands of Methodists who have invested in the work of the Freedmen's Aid Society, now the Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, an adequate statement of the large returns their money has made possible.

        The author, the Rev. Jay S. Stowell, a member of the Publicity Staff of the Committee on Conservation and Advance of the Council of Boards of Benevolence of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has had an unusual opportunity to secure his facts and impressions. In addition to the records and the history of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, whose work for Negro girls is closely related to that of the Board of Education for Negroes, he had the privilege of a personal visit to each of the schools. This gives to the book that value which only firsthand knowledge makes possible.

        The achievement of the Methodist Episcopal Church in this field of service emphasizes the magnitude of the task to be done. It lays bare the urgent


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needs for buildings, equipment, and larger faculties for the schools. Men and women trained in these schools are now professors and college presidents in the schools in which they received their training. But more leaders are sorely needed.

        We read here of the sacrificial devotion of pioneers with warming hearts. We think of the Negro leaders, whom we know, with new interest and pride. The faithful secretaries of the Board of Education for Negroes who heralded the needs, the bishops who interested men and women of wealth to erect buildings and provide endowment, and the church editors who have scattered the story broadcast week by week -- all stand forth in a new way in the light of the results recorded here.

        The wisdom of those who start new ventures in Church or State is always questioned. Would that all those who participated in the organization of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church might know how their wisdom has been justified.

        The facts recorded by Mr. Stowell are given a fine philosophical treatment. He does the unusual -- but praiseworthy -- thing of paying tribute to those who achieved while they are yet alive, and he inspires the reader to a new conception of the place of the American Negro in American life.

        "Methodist Adventures in Negro Education" is of value to the Negro race, to the nation and to the church. It is a permanent contribution to the literature of the evolution of a race from slavery to


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efficient citizenship. It records the part played both by the early toilers and by the Centenary of Methodist Missions which is making possible the achievements of to-day. It demonstrates in terms of work accomplished, the function and value of a great Benevolent Board.

        May the ministry of its message bear large and lasting fruit.

RALPH WELLES KEELER.

Chicago, January 1, 1922.


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OFFICERS OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR NEGROES OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
P. J. Maveety, Corresponding Secretary I. Garland Penn, Corresponding Secretary
William F. Anderson, President
John H. Race, Treasurer John L. Seaton, Educational Director


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CHAPTER I

NEGRO PROGRESS ALONG LEARNING'S HIGHWAY

        THREE hundred years of Pilgrim history have unfolded themselves in America, and recently nations have joined hands across the ocean in the celebration of the Tercentenary of the sailing of the Mayflower. It was fitting that this should be. That small boat, with all that it represents, has come to fill too large a place in our national life to be forgotten or ignored. The little "band of exiles" which it carried built themselves and their ideals into the very foundations of our social order. They came, and the story of the America that is can never be told without them. There were other groups, which came in those early days, however; and they too left their imprint upon our national character.

        Early as the Pilgrims were, the Negro had already preceded them. Six months before the Mayflower touched the coast of New England, a small craft, whose name has rotted with her timbers, landed its handful of Negroes on the shores of Virginia. They too were a "band of exiles," but they came neither willingly nor gladly, but of compulsion. Of them no poet wrote:


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                         "Amidst the storm they sang,
                         And the stars heard, and the sea;
                         And the sounding isles of the dim woods rang
                         To the anthem of the free."

        And yet there has seemed to be little danger that the American Negro would sink into oblivion. In fact, if the proverbial traveler from Mars should ever pause to read the files of our most characteristic American publication, The Congressional Record, he might learn little about the Pilgrims, but at every turn he would be confronted with well-nigh endless dissertations upon the American Negro. Humble in origin, the Negro has been forced against his will to play an important part, and indeed sometimes the leading role, in our national drama.

        To-day, even from the standpoint of numbers, the American Negro is a factor to be reckoned with. The handful of three centuries ago had grown to four million by the time of emancipation in 1863, and now the total is ten and one-half millions; sufficient, from the standpoint of numbers, to replace every man, woman, and child in eighteen States of the Union, east and west, and in addition to form a nineteenth colony with a population nearly equal to that of the present District of Columbia.

        And the Negro of the present is no longer a bondsman; he is not a chattel; he is a citizen of a free country, whose integrity and permanence depend upon the character and intelligence of its


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citizenry. Surely the progress which the Negro has made along the highway of learning is a matter of common and vital concern to all of us.

EDUCATION IN THE EARLY DAYS

        It is common to speak of the rapid advance which the Negro has made in the field of education since the Civil War. To complete the picture it must be recalled that the education of the Negro really began much earlier than that. The facts that the Negro had come to use the English language, that he had learned something of Jesus Christ and the white man's religion, and that he had adopted many habits and ideas of his white master are but indications of a process of education which had been going on almost unconsciously. In the early days, before the development of our industrial life made the keeping of large numbers of slaves economically profitable, there was relatively little opposition to the education of the Negro. Masters educated their slaves that they might serve more effectively; sympathetic persons sought to improve the condition of the helpless by enlightening their minds; and missionaries labored with them in order that they might learn to read the Bible. Negroes learned to appreciate and write poetry; they mastered bookkeeping and correspondence; they studied science; they became proficient in mathematics, and they delved in philosophy. Negroes were even employed to teach white students.

        With the development of industry, however, the


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idea of keeping many slaves became a popular one, and the practice became economically profitable. The desire to protect the system of slavery itself grew, and, little by little, education, which seemed to be striking at the very roots of slavery, was made taboo. Measures began to be framed to make the education of the Negro impossible. South Carolina took the lead in this matter in 1740, Georgia soon followed, and for a century the restrictions continued to be multiplied. Colored people, beyond a certain number, were not allowed to assemble for social or religious purposes, except in the presence of "discreet" white men. Masters who had employed their favorite blacks as bookkeepers, or printers, or in similar occupations were forced to discontinue the practice. Private and public school teachers were forbidden by law to assist Negroes in the acquisition of knowledge in any branch whatsoever. It was made a crime for a Negro to teach his own children, and numerous other limitations were added.

THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT

        Quite naturally this placing of learning in the class of the "forbidden fruit" only served to make it doubly attractive to many Negroes. Children were taught in secret by their parents; adults stole away in the darkness of the night to some hidden spot to receive instruction; and in some cases children of slave owners taught the younger blacks to read, and they were not punished for their acts. Just


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how widely education had become extended among the slaves is not definitely known, as the shrewdest Negroes would feign ignorance when examined. It has been estimated that ten per cent of the adult Negroes had at least the rudiments of an education by 1860.

EMANCIPATION

        The emancipation of the American Negro in 1863 is probably unique in history both in method and results. The freeing of four million individuals who had been in bondage, and the setting of them loose without homes, with almost no clothes, with no food, and, in fact, without most of the necessities of existence was, unprecedented. The story of the adjustment of the Negro to the new situation is little less than a wonder story. The profound ignorance of the great mass of Negroes was only one factor in a very complicated situation. Curiously enough, however, the dominating passion of multitudes of these ignorant, degraded human beings was to get education. The "forbidden fruit" had become the one thing supremely to be desired. There was little or no attempt, to take over the property of former masters; slight was the concern for material possessions so long as there was a rag to cover the body, a crust of bread to eat, or a shelter of any sort available; the supreme passion was the passion to learn. The school was the one thing needful, and the ability to read and write was the golden key to unlock the riches of the world. The


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story of those days is a touching one. All over the Southland groups might be seen sitting far into the night poring over the primer or the spelling-book. Tottering old men and women sat side by side with their children and their children's children endeavoring to master the intricacies of the A B Cs.

AGENCIES TO HELP

        Even while the war was in progress philanthropic agencies had been at work teaching the Negro. One soldier at least insisted that every Negro who came into the camp brought a spelling-book with him. As soon as the war was over, home mission boards and general agencies projected work in the South. Some denominations combined in their educational work through the Western and Northwestern Freedmen's Aid Commission. The work was felt to be limited, however, by that arrangement. The Methodist Episcopal Church cooperated through these general agencies until several of the larger denominations had withdrawn and set up their own work and until it became apparent that effective work could no longer be carried on and supported according to the plan in operation.

THE FREEDMEN'S AID SOCIETY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH

        At this juncture a meeting of ministers and laymen was called at the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, "to confer in regard to


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the work of relief and education required in behalf of the freedmen." The meeting was called to order at two o'clock on the afternoon of August 7, 1866, and lasted for two days. The following persons were present: Bishop D. W. Clark, Rev. Adam Poe, Rev. J. M. Reid, Rev. R. S. Rust, Rev. John M. Walden, Rev. J. R. Stillwell, and Mr. J. F. Larkin of Cincinnati; Rev. Luke Hitchcock and the Hon. Grant Goodrich of Chicago; Rev. B. F. Crary of St. Louis; and Rev. Robert Allyn of Lebanon. This meeting resulted in the organization of The Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Bishop D. W. Clark being made president of the society and the Rev. John M. Walden its corresponding secretary.

        The nature of the discussion at this meeting is well illustrated by the following statement which was made relative to what the new society might accomplish:

        At a moderate estimate it would secure fifty thousand dollars to be applied to these schools in connection with our mission work. This would support one hundred teachers nine months in the year; each teacher would have an average attendance of fifty scholars, making a total of five thousand. And, if these began in the alphabet, they would learn to read during the single session.

        It was further emphasized at this meeting that the new society was "to cooperate with the Missionary and Church Extension Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

        Within three months after its organization the


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Illustration

SECRETARIES OF THE FREEDMEN'S AID SOCIETY, 1866-1912
Standing: W. P. Thirkield and M. C. B. Mason. Seated: J. C. Hartzell, J. M. Walden, R. S. Rust, and J. W. Hamilton


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new society was actually at work in the South. By the end of the first year the report showed 52 teachers employed, 5,000 pupils enrolled, and 59 schools conducted as follows: 17 in Tennessee, 11 in Georgia, 4 in Alabama, 3 in Kentucky, 9 in Louisiana, 1 in Mississippi, 1 in Arkansas, 8 in ,South Carolina, 2 in North Carolina, and 3 in Virginia.

THE BISHOPS SPEAK

        On November 8, 1866, the Board of Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, assembled at New York city, declared:

        The emancipation of four millions of slaves has opened at our very doors a wide field calling, alike for mission and educational work. It has devolved upon the church a fearful responsibility. Religion and education alone can make freedom a blessing to them.

        The time may come when the States in the South will make some provision for the education of the colored children now growing up in utter ignorance in their midst. But thus far they have made none, nor perhaps can it soon be expected of them. Christian philanthropy must supply this lackWe cannot turn away from the appeal that comes home to our consciences and hearts. Nor can we delay. The emergency is upon us, and we must begin to work now.

UNMET NEEDS

        In spite of the good work so speedily undertaken by the Freedmen's Aid Society, it was possible to respond to only a fraction of the appeals which were made to it. With reference to the overwhelming number of appeals which had to be turned down an early report of the corresponding


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secretary says: "To refuse these applications has been the most painful duty connected with the affairs of the society."

THE FIRST SCHOOLS

        The first schools organized by the society were indeed primitive affairs. Any available spot was used, although many of them were started in churches to provide an opportunity for Negroes to learn to read the Bible. A visitor to one of those early schools gives his impression as follows:

        On rough benches sat rougher people -- youth, children, men, and women -- in rags of linsey-woolsey and jeans, patched like Joseph's coat, not through pride and plenty, but through poverty, bootless and shoeless and stockingless, knowledgeless, certainly, most would have said brainless. . . .There they sat, crouching over their primers, spelling with difficulty the easiest words, answering stammeringly the simplest questions, strong only in the gift of song and in the faith of their teachers."

        Yet there was progress, and rapid progress. By the year 1869 we read:

        Already in our schools we may listen to solutions of problems in algebra, demonstrations in geometry, and translations of classic authors that would reflect great credit upon students of the far-famed institutions of our country, in whose veins flows the pure blood of the Anglo-Saxon.

        A little later we read:

        Young men who well remember when they were slaves carried four studies through a three months term, and, upon the averaging of a carefully marked record, were found to have a rank above 90 per cent, some above 95 per cent.


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        One boy of sixteen was reported to have thoroughly mastered mathematics through trigonometry, to have read Latin through Horace, to be equally proficient in Greek, and to be able to translate, analyze, and parse with surprising facility.

        After twelve years of effort the secretary of the society reports:

        Our teachers are unanimous in the judgment that colored pupils learn as rapidly as white, and that they are far more enthusiastic in their studies.

DIFFICULTIES AND STRUGGLES

        Such progress as was made, however, was achieved in the face of very serious difficulties.

        In the face of difficulties, however, both teachers and pupils persisted in their work. One student walked two hundred miles across the country in order to be on hand for the opening day of school; another walked fifteen miles carrying the box with his books, clothing, and other necessities on his shoulder; one sat down every morning to a breakfast made up of a piece of rough bread and a cup of cold water for the sake of an education; one took a pig, his sole property, under his arm and started for "college"; two girls aged fourteen and sixteen walked nine miles a day, to and from school, through heat and rain and sometimes with blistering feet, in order to attend school; and the list might be continued almost indefinitely, for these were the typical and not the exceptional cases.

        And, as the years advanced, Negroes gave out


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of their poverty. Washerwomen shared their earnings, Sunday-school children gave their pennies, and others gave their hard-earned dollars that the work of the schools might go on and that their children might have, their "chance." One school reported $1,900 subscribed by colored people in the direst poverty, and all of it paid in full to the very last nickel. Many other subscriptions varying in amount were made and paid. There seemed to be no sacrifice too great for these humble people who, out of the depths, were for the first time started on the path of enlightenment.

A CHANGING EMPHASIS

        Thus out of the dire necessity of the moment the educational work, with its emphasis upon the teaching of reading and writing to emancipated slaves, was born. There were many schools and many thousands of pupils of all sorts and ages. As the work progressed new needs arose and new factors appeared to be reckoned with. As a matter of policy it soon seemed to be wiser to undertake to train teachers who would go out to teach hundreds of thousands of colored boys and girls to read and write, rather than to undertake to teach the multitudes directly. It also appeared that the Negro needed to be taught many things besides those to be found between the covers of a book, and industrial training very soon came to fill an important place in the educational program. As the work of the schools became elaborated the cost of operating


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a particular institution increased, and the desirability of centralization of effort was emphasized. Secondary schools, industrial schools, colleges, and professional schools very soon became the order of the day with their emphasis upon higher education as contrasted to elementary education.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

        Three centuries of enforced servitude had taught the older generation of Negroes many things about labor, but it had produced only a relatively small number of highly skilled artisans. Then, too, there was always the rising generation in need of training. It was felt by many that the Negro needed both the discipline and the economic independence which could be secured only through the development of mechanical skill in some specific field. Others insisted that the Negro was incapable of doing anything effectively except work with the hands, and they, therefore, added their voice to that of others in advocating industrial training for the Negro.

        Most of the schools responded to the situation by including industrial courses or adding them to the already established course. Industrial buildings were erected, foundries, blacksmith shops, machine shops, printing plants, carpenter shops, Plumbing shops, tailor shops and others were added. One school advertised in its catalogue courses in twenty distinct industries, and others


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Illustration

THE STUDENTS OF ONE SCHOOL


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were not far behind. Wagons were manufactured; fine carriages and hearses were turned out; bricks were made; buildings were constructed; printing presses turned out elaborate products; foundries were kept busy; and so on through a long and imposing list.

        Here again, however, changing conditions brought about a changed emphasis. In some cases altered conditions in industry rendered previously profitable trades relatively valueless from an economic standpoint. The expense of industrial education was, perhaps contrary to common supposition, very large, and the withdrawal of certain funds which had previously been made available for the work embarrassed the program at certain points. The difficulty of running a trade school and at the same time maintaining satisfactory scholastic standards was keenly felt. In the meantime several independent industrial schools, of which Hampton and Tuskegee are outstanding examples, were developed on an elaborate scale. It was found also that it was easier to secure public funds for the promotion of industrial education for the Negro than for the development of other types of secondary and higher education for him, and, in a number of States, agricultural and mechanical colleges were established for Negroes and have since been maintained at State expense.

        At present industrial training is given in more than half of the schools for Negroes operated by the Methodist Episcopal Church. There is, however,


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less emphasis upon the teaching of trades and more emphasis upon the general educational value of limited industrial training in connection with or as an integral part of the regular school course. Opportunity is still given for those who wish to specialize in a particular field; and carpenters, blacksmiths, printers, dressmakers, tailors, and other artisans are given diplomas from time to time. A number of the schools also own fine farms which are used in a limited way both as demonstration and laboratory centers for agricultural training.

INDUSTRIAL HOMES

         At an early date the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church began cooperation with the Freedmen's Aid Society by the establishment of Industrial Homes for Negro girls in connection with certain schools. At present eight of these Homes are in operation. They represent only a portion of the work being done for Negroes by the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which at other places maintains its own independent schools for Negro girls in the South. The general plan for the Homes is to have them serve as dormitories for a limited number of girls and also as centers for the teaching of domestic science and domestic art to all the girls of the schools with which they cooperate. The number of residents in the various Homes varies from about thirty to approximately one hundred. These residents inevitably get some special


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training in kitchen and dining room procedure, in the care of rooms, and in the general art of homemaking which the other girls outside of the Home do not get, but the regular classroom work in cooking, plain sewing, dressmaking, and similar branches is open to all the girls in the school. The Homes are immaculately kept, and the contribution which they have made to the work has been very large.

A NEW NAME

        The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church which met in 1888 enlarged the scope of the work of the Freedmen's Aid Society to include educational work among white people of the South, and changed its name to "The Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church." Twenty years later (1908) the supervision of the white work was assigned by the General Conference to the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Society which had had the work in charge again became "The Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church." In 1920 the name was changed to "The Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

A SUMMARY OF THE WORK

        In a little more than half a century the society now known as The Board of Education for Negroes,


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of the Methodist Episcopal Church has received and instructed more than two hundred thousand pupils. Of these more than fifteen thousand have been graduated. These graduates have gone out to become ministers, doctors, lawyers, dentists, pharmacists, business men, farmers, and teachers, and to enter man other fields of activity. Perhaps no single group is more important than that of the teachers. Former pupils and graduates have gone out to teach Negro boys and girls literally by the millions. Possibly in no other way have the schools been able to multiply their influence so enormously and so effectively as through the large and continuous stream of teachers which has gone out from their doors. And fortunately most of the graduates have gone out as avowed, earnest Christians to live consistent Christian lives in the communities in which they have labored. Surely this has been no mean contribution to the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth. The more than two thousand Negro ministers and the third of a million Negro church members of the Methodist Episcopal Church have been made possible largely through the schools of the church.

        The Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church now maintains nineteen schools for Negroes in the South. Three of these are professional schools; one school has been designated as a university center, although, as yet, not fully developed as such; the rest are of secondary and collegiate rank. The names of the schools


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Illustration

LOCATION OF
SCHOOLS OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR NEGROES
OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
1921


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have not always been fully descriptive, as circumstances have compelled some schools which were organized as colleges to put most of their emphasis upon secondary school work. These schools are, almost without exception, well located and well distributed and in a position to render an increasingly effective service. Some elementary instruction is given in those States where the public-school standards are still very low, but the tendency is to eliminate this phase of the work entirely and to center the attention of the schools upon the production of leaders through the building up of strong secondary schools and colleges. The present program calls not for the multiplication of institutions, but for the placing of those which already exist upon an efficient working basis.

        That the work is needed is well demonstrated by the fact that most of the schools are filled to overflowing, and pupils are continually being turned away from some institutions for lack of available room. The needs of some of the schools are distressingly urgent, but, fortunately, neither The Board of Education for Negroes nor any of the schools under its care is in debt. The immediate future of the schools is bound up with the Centenary, and their fate during the next few years will be largely determined by the success or failure of the Methodist Episcopal Church to carry through to triumphant conclusion the magnificent program which has been so well launched.


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OTHER AGENCIES

        While our attention at the moment is chiefly upon the educational work of The Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, it should be borne in mind that this work represents only a part of the extended educational work which has been carried on during the last half century among American Negroes by religious and philanthropic agencies. The Congregational Baptist, and Presbyterian churches have all done notable work in this field and other denominations have labored in it, to a greater or less extent. Among colored denominations the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and other churches have established and maintained many schools, some of which have done and are doing most effective work. In addition to these denominational schools and the many independent institutions of various sorts, seventeen Southern States have established at State expense State agricultural and mechanical colleges for Negroes, and several States have also established State normal schools for the training of Negro teachers.


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CHAPTER II

TRAINING NEGRO MINISTERS

Gammon Theological Seminary

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT P. M. WATTERS

        ON Christmas Day of the year 1865 Bishop E. Thomson presided at the meeting of Negro ministers held in Wesley Chapel, New Orleans, at which the Mississippi Mission Conference, one of the first Colored Conferences in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was organized. There were present at this meeting men from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas. At an appropriate stage in the proceedings the Bishop said, "And now, brothers, I must elect one of your number as secretary."

        This caused some stir among the colored brothers, and at last one of them was obliged to explain to the Bishop that, while several of those present had been able to learn to read a little, there was no one of them who could write. A white man was found to fill the position.

        This incident is significant, for, while there were many Negro ministers at the close of the war, and


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some of them had developed much skill in the handling of an audience, they were of necessity unlettered men. One of the immediate tasks of educational workers in the South was to teach ministers to read so that they could read their Bibles. This was a part of the work in practically all of the schools, but the ability to read and write alone was not a very adequate training for a Christian minister. Special courses and departments for the training of ministers and candidates for the ministry were set up, and in some cases schools were started with this avowed purpose. Thus at New Orleans University in Louisiana, at Walden University in Tennessee, at Rust College in Mississippi, at Morgan College in Maryland, at Cookman Institute in Florida, and at other schools a very definite place was given to the training of ministers. Naturally, with the work divided in this way the number in a given department was bound to be small and the work could not be made most effective. Some process of centralization was inevitable, and this was hastened by the appearance and rapid development of Gammon Theological Seminary. The story of the origin and growth of this school for the training of Negro ministers is one of the inspiring chapters of Methodist achievement in Negro education.

ELIJAH H. GAMMON

        Elijah H. Gammon, who made Gammon Theological Seminary possible and from whom the


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Illustration

ELIJAH H. GAMMON


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school received its name, was born in Maine in the year 1819. He grew up as a typical Yankee farmer boy, engaging in all the strenuous work of the farm from the chopping of wood to the clearing of rocks from the field and the building of stone walls. He was converted at the age of seventeen, became a school teacher at nineteen and entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church at twenty-four. Health reasons led him to Illinois and finally in 1858 forced him to give up preaching. He waited for a year and then entered the field of the manufacture of harvesting machinery. With the vision of a captain of industry he saw the rapidly developing West with its extensive harvests, and he felt that he had chosen wisely. The result demonstrated the wisdom of his choice.

        With deliberation he set about his new task, and his achievements were of a high order. He not only succeeded in earning a fortune, but he also made a very substantial contribution to the development of harvesting machinery in this country. "Easter's Implement World" said of him and his work:

        It is hardly possible to measure the influence Mr. Gammon had in the successful improvement of the methods of reaping the harvests of the world, and also it is not too much to say that the development of the harvester and binder used to-day everywhere and in all grain fields from what was known and used twenty years ago is due to him. He was connected with its progress almost from the beginning and with the experiments made until the development of the successful machine used to-day by thousands of farmers.


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        But Mr. Gammon's business responsibilities and business success did not dwarf his spiritual vision. He had little desire to develop a business and accumulate money for purely selfish ends. If he could not serve God in the ministry, he was resolved to serve him with equal fidelity through his business.

MR. GAMMON MEETS BISHOP WARREN

        It was at this juncture that one of those providential events which often mean so much in the affairs of life occurred. A mutual friend brought Mr. Gammon and Bishop Henry W. Warren together. Bishop Warren, who had been living at Atlanta, Georgia, on the campus of Clark University, had become deeply impressed with the need of a school for the training of Negro ministers. Mr. Gammon, who had been actively interested in the welfare of the Negro since early manhood, was looking for a place to invest some money where it would do the most good. In the American Negro he saw, as he had seen in the vast harvests of the West, great undeveloped resources. The result of the bringing together of these two men was the formation of a "partnership," as they called it, for the education of Negro ministers. Neither of them fully realized at the moment the full significance of what they were doing.

A CHAIR OF THEOLOGY AT CLARK UNIVERSITY

        The plan was to establish a chair of theology at Clark University, and Mr. Gammon gave in 1882


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$20,000 for the endowment of this chair. Clark University published an announcement of the new department, listing the name of Professor W. H. Crogman, a teacher at Clark University, as the Professor of New Testament Exegesis and adding that a Dean and Professor of Systematic Theology would be secured for the fall. October 3, 1883, the school actually opened; and the new Dean was the Rev. W. P. Thirkield, who remained in charge of the school for seventeen years. Nineteen pupils were received the first year.

GAMMON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

        Five years later the school was separated from Clark University, and, without the knowledge of Mr. Gammon, was given the name of Gammon School of Theology, which was changed later to Gammon Theological Seminary. At the time Mr. Gammon turned over $200,000 to the school to be used for endowment. Steadily the seminary took more of the time of Mr. Gammon until it became the chief interest in his life. Homes for the professors, a library and other buildings were added to the main building and when Mr. Gammon died in 1891 he made the seminary a legatee to one half the residuary portion of his estate. This gift brought the endowment of the seminary up to half a million dollars. Mr. Gammon's ambition for the school was summed up in a letter written in 1887 in which he said: "I would like to see it the best theological school of the whole South, white or


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black." The last five months of Mr. Gammon's life were spent on the Gammon campus.

THE SCHOOL TO-DAY

        To-day Gammon Theological Seminary occupies a beautiful campus of seventeen and a half acres just within the southern limits of the city of Atlanta; Clark University, adjoining, is outside of the city. The land is high and rolling and covered with a beautiful grove of pine and oak trees. The buildings overlook the city. On the campus are the main building, known as Gammon Hall, a beautiful and well-appointed library, a modern refectory for the students, five excellent residences for professors, and ten cottages for married students. The whole forms a well-nigh ideal spot for study.

PRESIDENT W. P. THIRKIELD

        When Mr. Gammon made his first gift for the establishment of a chair of theology in connection with Clark University, he stipulated that a young man should be secured to take charge of the work. The minister who was selected for this important task was the Rev. W. P. Thirkield, now a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but then a successful young pastor of the Cincinnati Conference. A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University with the degrees of A.B. and A.M. to his credit and a graduate of the Boston University School of Theology with the degree of S.T.B., be brought to


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Illustration

GAMMON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
The Library, Student Cottages, Some of the Students, Gammon Hall, and a Professor's Residence


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his task a thorough training for his work. He had more than training, however, for he had the energy, the enthusiasm, the alertness of mind, and the executive ability, without which the new school might never have survived. Mr. Gammon was quietly waiting to see whether the new enterprise would really "make good" before investing largely in it. A less capable and a less aggressive leader than Dr. Thirkield would never have won his confidence. For nearly seventeen years as Dean and President Dr. Thirkield and his talented and cultured wife gave of their best in the building of this seminary. At first he was the only teacher; he laid out the course of study; he labored diligently in the classroom; he conducted with his own hand the correspondence with prospective students; he presented the work unceasingly from the platform; he set out the trees which mark the beautiful magnolia drive leading to the buildings; he borrowed money to buy a portion of the present campus; he secured the best speakers to address the school; he conducted a history-making congress on Africa; and, perhaps most difficult of all, he won the confidence of the Southern white man. Sensing the need, he courageously borrowed money from relatives for the erection of the first cottages for married students on the campus, a feature of the Gammon plan which is unique. This feature alone has made it possible for many ministers to receive training who otherwise would have been denied the opportunity. It is of incidental interest to note that one of the


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recent graduates of Boston University is a young colored man who was born on the Gammon campus while his father was attending school at the seminary. Thus in a multitude of ways the courage, the ability, and the unselfish devotion of President and Mrs. Thirkield were wrought into the fiber of the school and determined its character and the trend of its development.

THE FACULTY

        Perhaps the most important thing, about a theological seminary is the faculty. At Gammon there are seven faculty members, three of whom are Negroes. The Rev. Philip M. Watters is the able and scholarly President and Professor of Apologetics and Christian Ethics; the Rev. J. W. E. Bowen is Vice-President and Professor of Church History and Religious Education; the Rev. George H. Trever is Professor of New Testament and Christian Doctrine; the Rev. Charles H. Haines is Librarian and Professor of Public Speaking and Sacred Rhetoric; the Rev. Dempster D. Martin is Professor of Christian Missions; the Rev. Willis J. King is Professor of Old Testament and Christian Sociology; and the Rev. M. T. J. Howard has recently been added to the faculty through the cooperation of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension to present courses dealing with rural problems and rural church work. Thus a variety of courses is given by men who represent not only the finest Christian spirit and character,


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but also high scholastic attainments in their respective fields.

        Since 1915 the school has been under the competent supervision of the Rev. Philip Melancthon Watters, D.D., a native of New York State and a graduate of Amherst College and of Union Theological Seminary with the degree of D.D. from Wesleyan University. Dr. Walters has demonstrated his ability as pastor, district superintendent, author, and educator.

STUDENTS

        Gammon Theological Seminary opened with two students enrolled. Since that time the enrollment has totaled 1,335. Of these 541 have completed the prescribed course and have received either the degree or the diploma from the school. A little more than one hundred of the men matriculated have been college graduates. Gammon has always endeavored to secure college men, but, like other schools in the South, it has suffered from the woeful lack of opportunities for primary and secondary education in connection with the public school systems. Promising students with limited training have, therefore, been admitted even though they have not had a fully satisfactory preliminary foundation, and special effort has been made to supplement this part of the student's preparation while he has remained in the seminary. Degrees have, however, been given only to college graduates; other students who complete the course receive


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Illustration

LEARNING TO MAP THE PARISH, GAMMON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY


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diplomas. The more than five hundred graduates of the school represent the largest number of ministerial graduates from any theological seminary for colored people in the United States.

A BROAD MINISTRY

        While the seminary has been under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, it has ministered to students of many denominations, including the Colored Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion, the Congregational, the Presbyterian, the Episcopalian, the Baptist, and others. Today there are bishops, editors, board secretaries, pastors, and other individuals holding important and responsible positions in these various colored denominations, who received their theological training at Gammon. Bishop Alexander P. Camphor, Bishop Robert E. Jones, and many other leaders in the Methodist Episcopal Church received their training here; also Bishop W. W. Beckett of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and Bishop Stewart of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. By this broad ministry Gammon is helping to fulfill one of the ambitions of its founder that it might indeed be a school for a whole race.

THE STEWART MISSIONARY FOUNDATION

        One of the outstanding features of the work at Gammon is the cooperation of the Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa, which was established


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in connection with the school in 1894. It is a striking coincidence that the Rev. William Fletcher Stewart, who established the Foundation, was, like Mr. Gammon, a Methodist Episcopal minister. He began his savings while working as a boy for twenty-five cents a day, and he continued them when as a Methodist minister he received a salary of one hundred dollars per year. He turned down the most alluring offers outside of the ministry, and stayed steadily by his job. In spite of that fact, however, he amassed a fortune through wisely investing his savings in real estate. One of his benefactions was the establishment of the Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa. The purpose of the Foundation is to relate the Negro in the United States to the task of evangelizing Africa. It maintains a Chair of Missions at Gammon Theological Seminary; it promotes the organization of the society known as the Friends of Africa; it gives prizes for missionary hymns, orations, and essays; it provides missionary libraries; and in various other ways undertakes to inform Negroes about Africa and to interest them in its evangelization. The work of the seminary is greatly enriched by its ministry.

SUMMER WORK

        From all walks of life the students come up to Gammon, and, when the year's work is over, they scatter in many directions in order to get the means to return to school another year. The "North" is


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the Mecca of many. Here they may be found working on sleeping cars, in diners, in hotels, on river boats, and in multitudes of other places. The quiet man who makes down berths, dusts coats, or serves meals may be more than an unimaginative servant; he may be a theological student preparing himself to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to his own people.

A REMARKABLE SCHOOL

        On one occasion Bishop F. D. Leete wrote: "It is not often given to one man to build a lighthouse for a whole race. Elijah H. Gammon has this honor." Some one else recently described the school as "the only well-equipped, well-endowed, and well-manned theological seminary for the training of Negro preachers in the world." Up to date practically all that Gammon is from a material standpoint has been due to the generosity of Mr. Gammon. His money erected the buildings and provided the endowment, and it is still working. A new professor's home has recently been built and a home for the Professor of Missions and Secretary of the Stewart Missionary Foundation for Africa and a new school building to give additional facilities are in immediate prospect. As time goes on the needs and opportunities of a school with the fine purpose of Gammon Theological Seminary are bound to create new demands, but in any plan for the future the foundation laid by the consecrated preacher, the clear-headed business man, and the


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great-hearted Christian, Elijah H. Gammon, and by those who worked with him will abide.

        And who shall measure the results of this enterprise? Every year approximately one hundred young colored men may be found at Gammon studying to prepare themselves to go out to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to their own people. It was a glimpse of the possibilities bound up in this leadership which Mr. Gammon saw when he builded so wisely and so securely. The Negro race, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and our nation are immeasurably indebted to his foresight and his generosity.


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CHAPTER III

TEACHING THE NEGRO TO CARE FOR HIS BODY

The Meharry Colleges and Flint-Goodridge Hospital and Nurse Training School

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT EMERITUS GEORGE W. HUBBARD, M.D., AND PRESIDENT JOHN J. MULLOWNEY, M.D.

        THE American Negro has paid an enormous price for his ignorance of the laws of health and for his inability to care for his body. The slight knowledge which he brought with him from Africa was of little or no value to him in this connection, and the conditions of slavery were such as to place little emphasis upon the care of the body. Very little attention was given to sanitation, hygiene, a balanced diet, or even to medical treatment. Naturally the death rate was enormous, and it has continued to be all out of proportion to that of the white man down to the present. Either because of a natural predisposition, or because of habits and conditions of


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life, the Negro has proved to be very susceptible to certain diseases such as tuberculosis and related maladies. Thus in the areas for which statistics are available the death rate among Negroes from tuberculosis has been three times as great as that for white people, and this has not included some of the most populous Negro sections of the country. Other diseases have reaped their entirely disproportionate totals, and the cost in unnecessary suffering and economic loss has been incalculable. The lives of multitudes of Negro babies have been and are sacrificed upon the altars of ignorance. Fortunately the figures, in the areas where records are available, now record a steady improvement, and this progress is a direct result of the efforts to elevate the living standards of the Negro and of the special attention given to training Negroes in the care of their own bodies.

BEGINNINGS

        The first Negro physician in the United States was James Derham. He was born a slave in Philadelphia. He was given some education and was employed in compounding medicines. Eventually he purchased his freedom, moved to New Orleans, and there built up a successful and lucrative practice. James McCune Smith was also a prominent Negro physician in ante-bellum days. He was unable to enter a medical school in the United States, so he went to Scotland and there obtained a medical education. He returned to America, and practiced


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medicine in New York city for twenty-five years. He is said to have been the first colored man to establish a pharmacy in the United States. In 1854 Dr. John V. DeGrasse was admitted in due form as a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. He was the first Negro to become a member of a medical association. To-day there are nearly sixty regularly organized medical associations in the United States made up of Negroes. The census of 1910 reported 3,777 Negro physicians in the United States, 478 Negro dentists, and 2,433 Negro trained nurses.

MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

        In this rapid development of Negro medical education which has occurred during the last half century Meharry Medical College has played a most important, if not the leading, role. This school, organized in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1876, had, up until January, 1921, graduated a total of 2,467 Negro doctors, dentists and pharmacists, 2,147 of whom were still living. Of the graduates 1,704 were from the Medical, 479 from the Dental, and 284 from the Pharmaceutical Department. At the date indicated the current enrollment of the college in these various departments was, Medical Department 200, Dental 344, Pharmaceutical 106.

BUILDINGS AND EQUIPMENT

        The school, originally organized as a department of Central Tennessee College (later Walden University),


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is still located on its original site in the city of Nashville. The buildings and equipment have, however, been materially increased. At present there are a medical building; a dental building, which is also used to house the Pharmaceutical Department; a commodious and well-appointed hospital, known as the George W. Hubbard Hospital; the Anderson Anatomical Hall, the gift of a previous graduate; the Meharry Auditorium; and now the proposed removal of the Walden School to a new location will make available for the use of Meharry some of the buildings previously occupied by Walden, and also provide room for further expansion.

ENDOWMENT

        Meharry Medical College and its associated Dental and Pharmaceutical Colleges have been supported chiefly from the proceeds of tuition and from appropriations made by the Freedmen's Aid Society, now known as the Board of Education for Negroes. So great a school could not, however, go on permanently without endowment. Fully conscious of this fact, the Board approached the Carnegie Foundation and the General Education Board, and each of these organizations, after a thorough investigation of the history and work of Meharry, agreed to contribute $150,000 for endowment provided the Board of Education for Negroes would raise $200,000 to add to the fund. Fortunately the Centenary of Methodist Missions was at hand,


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and, out of the income guaranteed to the Board of Education for Negroes, the $200,000 was provided. Thus Meharry now has available a little more than a half million dollars in endowment funds. The task is not completed, however, for Meharry cannot be rated as a "Class A" medical school until this endowment is doubled. The other conditions for this rating could be met with relatively little difficulty, if the endowment funds could be made available. This matter has now become a primary one in connection with the future usefulness of Meharry. It must be remembered that in every State Negro doctors must take the same examinations and measure up to the same requirements as white doctors before they are permitted to practice medicine. In some States already graduates of "Class B" medical schools are not even permitted to take the examinations. Only recently two urgent requests came in almost the same mail to Meharry for Negro physicians. In neither of these States is a graduate of a "Class B" school permitted to take the State examination. Meharry's future is largely in the hands of those who have the resources to help relieve this embarrassing situation.

GEORGE WHIPPLE HUBBARD, M.D.

        The story of Meharry can never be told without that of Dr. George W. Hubbard, who organized the school in 1876 and remained its executive head for forty-four years. His resignation took effect February 1, 1921, and he became President Emeritus.


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Illustration

THE MEHARRY COLLEGES
SOLVING DENTAL PROBLEMS


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George W. Hubbard was born in New Hampshire in 1841. He grew up on a farm, attended public school, became a school teacher, and in 1864 volunteered for service in the Christian Commission in connection with the Army of the Potomac. He expected to go to Atlanta, but a Confederate General tore up the railroad and left him stranded in Nashville. He was set to teaching Negroes, and in that chance job he found his life work. He graduated from the Medical Department of the University of Tennessee, and began to practice medicine, but was called back to Nashville to undertake the establishment of the first medical school for Negroes west of the Allegheny Mountains. He had to assist him the first year Dr. William J. Snead, an ex-Confederate surgeon. The school enrolled eleven pupils that year. How seriously Dr. Hubbard has taken his task is demonstrated by the fact that in more than forty years of service he was absent from the office for all causes a total of twelve days. In 1886 a Dental Department was opened and in 1889 a Pharmaceutical Department was added to the school. More recently a Nurse Training Department has been included; it had an enrollment of twenty-five during the year 1920-1921.

COOPERATION

        Among Dr. Hubbard's achievements possibly none is more striking than his success in enlisting the cooperation of the finest Southern people of


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both races. Local doctors, both white and black, have cooperated unstintedly in the work, and professors in the Medical School of Vanderbilt University have shown their fine Christian spirit by assisting in many ways. Nor has the school been limited by any narrow denominational spirit, and multitudes of pupils from other denominations have been enrolled. "Meharry Day" is celebrated as enthusiastically in the Negro Baptist churches as in Methodist churches. Dr. Hubbard's modesty, his big-brotherly spirit, his sincerity, and his thoroughgoing devotion to his work have won the confidence and secured the cooperation of the most diverse groups.

        The following department editorial which appeared in the Nashville Banner at the time of Dr. Hubbard's retirement, indicates something of the high regard in which Dr. Hubbard has been held:

        There is a new President at Meharry Medical College. The papers speak of him as a "younger and more active man than the retiring President."

        And it may be true, doubtless it is true, that he is both younger and more active. But fate, for all his youth and activity, has set him a difficult task: to follow in the steps of Dr. Hubbard.

        Dr. Hubbard came to the South when she was torn wide open. Into the breach he came, with the most difficult task man could attempt at that time, the engineering of a Negro college. The college is a famous one; its graduates fill places of worth and trust. It has a fine auditorium, and better still, a perfectly equipped and satisfactory operating hospital.

        In all that half century of service, if there has been a ripple of unrest, a note of discord, one single disturbance,


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or any breath of dissension among those with whom he worked and for whom -- or among the white element of the town -- no word of such has ever reached the public ear.

        The retiring President has worked quietly, lived quietly, retires quietly. He is no longer young and active; half a hundred years ago he was both. No one has crowned him with the laurel of victory; yet it may be that a halo is reserved for his brow, that crown of righteousness which is laid up for them who have fought a good fight.

THE MEHARRY BROTHERS

        Nor can the story of Meharry be told without mention of the "Meharry brothers." The parents of these five boys, Alexander, Jesse, David, Samuel, and Hugh, were of Scotch-Irish ancestry. They came to America, in 1794, lived in Pennsylvania four years, and then fitted out a flatboat and floated down the Ohio River. They landed at Manchester; and, in a dense wilderness, cleared the forest and erected a frontier cabin. In this humble environment a family of eight children was raised, including five boys. The father was killed by accident while returning from a camp meeting, and the training of the children devolved upon the mother, a woman of great energy and deep piety. When the boys grew older most of them moved to Indiana, where through industry and economy they accumulated considerable property. Through Dr. R. S. Rust, Secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society (1868-1888), they became interested in the establishment of a medical school for Negroes. Their


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59 gifts, which totaled several thousand dollars, made possible the starting of the school, which was named in honor of them. The largest single gift was possibly from Hugh Meharry, who gave a farm valued at ten thousand dollars as endowment for a professorship.

        

Illustration

A WALDEN BUILDING NOW TURNED OVER TO THE USE OF THE MEHARRY COLLEGES

THE STUDENTS

        Dr. Hubbard always insisted that his Student body represented the very highest type of Negro, and it is difficult to listen to the keen, clear-cut recitations in the class room, or to watch the work


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in the laboratory, dissecting room, hospital, or clinic, without being convinced that he spoke the truth. Meharry has always stood for high ideals of personal conduct; gambling, profanity, betting, the use of whisky, and immoral or unworthy conduct are not tolerated. The use of tobacco in any form is not permitted in or about the college buildings. Approximately 98 per cent of the graduates have been church members; and it is a striking fact that in a large number of communities in the thirty-seven States in which Meharry graduates are practicing they are the most active and effective church workers and leaders to be found. Most of the more than six hundred students enrolled work their own way through school. They work as houseboys, waiters, porters, barbers, and in sundry other capacities. Many of them go regularly on two meals a day; not pausing to interrupt their work, at the college for the noon-day meal. During the summer they may be found all over the North on Pullman trains, in hotel service, on river and lake boats, in automobile factories, in tailor shops, on farms, and in other forms of service, including teaching and preaching. Upon the retirement of Dr. Hubbard former students contributed the money to build him a beautiful new home next to the college.

THE NEW PRESIDENT

        The new President of Meharry is John J. Mullowney, M.D. He is a man of character, experience,


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and training. Born in a humble home in England, his path leads through an English orphanage, a Canadian farm, a store, public school in the United States, Phillips Exeter Academy, the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, the Hopkins Memorial Hospital of Peking, the North China Union Medical College the public health service in the United States, and the Chair of Science at Girard College. While in China Dr. Mullowney assisted in staying the ravages of the bubonic plague, and was recognized by the Chinese Government for his services. He is the author of several pamphlets on medical and public health topics. He comes to Meharry at the age of forty-two with the spirit of Christian idealism and with a zest for hard work. Under his experienced leadership, and with the loyal support of the friends of the school and of the Negro, the future usefulness of Meharry Medical College should far exceed that which it has already achieved in its most worthy past.

The Flint-Goodridge Hospital and Nurse Training School

        Medical training for Negroes under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church has not always been limited to Meharry Medical College. In 1889 Flint Medical College was organized as a department of New Orleans University. The school was made possible by a generous gift on the part of the late John D. Flint of Fall River, Massachusetts, through Bishop W. F. Mallalieu. The school was


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developed, a Department of Pharmacy was added and a considerable number of doctors were graduated. It finally became clear, however, that, on account of the expense involved in building up a medical school, it was good policy for the Board to center its attention upon Meharry Medical College. The Medical Department of Flint Medical College was transferred to Meharry in 1911 and the Department of Pharmacy in 1915. In the meantime a school for the training of Negro nurses had been started in 1896 and a hospital known as The Sarah Goodridge Hospital had been established in connection with Flint Medical College. When the medical

Illustration

SUPERINTENDENT T. RESTIN HEATH, M.D., AND MRS. HEATH

work was transferred, permission was secured from the John D. Flint heirs to have the college endowment remain for the use of the hospital. The college building was made over into a modern fifty-six-bed hospital, the former frame hospital was made into a home for nurses, and the work was entirely reorganized under the name of the Flint-Goodridge Hospital and Nurse Training School.


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A DOUBLE MINISTRY

        This institution is now located on the main street of the downtown section of New Orleans, Louisiana, where it is in a position not only to minister at a moment's notice to a large Negro population, but also to train colored nurses who will extend this ministry still further. In spite of limited space a recent report showed 872 hospital patients for the year and more than 4,000 clinic patients treated, 1,200 of whom received free treatment. The number of carefully selected young women enrolled for training here in July, 1921, was twenty-two. And the training which the students receive is a thorough one. The course of study was outlined in minute detail by a former superintendent, Dr. R. T. Fuller. It includes medical nursing, anatomy and physiology, practical nursing, dietetics, bacteriology and pathology, fever nursing hygiene, surgical nursing, obstetrics gynecology, materia medica, ethics, jurisprudence, chemistry, children's diseases, anæsthetics, X-ray, emergency surgery, massage, and practical training at the bedside, in the operating room, diet kitchen, and clinic. The nurses who have graduated from Flint-Goodridge Hospital have done remarkably well in the State examinations. On a recent examination the lowest average was 92 per cent. At another recent examination one of the graduates received three grades of 100 per cent. Graduates of this school are already filling important places in hospitals, on


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private cases, in Red Cross work, in child welfare work, and in similar fields.

THE WORKERS

        The superintendent of this very important work is Dr. T. Restin Heath, a man who has had twelve years of successful practice as a physician and surgeon and also served in the ministry. Mrs. Heath is a thoroughly trained and experienced nurse, at one time serving as head nurse in the Santa Fé Hospital in San Francisco, California. The house surgeon is a graduate of Meharry Medical College, as is also the hospital interne. The head nurse is a graduate of Flint-Goodridge and also a post-graduate of Lincoln Hospital in New York City. Several other workers are graduates of Flint-Goodridge.

THE NEED

        The hospital facilities for Negroes in this part of the South are chiefly conspicuous for their absence, and the need is almost overwhelming. In the city of New Orleans, in certain Negro districts, open drains, unclean streets, and unsanitary living conditions are steadily exacting their heavy toll. The field of the district nurse both here and in the rural sections is almost unlimited. In the midst of this uncomputed need Flint-Goodridge is ministering in the spirit of Jesus Christ, and many who come to find spiritual healing also have their spiritual lives renewed in the fine Christian atmosphere


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Illustration

FLINT-GOODRIDGE
The Hospital, Near-by Dwellings, In Line for the Clinic, The Head Nurse, a Group of Nurses in Training


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of the hospital. Yet the institution with its limited facilities is obliged to turn away patients who ought to be received, to refuse to do work which ought to be done, and to train a smaller number of nurses than ought to be trained. The fond vision of the workers is that of an adequate new, modern hospital of three hundred and seventy-five beds, where semi-tropical diseases may be studied and treated scientifically, where the number of nurses in training can be greatly increased, and where the Negro physicians and surgeons of the region may have a chance to minister to their very needy fellows under the best of conditions.


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CHAPTER IV

BUILDING A UNIVERSITY

Clark University and Cookman Institute

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT HARRY A. KING

        IN the year 1869 the Rev. J. W. Lee opened in Clark Chapel, Atlanta, Georgia, a small primary school for Negro children. Eleven years later (1880) Bishop Gilbert Haven looked out from a hilltop a mile south of the city of Atlanta over a pine forest of several hundred acres which had been purchased as a location for this same school and said: "I guess now folks will believe that we have come to stay. They haven't believed it before."

        The courage and vision of Bishop Haven made possible the securing of this beautiful and valuable property which Clark University has so long occupied. There was much opposition to the project, and the Bishop appeared to be the only one who really believed in it. The location was more than a mile from the corporation limits; there was no pavement, and no regular means of communication with the city; an old bus was necessary to meet trains when students were


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arriving, and provisions had to be drawn from town by mule cart; there was no adequate water supply. When the rains came the red Georgia mud made the roads almost impassable, and the drinking water took on the color of the mud to such an extent that the food was more or less regularly tinged with red. Whatever the complexion of the students and faculty members outside, they were always sure to be red inside.

        Doubters insisted that no one would ever come out to such a place to attend school, but the Bishop was unmoved. As he looked out from the commanding vantage point toward the city he declared unhesitatingly, "It will not be necessary to carry the school to the pupils; they will come to it."

        And come they did from the very first. To-day the coming is not a difficult process, for Atlanta has extended her limits to the very doors of the university, and electric cars pass the entrance. Modern conveniences have taken the place of the discomforts of early days, and the university occupies one of the most desirable locations to be found about Atlanta.

THE SCHOOL PROPERTY

        One part of Bishop Haven's plan did not fully materialize. He had thought that the large acreage would make it possible for poor students to support themselves while they were getting their education, but matters did not work out exactly that way. A very productive farm is maintained by the university,


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however, and milk, eggs, pork, potatoes, grain, and vegetables are provided in abundance for the use of the boarding hall. Originally the school owned six hundred acres, but this has been reduced to less than four hundred. It is hoped that as this property becomes more valuable it can be sold for building lots, and the proceeds made available as an endowment fund for the university. Already $30,000 worth of land has been sold and the proceeds turned into endowment for the school. A portion of the property lies within the city limits, although the campus itself is just outside of the line.

BISHOP WARREN'S CONTRIBUTION

        The vision of Bishop Gilbert Haven was responsible for the location of the school, and the genius of Bishop Henry W. Warren determined the type of its development. He believed in the future of industrial education, and he desired to see it promoted at Clark. He erected a building for instruction and training in blacksmithing, and he followed this with a similar building for carpentry and wood working purposes. Working in cooperation with President E. O. Thayer he provided a Home for girls where training in various household arts and in home-making might be carried on. The building was given to the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church on condition that it provide the furnishings for the new building, and secure a superintendent. This became


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therefore the first "model Home" of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. For a time the John F. Slater Fund cooperated in the industrial work at Clark, appropriating at one time as much as five thousand dollars a year for the purpose. The work was developed to such a point that the best carriages, hearses, express wagons, and similar vehicles made in Atlanta were said to have been made in the shops on Clark University campus. Gradually conditions changed, appropriations were withdrawn, the difficulties of carrying on industrial work increased, and the conviction steadily developed that the particular mission of Clark University did not lie along the line of industrial training, but rather in the more commonly accepted field of the college and the university. To-day less emphasis is put upon industrial training at Clark, although the training for the girls started by Bishop Warren is now carried on in Thayer Home under the very efficient direction of the Woman's Home Missionary Society.

RECENT DEVELOPMENT

        Among former presidents of Clark University should be mentioned Dr. Charles M. Melden, who served as the executive of the school for six years and did much to build up its Normal Department. He is now president of New Orleans College.

        For six years now, under the efficient leadership of President Harry Andrews King, and supported by the wise counsels and optimistic and enthusiastic


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spirit of Bishop F. D. Leete and, more recently, of Bishop E. G. Richardson, Clark University has moved steadily forward. At present the university bids fair to become one of the important centers for advanced Negro education.

        A recent report from President King says, among other things: "The physical equipment of the school was never in better condition . . . . Every frame building on the campus has been painted and otherwise renovated, and all other buildings overhauled and repaired. . . . Over $4,100 has been spent this year on new equipment, most of it for furniture for dormitories and classrooms made necessary by our largely increased enrollment. . . . We have been literally overrun with students this year. Every available room in all our dormitories has been filled. . . .The total enrollment is 448, an increase of 184 in two years. . . .In the past five years our total budget has increased from $17,000 to $54,000 -- more than 300% -- our receipts from students has grown from $4,800 to $26,000 -- an increase of about 500%."

        And the religious life of the students is well cared for. The students regularly attend preaching services; a model Sunday school is in operation on the campus. The students maintain an Epworth League, a Young Men's Christian Association and a Young Women's Christian Association. Daily devotional services and a weekly prayer meeting are held, and other special religious programs are carried out.


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Illustration

LEETE HALL


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LEETE HALL

        Perhaps the outstanding recent event on the campus at Clark is the erection of Leete Hall, the magnificent new main building which has been made possible by the advance program of the Centenary. Amid a crowd of prominent visitors and friends of the university the corner stone of this building was laid October 27, 1920. It really marked the beginning of a new epoch in the development of the school, for this fine new structure, costing $200,000, cannot fail to affect the whole spirit and program of the institution. The new building is prominently and conveniently located on the campus. It will serve as the main administration and recitation building for the school with a laboratory for the Science Department on the third floor. At one end of the long structure is a modern gymnasium with adequate facilities, including a swimming pool. An extension at the other end of the building forms "Crogman Chapel."

PROFESSOR CROGMAN

        

Illustration

PROFESSOR WM. H. CROGMAN

        It is most appropriate that the name of Professor William H. Crogman, Litt.D., should be associated with this beautiful new chapel, for Clark University owes


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much to the scholastic attainments, the faithful and efficient labors, and the beautiful Christian spirit of Dr. Crogman. Born in the West Indies in 1841, he was left an orphan at twelve years of age. For ten years he followed the sea, when, encouraged by the mate of the vessel on which he was sailing, he entered school in Massachusetts. Of him his teacher said:

        He surpassed every one of the hundreds of students in both rapidity of advancement and in accuracy of scholarship. He accomplished as much in one quarter as the average student did in two, mastering almost instinctively and with equal facility both mathematical and linguistic principles.

        In 1870 Mr. Crogman became a teacher in Claflin University, being the first Negro to be regularly employed by the Freedmen's Aid Society in its school work. He stopped teaching long enough to take a full course at Atlanta. University, and in 1876 he joined the faculty of what is now Clark University. Since that time his service has been continuous and varied. For seven years he served as president of Clark, and under his leadership the school grew both in numbers and strength. He is the only secretary of the Boards of Trustees of Gammon Theological Seminary and of Clark University these organizations have ever had, and the records have been most accurately kept in a remarkably beautiful and regular hand. For twenty-nine years he was superintendent of the Sunday school at Clark, and he has the reputation


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of never having been tardy during that period. Three times he was a delegate to the General Conference, and he has the distinction of having been the only individual to receive the degree of Doctor of Letters from Atlanta University. He is the author of several books, and he has spoken widely from the public platform, supplying upon special invitation the pulpit of Henry Ward Beecher's church. At the time of the Atlanta race riots, when it was falsely rumored that Clark University had harbored Negro criminals, one of the leading Atlanta papers published a strong editorial in defense of Dr. Crogman, then president of the school, and declared: "This rumor is entirely and absolutely undeserved."

        It is indeed fitting that the new chapel should bear the name of the faithful servant, the Christian gentleman, and, in the words of one of his recent students, "the noblest Roman of them all."

        At the 1921 commencement season Dr. Crogman retired from active teaching. The Carnegie Foundation granted him a pension for life.

THE ALUMNI

        Clark has more to show for its half century of labor than a beautiful campus and a group of substantial and useful buildings. To call the roll would take some time, for the list of graduates includes college presidents, professors, teachers, district superintendents, ministers, laymen, business men, doctors, lawyers, and many others. The reading


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of a recent number of the school Bulletin reveals the fact that some of the younger graduates are holding the following positions: editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate; recreational secretary of a civic league; instructor in biology; agency director of the Standard Life Insurance

Illustration

CROGMAN CHAPEL

Company; teacher at Prairie View College; practicing medicine in Birmingham; member of staff of Harlem Hospital, New York city; executive secretary of a Y. W. C. A.; real estate dealer; lawyer; manager of a laundry; several practicing medicine; several teaching; president of the Clover Leaf Chemical Company; student in Boston; student at
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Meharry; student at Howard University; president of Skylaud Amusement Company; State Y. M. C. A. secretary; four in the auditing department of the Standard Life Insurance Company; twenty-two in the public schools of Atlanta; eight attended summer school at Columbia University; and four were on a trip to South America. These gleanings from a current number of the school Bulletin are a pertinent indication of the wide variety of activities taken up by the graduates of Clark, and of the multitude of fields in which they find opportunity to render service.

        Clark University is training real people for real life tasks. It has many things yet to achieve, but it is making genuine and rapid progress, and it seems destined to fill an increasingly important, place in the education of a race whose education, in spite of all that has been done, is only well begun.

Cookman Institute

        Associated with Clark University, but located at Jacksonville, Florida, is Cookman Institute. This school was founded in 1872 by the Rev. S. B. Darnell. It was named after the Rev. Alfred Cookman, a Methodist minister, who gave money for the erection of the first building.

A UNIQUE MINISTRY

        Cookman was the first institution for the higher education of Negroes established in the State of


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Florida, and for a long time it was the only school of the kind in the State. In point of service no other institution of the sort equals it. For nearly half a century it has maintained a high moral, spiritual, and intellectual standard for the thousands of young men and women who have come under its influence. Many colored people in Florida love and honor "Old Cookman"; and the names of Dr. Darnell and "Miss Lillie," the familiar name of Miss Lillie M. Whitney, a former and greatly loved teacher, are fond memories with them. Many of the early pupils were ex-slaves, and their eagerness to learn was most touching. Old men and old women sat side by side with boys and girls in the classes. Both a night school and a day school were conducted.

        

Illustration

PRINCIPAL ISAAC H. MILLER

A NEW LOCATION

        At the time of the great Jacksonville fire in 1901 all of the buildings of this school were destroyed. It was decided to secure a new location before rebuilding, in order to get the school a little farther from the center of town. This plan was carried out, and the school is now conveniently located on a very satisfactory campus toward the outskirts of the city. The school has two substantial and attractive


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school buildings and a home for the principal. There is room in the dormitories for about seventy-five students only in addition to the day students. The buildings are equipped with modern conveniences, and they have recently been entirely renovated and put into first class condition. The playground is large and freely used, and a portion of the seven-acre campus is used for a very successful school garden. The current enrollment of the school is about two hundred and fifty.

COURSES

        Cookman has classes in all the elementary grades and in the four high school grades. In addition there are special courses in normal training, music, domestic science, sewing, and public speaking. It is proposed to add courses in sewing, shoemaking, printing, business, and agriculture. The need for the sort of work which Cookman can do is still very great. Everywhere the educational opportunities for the Negro are inadequate, and Cookman's future, particularly as a training school for teachers, is bright. Nearly half the population of Jacksonville is colored, and the demand for teachers is large. Then, too, from Cookman there must continue that stream of selected young people who will go on to further study at Clark, Meharry, Gammon, and other colleges and professional schools.

A NEW DAY

        During the last few years, or since its association


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for general administrative purposes with Clark University, a new day of usefulness has opened for Cookman. President King's first act was to select Professor Isaac H. Miller of Clark to serve as principal

Illustration

COOKMAN INSTITUTE

of Cookman. The results have demonstrated that the choice was a wise one. Principal Miller is a native of Mississippi. he worked his way through Rust College and later studied at the University of Chicago. He was in the employ of the United States Government for a time and then entered the teaching profession. In 1913 he was called to Clark University to take charge of the Normal Department of the university. For six years he held this position with credit to himself
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and with profit to the school. Upon being sent to Cookman he took up his task quietly but energetically. Under his capable leadership the school has been transformed both physically and spiritually.

THE ALUMNI

        Cookman never forgets that she is a Christian school and emphasis is put upon the development of the moral and religious life. This training has shown itself in the lives of its alumni. The 166 young men and women who have graduated from Cookman and the multitudes of others who have attended the school have gone out to fill many important posts. One became a Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, another became a judge, and a third is the Minister of the United States Government to Haiti. The list includes many others.

        The fine spirit of the alumni is well expressed by a recent graduating class which left a gift of $140 for the school, and in presenting it said:

        For four years we have been studying in the institute the philosophy of true living. These have been happy years. We leave our Alma Mater with a deep love for her history and traditions; and we shall retain the habit of study which we have learned here. What we have learned here can never be taken from us. We look upon our dear school with much honor and gratitude. . . .Deep within our hearts we are wishing that our dear Alma Mater may attain a yet grander future than has ever yet been dreamed for her.


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CHAPTER V

AN EASTERN COLLEGE

Morgan College and Princess Anne Academy

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT JOHN O. SPENCER

        ON Christmas Eve in the year 1866 five interested men gathered in a room in the city of Baltimore to consider the question of the organization of a school for Negroes in that city. The conference resulted in the appointment of a temporary board of trustees for the proposed institution. On the 25th of November of the following year a charter was granted to the school under the name Centenary Biblical Institute. Soon after this a few candidates for the Christian ministry were enrolled in classes and these classes met in local churches. The subjects taught were those deemed appropriate as a preparation for the ministry. Those pupils who needed further training in the common English branches were sent to the Baltimore Normal School and their tuition was paid.

A HOME FOR THE SCHOOL

        But a school needs a home, and a home was diligently


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sought for this new institution. Finally a dwelling house, located at 44 Saratoga Street, was purchased and transformed for school purposes. On October 9, 1869, the school was formally opened in its new home. The Rev. J. Emory Round was made principal. Although soon outgrowing its facilities, the school remained in its original quarters for eleven years. Dr. and Mrs. John F. Goucher then donated a lot at the corner of Fulton and Edmondson Avenues, upon which a fine new stone building was erected. The cornerstone was laid June 16, 1880.

CHANGED TO MORGAN COLLEGE

        The scope of the school, which had been started with the primary purpose of training young Negro ministers, enlarged as the years passed. The curriculum was gradually expanded to include normal and other academic courses, and women were admitted to the school on the same basis as men. In 1890 a new charter was secured and the name was changed to Morgan College in honor of Dr. Lyttleton F. Morgan, president of the Board of Trustees. The school endeavored to maintain high scholastic standards, and the work commended itself to Mr. Andrew Carnegie so that after careful investigation he offered to give fifty thousand dollars for the erection of a college building on condition that the school raise an equal amount for college endowment. The school did its part and raised the fifty


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thousand dollars, more than half of which was given by colored people. At that time it was expected that the building would be erected near the old site on Edmondson Avenue. It became evident, however, that the school would not have adequate room for expansion there, and the new building was postponed until a suitable location could be secured.

        In all of the progress made Dr. John F. Goucher, who for many years has been President of the Board of Trustees, has been a helpful and inspiring factor. He has given of his time, talents, and money to the furtherance of the plans of Morgan College and its branch schools. He has stood side by side with President J. O. Spencer, who with the skill born of experience and large executive ability has guided the school out into its present large field of usefulness.

THE PRESENT LOCATION

        After diligent search a suitable property was discovered just at the outskirts of the city of Baltimore, and the Ivy Mills tract of forty-two acres was purchased June 1, 1917. This property, located at Hillen Road and Arlington Avenue, has since its purchase been made a part of the city of Baltimore. The right to purchase and hold this property for purposes of Negro education was sharply contested in the courts, but was fully established. On September 27, 1919, an additional adjoining tract of forty-three


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Illustration

MORGAN COLLEGE
Carnegie Hall and Other Campus Views


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acres was purchased. The school now has a large and beautiful tract of land conveniently located and remarkably adapted for the development of the future plans for the institution. The property when purchased had upon it a considerable number of large, attractive, and substantial stone buildings. Several of these have already been transformed at considerable expense for school purposes, and some new buildings have been erected. The chief new building is Carnegie Hall, made possible by the earlier gift of Mr. Carnegie. This is strictly a college building. It is a three-story, fireproof structure, heated by steam, lighted by electricity, and provided with gas for laboratory purposes. It has a fireproof vault for college records, and affords many other modern school conveniences. Altogether it is an excellent type of modern school construction. Several of the older buildings have been converted into dormitories, and one of the largest ones, which once served as a hotel, has been turned over to Morgan Academy.

CAMPUS AND FARM

        The campus is a rolling one, and it affords many pleasing views. A stream of water adds to its beauty. Barns and other farm buildings are on the property. It is expected that a considerable amount of training in agriculture can now be included in the work of the school. An adequate dairy has yet to be provided.


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STUDENTS AND COURSES

        The work of the school begins with the first year high-school grade and continues through the four years of college work. On account of the inferior work done in some of the public schools it has been necessary to maintain a pre-high school class in addition to the regularly advertised courses. Of the boarding pupils about one third are in the College Department proper. Rigid standards have been maintained in this department and the graduates from it have been a credit to the school. The A.B. from Morgan has been accepted by some of the best Northern schools as a satisfactory preliminary for those students who have desired to do post-graduate work with a view to securing the A.M. or other advanced degrees.

SUMMER SCHOOL AND EXTENSION WORK

        Morgan College considers the training of teachers one of its important tasks. Emphasis is put upon normal training in connection with the regular course, and during the summer a large and effective summer school for public school teachers is maintained. In addition to this the school supports an extension department particularly for the benefit of colored teachers employed in the city of Baltimore. Twenty-six teachers have recently been taking college work in connection with Morgan on this plan. The industrial phases of the school work are still in their infancy, but it is expected


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to make them an important feature of the work now that there is room for their development.

COMBINING VIRGINIA COLLEGIATE AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE

        On December 10, 1917, the buildings of the Virginia Collegiate and Industrial Institute, located at Lynchburg, Virginia, were destroyed by fire, and it was deemed wise as a matter of policy to unite this school with Morgan College. Accordingly this school, which was organized in Lynchburg in 1892, and which had done very effective work there, was moved to Baltimore in January, 1918, and established on the new Morgan site. It thus arrived ahead of Morgan College itself, which did not take up its location on the new grounds until the following September. The two schools are now combined.

RESULTS AND NEEDS

        Morgan College has for its main colored constituency the Washington and Delaware Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but the results of its work have not been limited either by geographical or denominational lines. One of the leading bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was trained here. Bishop Matthew W. Clair, now in Africa, is also a Morgan product. The wife of the President of the Republic of Liberia is a graduate here, and the President himself while on a visit to America spoke of the large contribution


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which Morgan College and similar schools in America were making to the progress of his country. The head of one of the leading hospitals for colored people in the United States is a Morgan graduate, and other alumni are holding important positions. Morgan College has had a long and worthy history; her future is full of promise. The new and permanent home makes it possible for Morgan, with proper support, to become a dominating factor in the educational life of the colored people of the East. There is still much to be done, but the prospect is alluring. The school is already turning away hundreds of pupils for lack of room. Some of the immediate needs are more dormitory space, a dairy for the farm, an automobile truck for school use, and, possibly most important of all, more endowment. The future achievements of Morgan College are in the hands of her friends.

Princess Anne Academy

        All of Morgan College is not, however, located in the city of Baltimore. A very important branch of the school is Princess Anne Academy, located at Princess Anne on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This school was organized by Morgan College in the year 1886. At present about two hundred pupils are enrolled, and, for lack of room, it is necessary to turn away more pupils than are received. In connection with the regular elementary and secondary work of the school special emphasis


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is put upon industrial education. This includes agricultural training, blacksmithing and plumbing, carpentry and wood working, printing, domestic science, domestic art, poultry craft, and home gardening. These departments are under the direction of expert men and women representing training at Hampton Institute, Cornell Agricultural College, the University of Michigan Agricultural College, and other schools. The school owns a large farm and a considerable amount of valuable and useful industrial equipment. There are seven principal school buildings, and numerous barns and other structures. There is also an orchard of 360 trees. The plan provides that every student shall spend half a day at work and half a day in the school room.

Illustration

PRINCIPAL THOMAS KIAH

CONNECTED WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

        About twenty years ago Princess Anne Academy took on the industrial work of the State of Maryland for colored youth and it still maintains its relationship both with Morgan College and with the University of Maryland. It is officially designated as the Eastern Branch of the University of Maryland. The State has therefore assisted in the building up of the school, particularly of the industrial


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departments. A curriculum has already been worked out with a view to making Princess Anne Academy a junior college.

THE PLACE OF THE SCHOOL

        The students at Princess Anne come mainly from Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New

Illustration

PRINCESS ANNE ACADEMY
Two of the Buildings, a Recent Graduating Class, and Other Scenes


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Jersey, and New York. Most of them are paying a part or all of their own expenses and in the summer they may be found at work all over the East. The graduates are everywhere giving a good account of themselves, for the training given here is of a high order and the discipline is thorough. Principal Thomas Kiah is himself a graduate here and from Morgan with special additional work at Cornell University, and at Teachers College, Columbia University. All of the teachers and workers here are colored. A summer school is maintained which is largely attended by the colored teachers of the State, and extension work is regularly carried on.

        Princess Anne Academy is the only school of its sort in the State of Maryland. It has done a fine work in the past and bids fair to render an increasingly important service as the possibilities of the field are developed.


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CHAPTER VI

IN OUR LARGEST STATE

Wiley College and Samuel Huston College

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT M. W. DOGAN

IN the northeastern corner of the State of Texas is Marshall, a city of about fifteen thousand population. On an eminence at the outskirts of this city, and within convenient walking distance of the center of the town, lies the campus of Wiley College. This beautiful spot is one of which the Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the local school authorities are justly proud. Beautiful shade trees, well-trimmed hedges neat shrubbery, well-kept lawns, and appropriate buildings set off the twenty-five acres of school property which are devoted to school uses and make of it a campus to be admired. The balance of the sixty acres owned by the school is used for agricultural purposes.

BUILDINGS

        The main building, standing in the center of the campus, is a new structure made possible by the


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Centenary. It is modern in every respect. It is used for classroom and office purposes. The recitation rooms and laboratories are commodious, clean, properly lighted, and well equipped. A moderate-sized auditorium is also included. Two boys' dormitories stand nearby, and a little farther away stands the large dormitory now used, temporarily, for the girls. This building was designed for the use of the boys, but the girls have taken it over since a fire destroyed their dormitory. At the other end of the campus is the beautiful Carnegie Library, for this is one of the places where Mr. Carnegie saw fit, after careful investigation, to make a generous gift for a library building. Fortunately there is a large auditorium on the second floor of this library, which has been used for chapel purposes since a fire destroyed the old chapel. The president's house and other buildings, including a new and modern refectory, complete those on the campus itself. Not far away is King Home, the Industrial Home conducted by the. Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church; and in the neighborhood are comfortable homes of Negroes, many of whom are graduates or former students of Wiley.

HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL

        Wiley College was founded in 1873 by the Freedmen's Aid Society, and was chartered in 1882. The site first secured was thought to be too far from the city, so the present location was chosen.


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Bishop John M. Walden and Dr. R. S. Rust were closely identified with the school in the early days. Dr. Rust, with the assistance of the local board of trustees, selected the site and planned the buildings. During the early days of the school white men from the North were in charge, but in 1894 the Rev. I. B. Scott, now retired Missionary Bishop from Africa, became the first Negro president of the school. Two years later he was elected to the editorship of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, and Matthew W. Dogan, another colored man, became president of Wiley. Under President Dogan's energetic and efficient leadership the school has not only grown in size and in physical equipment, but it has also steadily raised the standard of its work. An excellent college department is maintained, and graduates from it are entitled to teacher's certificates in most of the Southern States without examination.

PRESIDENT DOGAN

        President Dogan was born in Pontotoc, Mississippi, in the year 1863. When he was six years old the family moved to Holly Springs. There the boy entered the primary grades of Shaw University (now Rust College). Going to school, blacking shoes, and otherwise assisting the family, he grew up, and in 1886 graduated from Rust. He taught mathematics at his Alma Mater until 1890, when he was called to take charge of the Department of Mathematics at Central Tennessee College. There


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he remained until 1896, when he was made president of Wiley. In June, 1921, President Dogan completed a quarter of a century of service at Wiley, and there is much to show for his labors. From the first he threw himself wholeheartedly into his work, getting out among the people, eating and sleeping in their homes, meeting the young men and women, and securing not only students but also the loyal support of the colored people in his territory. At the same time he has so conducted himself and his work that he has commanded the respect and the cooperation of his white neighbors.

DEPARTMENTS

        In addition to the College of Arts and Sciences the school offers a pre-medical course, a preparatory course, a normal course, a business course, and instruction in various musical branches. Under the direction of the Woman's Home Missionary Society thorough courses in domestic science and domestic art are given. This work is carried on in the new college building. The total enrollment of the school is about six hundred, and one hundred and twenty-five of these are enrolled in the College Department. This department is one of the most successful to be found in any of the schools. The relatively favorable educational situation in Texas partially accounts for this. The percentage of illiteracy among Negroes in Texas is distressingly high, but, compared to other Southern


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States, the situation seems quite good. While in some Southern States there are almost no public high schools for Negroes, there are a number of such schools in Texas from which pupils may go on to college. This situation is a distinct asset to Wiley in building up its College Department.

        

Illustration

WILEY COLLEGE
The Main Building, a Boys' Dormitory, the Carnegie Library, Entrance to Campus, the Refectory, and a Group of Students Who Served in the World War


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SUMMER SCHOOL

        For some time a summer normal has been maintained at Wiley. Under a new plan now in operation a regular summer school is maintained in addition to the summer normal. In other words, the school year is divided into four quarters, at the beginning of any one of which pupils may be regularly enrolled. The school plant thus comes into almost continuous operation the year around, and during, that portion of the summer when the normal school, held in cooperation with the public-school authorities, is in session, it accommodates two schools. Each spring there is also held at Wiley a training school for Negro rural pastors, conducted under the auspices of the Department of Rural Work of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Thus the influence of the school is extended, and the physical equipment put to the most effective use.

THE FACULTY

        The school has a faculty of more than twenty teachers representing training at Rust College, Wiley College, Harvard University, Fisk University, the University of Chicago, Howard University, Walden College, the University of Illinois, the University of Iowa, Virginia Union University, the Student University of Paris, the Armstrong Commercial School, Chicago Music School, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Wilberforce


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University. All of the members of the faculty are colored. Five of them give their entire time to college teaching.

STUDENTS AND STUDENT ACTIVITIES

        The students at Wiley come chiefly from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, although they come from as far West as Arizona and California and also from various Eastern States. They come from a great variety of homes, but many come from the little corn and cotton farms of Texas. Altogether they are an alert lot of young Americans. They maintain numerous athletic organizations which make good use of the fine athletic ground on the campus, and they have various student societies, including the Y. M. C. A. the Y. W. C. A., the Epworth League, the Mason Literary Society, Scott's Literary Society, the Francis Harper Literary Society, the Reader's Club, the Friends of Africa, the University Debating Club, the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, the Theta Gamma Epsilon Sorority, and other organizations.

        Many of the pupils are working their way through school. Some work in hotels and restaurants, some in banks or stores, some in private families. During the summer vacation they go back to the farm; engage in construction work; teach school; go North; or engage in other occupations. In the Pullman service they may be found as far West as the Pacific Coast.


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ALUMNI

        The alumni of Wiley are doing good work in the world. They are filling a great variety of positions, but there are many teachers, high school principals, lawyers, doctors, and dentists. Dr. Emmett J. Scott, for many years associated with Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee, and now secretary, and treasurer of Howard University, was educated at Wiley; also Professor Willis J. King of Gammon Theological Seminary. The pupils at Wiley have manifested a particular interest in medicine and dentistry; many have gone on from here to study at Meharry and some to Gammon Theological Seminary.

NEEDS

        Wiley College has a record of achievement of which to be proud, but its very success has created new demands. There are some immediate needs, such as a girls' dormitory, which must be supplied, but the outstanding need of the hour is for a large and substantial endowment. So important a school can hardly continue to hold its place and do its work in the world unless its future is assured by a generous permanent endowment. Wiley College has proved her right to live, and she must now be given a chance to live adequately. It would not be easy to find an institution more worthy or better prepared to make wise use of a large permanent investment than Wiley College.


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Samuel Huston College

        The State of Texas is larger than all the Atlantic States from Maine to Virginia inclusive. Included in its population are two thirds of a million colored people. It is not surprising that, under these circumstances, the Board of Education for Negroes has a second school in the State. Located at Austin, only a few blocks from the imposing State Capitol building, stands Samuel Huston College. It has three principal school buildings in addition to the beautiful Eliza Dee Home, operated by the Woman's Home Missionary Society in connection with the school.

Illustration

PRESIDENT J. B. RANDOLPH

HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL

        For nearly thirty years the colored people of Texas struggled to establish this school. They got the basement of one building up; then the money gave out, and for sixteen years the basement stood in the face of the beating rains unused. In 1898 the building was inclosed, but left unfinished inside. Two years later the Freedmen's Aid Society sent Dr. R. S. Lovinggood to open the school. When he arrived he found one floor finished and only four rooms available for use. Birds nested in


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the rafters, and pigs and goats slept in the basement. There was no kitchen, no dining hall, no dishes, no furniture. The first day eighty-three pupils enrolled and forty-one of them came to board.

        President Lovinggood said of that experience: "The students sat on trunks while I gave them a lecture and went out to beg chairs, dishes, beds, etc. We called upon the neighbors, both white and black; all responded liberally. Our first meal was a jug of molasses and fourteen loaves of bread."

        A "chair" social was given, at which the ticket of admission was a chair. Thirty-seven chairs were secured that way. Then followed a "sheet and pillow-case" entertainment; a "dish" social; a "laundry-equipment" fair, and similar events. Temporary rooms for dining hall and kitchen were prepared. President Lovinggood, his wife, and little boy lived in one room; eight girls occupied one room; one teacher and twenty boys stayed in four rooms.

DEVOTION OF THE COLORED PEOPLE

        The devotion of the colored people to the school was most touching from the very first. For many years washerwomen came Saturday after Saturday with their small earning's tied in a handkerchief to divide with the school. After sharing their possessions they would kneel down with the president, pray for the school, and pass on. Day laborers brought their donations in weekly installments.


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In this way one colored laborer gave more than two hundred and fifty dollars to the school.

"TREAT OTHERS BETTER THAN THEY TREAT YOU"

        There was considerable opposition on the part of certain white people to the school, and some hard feeling and some definite persecution grew out of

Illustration

SAMUEL HUSTON COLLEGE BASEBALL TEAM

that fact. A white elementary school was not far away, and the children in passing to and from it used to make things rather uncomfortable for the students of Samuel Huston.

        In the midst of these trying times a faculty meeting was held, and faculty and students were urged to speak no unkind word and to refrain from any


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rash act. In this crisis the present motto of the school was adopted: "Strive always to treat others better than they treat you." How wise this policy proved to be is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that, when President Lovinggood died sixteen years later, the Mayor of Austin and the City Council attended the funeral in a body and the Mayor spoke.

PRESIDENT R. S. LOVINGGOOD

        The story of Samuel Huston College can never be told apart from that of President Lovinggood. He was born in South Carolina, in 1864. He used to speak of himself as a "mountain black." He learned his alphabet at the age of twelve years from a blue-backed speller in the Sunday school conducted in a little log Methodist Episcopal church. All his college preparatory work was done in this Sunday school. In 1881 he entered the elementary department of Clark University. He graduated from the classical course of Clark in 1890. For two years he published a weekly newspaper in Atlanta. He sold his interest in the paper, and became principal of a city school in Birmingham. In 1895 he was elected to the chair of Greek and Latin at Wiley University. There he stayed until he came to open Samuel Huston College in 1900. Weakened in body, he was obliged to give the strictest attention to diet, sleep, and special exercises. In spite of this limitation he was able to do a prodigious amount of work up until the time of his


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death in 1916, at the age of fifty-three. How well he lived is partly expressed in the words which were spoken of him at the time of his death:

        He was kind. He was good. He was fatherly. So many things have been left to remind us of him. He was a dreamer who dreamed dreams, and worked them out for the benefit of others. His joy was in seeing others' lives unfold. To him sacrifice was a pleasure. He lived for others; he died for others. Greater love hath no man than this. In him was love and his love was a cloak to all humanity. He loved mankind -- but he had a double love for the black boys and girls of his race.

        Colonel E. M. House, who has perhaps never been accused of extravagant language, said of him: "He is one of the greatest educators of his race." President Lovinggood was not given to complaining of the limitations placed upon his race, but on one occasion at least he said:

        When I went away to school I was taught that God is our Father. I was taught to pray, "Our Father, who art in heaven." I was taught that God is no respecter of persons, that he hath made of one blood all nations. I was taught that our country guaranteed to every one the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I learned the famous words, "Give me liberty or give me death."

        Now I obey the laws; I love my neighbors; I pay my taxes; I preach the gospel of good will and usefulness; I turn the other cheek. I begged twice to be permitted to join the army. I would die for Old Glory.

        But I find with that noble Southern white man, ex-Congressman W. H. Fleming, that "Taxation without representation is unjust -- except as to Negroes; equal rights to all and special privileges to none is a good doctrine -- except as to Negroes; all men are created


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free and equal -- except as to Negroes; this is a government of the people and by the people -- except as to Negroes."

        I am taxed, but I cannot vote.

        I was in a Northern city, a stranger and hungry. I had money. There was an abundance of food, but I was compelled to feast on a box of crackers and a piece of cheese. I did not ask to eat with white people, but I did ask to eat.

        I was traveling, I got off at a station almost starved. I begged a restaurant-keeper to put a lunch in a sack and to sell it to me out of the window. He refused. I was compelled to ride another hundred miles before I could get a sandwich.

        And then he added, "It is true that I feel a kind of soul aristocracy, which is unruffled by many discriminations and annoyances."

E. T. BURROWES

        Samuel Huston College received its name from an Iowa farmer who made a generous contribution to the school in the early days. Another man, who shared liberally in the development of the school, was E. T. Burrowes of Maine. He became interested in the project almost by chance through a paper placed in his hand by President E. O. Thayer of Clark University and a former teacher of Dr. Lovinggood. Without visiting the school Mr. Burrowes gave five thousand dollars toward the erection of the present main building, which bears his name. Later this initial gift was very largely increased. Opportunity finally came for him to visit the school, and he was moved to tears as he saw the


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pupils engaged in the activities of the school life. When he stood before the group in the chapel, he again broke down and could hardly speak. He wrote later:

        After making an investment in this enterprise, I made a trip to Austin to inspect personally the work.

Illustration

BURROWS HALL, SAMUEL HUSTON COLLEGE

I was gratified beyond all expectation in the actual work done at this school. I know of no place where an investment in educational work has brought such large and immediate returns.

THE WORK OF THE SCHOOL

        The emphasis of the school has been upon the providing of college, college-preparatory, industrial, musical, and normal courses. Possibly the


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largest present single task of the school is that of supplying adequately trained teachers for the many Negro schools in its vicinity which are in need of teachers. Through the agency of the Eliza Dee Home a thorough training is provided for the girls in domestic science and domestic art. The school

Illustration

ELIZA DEE HOME, WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY

has been crowded from the first and hundreds have been turned away for lack of room. The highest enrollment reached thus far has been 523. Recently a small farm has been purchased by the students and faculty for the use of the school. It is hoped to utilize this for purposes of agricultural training and also as a food-producing asset for the school.


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THE PRESENT PRESIDENT

        J. B. Randolph, the present president of Samuel Huston College, is himself a product of the schools of the Board of Education for Negroes. He was born in Mississippi in 1875. He moved to New Orleans, and graduated from New Orleans College in 1902, having taught school several years previous to that time. He assisted in connection with the Young People's Congress held at Atlanta in 1902, and in the fall of that year went to Wiley, where, as teacher at various times of Greek, Latin, French, Sociology, and Education, and as Dean of the College, he labored most effectively with Dr. Dogan in the building up of the school. In 1917 he was placed in charge of Haven Institute at Meridian, Mississippi. In June, 1920, he was transferred to Samuel Huston College. His personality, training, and practical experience should be worth much to the school.


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CHAPTER VII

AN IMPORTANT SCHOOL IN A GREAT CITY

New Orleans College

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT C. M. MELDEN

APPROXIMATELY four hundred out of every one thousand persons in the State of Louisiana are colored, and of the colored people in the State 484 out of every thousand are reported as illiterate. Such a statement hardly needs elaboration. Illuminated by even a little imagination it reveals a situation which is inimical to progress and to our national welfare in general. More than one hundred thousand of the nearly three quarters of a million Negroes in the State of Louisiana are to be found in New Orleans, the largest city of the State, and in fact the largest city of the entire South. In the midst of this large field with its pressing needs the Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church is at work.

BEGINNING OF THE WORK

        In the year 1865 the Louisiana Conference was


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organized. The same year, in order to prepare Negro young men for the ministry, the Thompson Bible Institute was established on Bayou Teche, Saint Mary's Parish. This school was later discontinued. In New Orleans Dr. John P. Newman, afterward Bishop Newman, founded a Normal School. The work grew for several years. In 1873 Dr. Joseph C. Hartzell, later Bishop Hartzell, bought a block and a half of land on which stood an old Southern mansion on Saint Charles Avenue, and secured a charter for "New Orleans University." To this location the Normal School was moved, and the development of the present institution began.

        The first catalogue of the school listed a Commercial Department, a Classical Department, a Scientific Department, a Preparatory Department, a Normal Department, a Biblical Department, a Medical Department, and a Law Department. All of these departments, with the possible exception of the Law Department, were or became actual realities, so that the school was in a real sense a university. Later the Biblical Department, so far as it represented actual training for the ministry, was discontinued in favor of Gammon Theological Seminary, and the Medical Department (Flint Medical College) was transferred to Meharry Medical College.

GILBERT ACADEMY

        For many years Gilbert Academy and Agricultural


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College, located at Baldwin, Louisiana, was associated with New Orleans College serving both as a preparatory school and feeder to the college and as an agricultural and industrial branch of it. The story of the institution is unique. It grew out of a movement begun before the close of the Civil War to care for and educate the orphans of colored Union soldiers. General N. P. Banks really initiated the movement in 1863 by providing for the gathering together of these neglected children in the city of New Orleans. Before that time they had often become scattered and lost, and some of them had been found dead by the roadside, famished while their mothers looked for work. Soon after this work was begun a Frenchman who chanced to be in New Orleans visited the Marine Hospital in which the children were established. His heart was touched, and he offered to give ten thousand dollars to purchase a farm home for the orphans on condition that twenty thousand dollars more should be raised to supplement his gift. Dr. John P. Newman, later Bishop Newman, took an active part in securing the needed money, and a large sugar plantation one hundred and four miles west of New Orleans, which had witnessed the joys and sorrows of generations of masters and slaves and which was now being sold by the sheriff, was purchased and became the Orphans' Home. The plan was to make the institution self-supporting from the proceeds of the sugar industry. However, the premature withdrawal


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of public funds from the support of the institution, an explosion which wrecked the sugar house, and other contributory causes placed the institution in jeopardy, and in the year 1874 it became necessary to place a considerable number of the orphans in private homes for care.

        At this juncture it chanced that Mrs. W. D. Godman of Berea, Ohio, was stopping at the institution. During her stay she had occasion to employ a colored laundress. One evening when this colored woman returned with the clothes she brought also a carefully wrapped bundle. She seemed to have something which she very much wanted to say, and at last she unwrapped her bundle to reveal a large old Bible and hesitatingly pleaded, "Please, would you learn me just one verse from God's word?" The appeal was too direct to be resisted and before the old woman left that night she had the joy of reading a verse from the New Testament. This led as the days passed to other verses. Other Negro women came and night after night they sat in an old building, with a dim light and with a boy stationed close at hand to kill any approaching snakes, and labored that they might learn to read. This was not the beginning of educational work at the orphanage, for the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church had from the first provided teachers for the orphans. It was, however, the beginning of an interest on the part of Mrs. Godman and of her husband, who was then president of Baldwin University in Berea,


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Ohio, which brought them permanently to the Southland and led them to give many years of devoted and effective service to the colored people of Louisiana. Under their leadership La Teche Seminary was opened on the plantation in April, 1875. The name of the school was later changed to Gilbert Seminary in honor of the Hon. W. L. Gilbert of Winsted, Connecticut, who gave generously to the school. Still later Gilbert Seminary became Gilbert Academy and Agricultural College. Throughout the years the school has retained its relations with New Orleans College, and the school has now been moved to New Orleans and combined with the college. The Woman's Home Missionary Society has taken charge of the orphanage work which was so long carried on and will continue this work on the Baldwin site.

A NEW NAME

        New Orleans College has throughout the years endeavored to adapt its program to changing conditions. One of the circumstances of this changing situation has been the tendency to centralize the work of professional training. In the working out of the general scheme it appeared that the large contribution which New Orleans College could make was in the field of training teachers. One of the crying needs of the entire area is for teachers and it was felt that the largest service could be rendered by producing here thoroughly trained young men and women to go out to teach the people


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of their own race. In accordance with this plan the normal and educational courses have been revised and strengthened. The name of the school has been changed to New Orleans College and Gilbert Academy. Under the new plan, special emphasis will be put upon normal training. In addition

Illustration

NEW ORLEANS COLLEGE

to this main emphasis of the school there are also offered a regular college course, junior college course, college preparatory course, a pre-medical course, a domestic science course, and special work in domestic art, music, elocution and commercial subjects. Instruction is also given in grades five to eight, and this work may be extended to include all of the elementary grades in order to provide an
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adequate practice school for the Normal Department.

PECK SCHOOL OF DOMESTIC SCIENCE AND ART

        Connected with New Orleans College but under the direct supervision of the Woman's Home Missionary Society, is the Peck School of Domestic Science and Art. This work was really begun independently by Mrs. Hartzell, wife of Bishop Joseph C. Hartzell. Through her influence a mission school for girls was established in 1887, and an Industrial Home was built in 1889 and named in honor of Bishop Jesse T. Peck. After eight years of most effective service the building burned, but the school was maintained in connection with the college. In 1912 the spacious and beautiful new building which now houses the Home was completed. It stands adjoining the college campus, and it makes a most important contribution to the life of the school. A considerable number of girls live at the Home and get the experience and training in home-making which only such residence can give. All of the girls, however, receive the instruction and training in cooking and sewing which is offered at the Home and carried on in its commodious and well-equipped work rooms and class rooms. Many hundreds of garments are produced here. Thus all of the girls get a practical training, according to a graded and well regulated course in cooking and sewing, and those who are minded to specialize in one or both of these branches


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are given the opportunity to do so and are granted diplomas upon the successful completion of their training. About fifty girls live in the Home.

STUDENTS

        More than five hundred students are enrolled in the various departments of New Orleans College. Most of the boarding students, both in the college dormitories and in Peck Home, are from outside of the city of New Orleans. This group is supplemented by a substantial number of day pupils from the city itself. Most of the girls come from fairly comfortable homes, and their way is paid by parents or by some relative. Many of the boys, however, are obliged to work their way through. They serve as butlers, house boys, yard boys, chauffeurs, and in various other capacities largely in private homes of white people in the city of New Orleans. A regular schedule is arranged for these boys and they work about an hour in the morning before coming to school and about two hours at night after school. The hotels and business places of New Orleans are five miles away down in the city, so that it is not feasible for the students to work in them. In the dormitory there is a regular evening study hour, after which the pupils retire at ten o'clock.

        An athletic ground is provided on the campus, and wholesome attention is given to athletic training. The football team from the school held the


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State championship for Negro teams in Louisiana in 1920.

THE PRESENT LOCATION

        The school is now located on a campus of about three acres, occupying two and a quarter city blocks

Illustration

NEW ORLEANS COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAM, STATE CHAMPIONS 1920

out on Saint Charles Avenue, one of the very finest residence streets of the city. A few blocks away stands Tulane University, one of the leading Southern universities for white people. As a matter of fact there is no single residence quarter for Negroes in the city of New Orleans, and they may be found distributed widely in nearly all parts of the city.
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The wide boulevard of Saint Charles Avenue, with its magnificent shade trees and its fine residences, provides a beautiful setting for the school. The chief buildings are the main school building, the president's home, and Peck Home. There is also a wooden building devoted to the use of the grade school. The present campus formed part of an old Southern plantation which was said to have been devoted largely to the raising of oranges. The president's house is the old plantation home, probably nearly one hundred years old.

AN INCIDENT

        When ground was broken for the new college building on Saint Charles Avenue, one of the speakers was the Rev. Emperor William, a Negro who had been born a slave in 1826. He was a master mason, and in the year 1858 he secured his own freedom. He offered two thousand dollars in gold for the freedom of his wife, who was also a slave, but her owners refused to sell her. Not long after General Butler captured New Orleans and Emperor William got his wife for nothing. He then took his money and purchased a home. He was one of the twelve who shared in the reorganization of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans in 1866. On the occasion of the breaking of ground for the new college building he was deeply stirred, and when opportunity came for him to speak he lifted his hands to heaven and said among other things:


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        "I wonder if this is the world I was born in! For twenty years I was a slave on these streets. It was a penitentiary offense to educate a Negro. I have seen my fellow servants whipped for trying learn; but, to-day, here I am on this great avenue in this great city with the bishops and elders and people of the Methodist Episcopal Church speaking at the breaking of ground where a building is to be erected for the education of my people. I wonder if this is the world I was born in!"

THE ALUMNI

        Few schools of similar sort have more to show for their efforts than has this school at New Orleans. Some of the most useful workers of the church have been trained in it. Bishop Alexander P. Camphor was a graduate of this school; and, after completing his own course, he served for a number of years as a teacher in his Alma Mater. Mrs. Camphor was also trained here, and it was here that she met her future husband. Professor J. W. E. Bowen of Gammon Theological Seminary is a graduate here; also M. S. Davage, president of Rust College, and J. B. Randolph, president of Samuel Huston College. M. C. B. Mason, formerly secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society, was educated here. David Jones, the brother of Bishop Robert E. Jones, and now general secretary of the Negro Y. M. C. A. in Saint Louis, one of the leading Negro Y. M. C. A. organizations of the country, attended school here and later at Wesleyan University. And the list


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might be very greatly extended. The graduates of New Orleans have "made good," and the strong religious emphasis in the work of the school has sent them out to lead lives of unselfish service.

        Built on the foundations of the past, New Orleans College faces tremendous needs. There is every reason to believe that her day of usefulness is only well begun.

        For some years the school has been under the experienced leadership of the Rev. Charles M. Melden, Ph.D., who, raised in the North, has devoted much of his life to the service of the Negro in the South. He was for a number of years the very efficient president of Clark University. He is author of a book on the American Negro entitled "From Slave to Citizen."


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CHAPTER VIII

THE HEART OF THE "BLACK BELT"

Rust College, Haven Institute, and Central Alabama Institute

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT M. S. DAVAGE

        JUDGED from the standpoint of complexion, the State of Mississippi represents the blackest part of the so-called Southern "black belt." More than fifty-two per cent of the people of the State are colored, making a total of nearly a million Negroes in the State. In 1910 the rate of illiteracy among the Negroes of Mississippi over ten years of age was 356 to every thousand. Most of these people live in the country, for there are few cities in the State. The largest place in the State has a population of only 23,000. The State is almost entirely flat, the highest point rising to an altitude of only a little more than seven hundred feet. The rural public schools of the State are conspicuous either for their absence or for the fact of their impoverished condition and the brevity of their sessions. Mississippi probably spends less per capita for the education of its white children than


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any other State in the Union, yet even that meager amount represents a per-capita expenditure five and one half times greater than that spent for the education of its Negro children.

RUST COLLEGE

        In the northeastern part of the State, on what is said to be the highest point of land in the State, stands Rust College. The campus is an unusually attractive one, set off by broad expanses of green, beautiful shade trees, well laid out drives, and a number of college buildings, one central structure, two other buildings used for purposes of instruction, Rust Home, a model home for girls operated by the Woman's Home Missionary Society, and a home for the president. Tennis courts and croquet and ball grounds are spots of pronounced activity during recreation hours. After visiting some of the dilapidated buildings and neglected spots devoted to public-school purposes in the State, a view of Rust campus is like the view of an oasis in a desert. Rust College has indeed been a spot of refreshment during the years of the past, and the contribution which the school has made to the life of Mississippi is too large for computation.

EARLY DAYS AT THE SCHOOL

        This school was opened in Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church in Holly Springs in 1867. The Rev. A. C. McDonald served as the first president. A considerable piece of ground was purchased soon


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Illustration

RUST COLLEGE
The Central Building and Some of the Students in Action


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after, and the first college building was erected. The school was called Shaw University, in honor of the Rev. S. P. Shaw, who made a liberal donation toward the work. It was afterward changed to Rust University in order to avoid confusion with another school known as Shaw University. It is now commonly known as Rust College. The original charter was granted May 26, 1870.

        When the first building was going up, a wind storm came along and blew down the partly raised structure. The building went up in spite of this fact, and it is still standing. A bell was installed in connection with it, and when it sounded for the first time an old colored woman shouted aloud with joy. In all her life up to that time the only bell she had heard had been the plantation bell calling the slaves to work. Now to have a real bell calling black boys and girls to school was an experience so profound and epoch-making, as to be well worth shouting about.

        Not all of the pupils of those early days were boys and girls, however. Grown men and women came out of slavery into the school, and small boys might have been seen seated on the laps of old men on the campus helping them to master their lessons.

THE WORK OF THE SCHOOL

        From the beginning the school has maintained an Elementary Department, the poor public school facilities of the State for Negroes rendering this a practical necessity. The Secondary Department


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has also met a real need, as there are almost no colored high schools in the State, and of those so listed probably not one gives a four-year high school course. The college preparatory and normal work has formed an important part of the school program. In addition the Industrial and Commercial Departments have made substantial contributions to the effectiveness of the work. The number enrolled in the College Department proper has always been small, owing to the limited opportunities for secondary education in the State, but the graduates and former pupils have a high record of usefulness.

THE ALUMNI

        There are more than one hundred men in the Upper Mississippi Conference, and of these more than half are graduates or former students of Rust. Among school executives must be included President M. W. Dogan of Wiley College, President J. B. F. Shaw of Central Alabama Institute, Principal I. H. Miller of Cookman Institute, and Dean L. M. McCoy of Morgan College. The Hon. Perry W. Howard, recently appointed Assistant Attorney General of the United States, is a graduate here. There are also many of the successful doctors, dentists, business men, school teachers, and others in the list. Few schools have more in proportion to show for their efforts.

THE PRESENT PRESIDENT

        President M. S. Davage is himself a graduate of


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another of the schools of the Board of Education for Negroes, namely, New Orleans College. His father, a product of slavery, was one of the oldest members of the Louisiana Conference. When Mr. Davage had completed his study at New Orleans, he went to the University of Chicago for post-graduate work. He taught for a time at New Orleans College, served for ten years as business manager of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, and since that time has been successively in charge of George R. Smith College, Haven Institute, Samuel Huston College, and Rust College. Under his wise and experienced leadership Rust College should move on to even greater usefulness in the future.

RUST HOME

        The Elizabeth L. Rust Home, under the auspices of the Woman's Home Missionary Society, was opened on the campus of Rust College in 1884. Since that time it has played an important part in the life of the school. In recent years it has been under the devoted leadership of Miss M. E. Becker, now superintendent emeritus, although still in active service, and Miss Rebecca Barbour. Each of these estimable ladies has given more than fifteen years to the work of this Home. About sixty girls live at the Home and all of the girls of the college are enrolled in the Domestic Science and Domestic Art Departments of the school, which are under the direction of the Home. The work in these departments


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is thoroughly organized and carried on under the best of conditions.

        It is perhaps not easy to appreciate how much this phase of the work means in the lives of the pupils. Some time ago one of the girls at the home was taken suddenly and seriously ill, and it became necessary to send for her mother. The mother arrived in due time, although she had never been ten miles from home before and never had ridden on a train previously. Her reaction to what she found was most illuminating. It was her first experience upstairs in a house, because she never before had been in a house that had an upstairs. Electric switches and other contrivances were marvels to her. Fortunately the daughter began to mend, and the mother was taken to visit the cooking classes, the sewing, room, and other activities of the school. At every step of the way her oft repeated question was, "Does my daughter do that?" It all seemed too good to be true. When the time came for her to leave the school the mother said, "All my life I have wanted to go to school, and now I have really been through college."

CROWDING

        Like many other schools for Negroes, Rust College is crowded beyond its capacity. Five hundred pupils were enrolled in a recent year, and, although twice as many were crowded into the dormitories as they were originally intended for, more than one hundred and fifty pupils were turned away for


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lack of room. New dormitory space and a modern refectory have been asked for. The continued success of the program of Centenary advance will determine whether these and other pressing needs of this very effective and greatly needed school are to be supplied.

Haven Institute

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT J. B. F. SHAW

        The Board of Education for Negroes has a second school in Mississippi. This school, now known as Haven Institute, had its beginning in the brain of Moses Adams, an old colored man, an ex-slave, and a "before-the-war" preacher. Started in 1865, the school has from the very first been under the direction of colored leaders. Among those who have had charge of the school are J. H. Brooks, J. L. Wilson, W. W. Lucas, the Rev. J. B. F. Shaw, Professor M. S. Davage, now president of Samuel Huston College, and the Rev. R. N. Brooks, now principal of Central Alabama Institute. The school is now in charge of the Rev. J. B. F. Shaw. President Shaw was born in a log cabin in the State of Mississippi, and as a youth was thoroughly disciplined in the school of hard work. He attended Rust College, where he earned the degree of A.B., and


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later he studied in Chicago. He has had a successful career as a teacher and school administrator, having had charge of this same school at an earlier period. When Professor Alexander Priestly Camphor was made Missionary Bishop to Africa in 1916, Professor Shaw succeeded him as head of Central Alabama Institute. He remained with the school until 1921, when he was recalled to Haven Institute to take charge of the larger program which is now being made possible by the removal of the school to a new and more satisfactory home. In all of his work President Shaw is ably assisted by his talented and cultured wife, who is also a graduate of Rust College.

        

Illustration

CENTRAL BUILDING, HAVEN INSTITUTE


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Illustration

THE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC AND OTHER VIEWS OF HAVEN INSTITUTE


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A NEW HOME FOR THE SCHOOL

        Since its founding this school has been located in Meridian, the largest city in Mississippi. For years the institution has been limited for lack of adequate room for expansion and development. Uncounted crowds of students have been turned away for lack of dormitory space and school facilities. Recently an unusual opportunity came to the school to secure, a mile outside of Meridian, one hundred acres of land, a beautiful and fully equipped school property, and at the same time to dispose of the property so long held in town. The impetus of the Centenary was at hand and the Board of Education for Negroes, after careful consideration, decided that it was feasible to make the exchange and to provide the extra money needed to complete the transaction. In October, 1921, the school opened in its new home.

        This beautiful new location was until recently the home of a Southern girls' school known as Meridian College and Conservatory. It has not only a wonderful expanse of campus, but also adequate and commodious school buildings fully equipped for work. A large conservatory of music is included, with a pipe organ, numerous pianos and other musical equipment. Every room in the dormitories is equipped with running water, and an excellent swimming pool is also a part of the school equipment. Coupled with the campus is a large and productive farm yearly producing many


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acres of fresh vegetables of many sorts and supporting a dairy to provide milk and other dairy products for the school. It will also afford opportunity for the extension of the agricultural courses which have previously been included as a part of the regular curriculum of the school.

        Although a mile from town, the new school property is provided with electric transportation service so that it is easily accessible. Altogether the new situation seems to be most excellently adapted to the expanding needs of Haven Institute, and it is of large significance to the colored people of the belated State of Mississippi that they should have available a school campus, buildings, and equipment so admirably fitted for the training and uplift of their young men and women. In the field of college-preparatory work, normal training, music, commercial branches, agricultural training and in other lines Haven Institute has possibilities of development which will be limited only by the vision of her leaders and the support of her friends. The future of this school bids fair to far exceed its very worthy past.

Central Alabama Institute

        Directly east of Mississippi is the State of Alabama, another of the "black belt" States. While the proportion of the colored population in Alabama is not quite so large as in the case of Mississippi, the rate of illiteracy among Negroes in the


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State is even greater than among the Negroes of Mississippi. Unlike Mississippi, Alabama has some large and busy cities. In the suburbs of Birmingham, the largest and busiest of these, the Board of Education for Negroes is at work.

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT R. N. BROOKS

        Central Alabama Institute is located at Mason City, a Negro residential community named after M. C. B. Mason, a former secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society. The campus, which consists of forty acres of beautiful pine woods, is located a mile beyond the end of the Birmingham car line, but within a few rods of a railroad station. The location is a pleasant and healthful one. The main school building is attractive in appearance and well adapted to school uses. This building, "Brainerd Hall," was made possible by a generous contribution from Mrs. Mary G. Brainerd of Waterville, New York, in honor of her son, Daniel A. Brainerd. Besides this building there are a boys' dormitory, a home for the president, and other minor buildings. A portion of the land is used for agricultural purposes. As a part of the Centenary program a fine new dormitory will be added to the equipment of the school.

        This school, formerly known as the Rust Normal


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Illustration

BRAINERD HALL, CENTRAL ALABAMA INSTITUTE

Illustration

STUDENTS, CENTRAL ALABAMA INSTITUTE


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Institute, was located at Huntsville, Alabama, in the northern part of the State. It was founded in 1872 and rendered good service. It was moved in 1904 to Birmingham, a city with a colored population of more than seventy thousand, with the thought that this central location would help to extend its field of usefulness. It has developed more nearly into a family school than any other of the schools of the Board of Education for Negroes. The emphasis is upon secondary and normal training, and the more than two hundred pupils of the school have an opportunity to study under the most wholesome conditions and under teachers whose influence is inspiring and uplifting. In addition to the usual normal and secondary branches there are special departments giving instruction in music, domestic science, domestic art, and commercial subjects.

        It was here at Central Alabama Institute that the Rev. Alexander P. Camphor was so long in charge, and it was from here that he was elected as Missionary Bishop for Africa in 1916. When he assumed his new responsibilities the Rev. J. B. F. Shaw was placed in charge of the school. The present principal is the Rev. R. N. Brooks, a graduate of Bennett College and of Gammon Theological Seminary. After a successful period in the pastorate he went to Northwestern University, where he earned his A.M. in the field of education. For two years he served at Washington, D. C., as the representative of the Board of Sunday Schools of


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the Methodist Episcopal Church, from which position he was called to take charge of Haven Institute. In 1921 he was transferred to Central Alabama Institute, where he has a large field of usefulness. Mrs. Brooks is the daughter of Dr. W. H. Crogman of Clark University, and she is a graduate of that school.


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CHAPTER IX

LOOKING TOWARD THE WEST

George R. Smith College and Philander Smith College

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT ROBERT B. HAYES

From the standpoint geographical distribution the Negro is more nearly a national phenomenon than ever before. The Northward and Westward trend of colored life has been accentuated during the last decade. While in some Southern States the number of Negroes has not only relatively but actually decreased, the increase in certain Northern and Western communities has amounted in many cases to several hundred per cent. It is an interesting fact that all of the largest city centers of Negro life in the United States are to-day in the North and not in the South. Thus we have the phenomena of Negro parents residing in the North and sending their pupils South to be educated in the schools of the church. In a similar way the colored man has been discovering the West. Crowds have gone to Oklahoma, and others have settled in Kansas, Arizona, California, and other Western States. They
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too look back to the church schools as the place where they can send their children to be educated and feel that they are safely cared for. It is fortunate that some of the schools of the Board are so located as to be able to minister effectively to portions of this more distant field, as well as to their immediate neighborhoods. One of the schools so located is the George R. Smith College at Sedalia, Missouri.

GENERAL GEORGE R. SMITH

        Although George R. Smith had nothing directly to do with the founding of the college, he was the founder of Sedalia, and his story is an interesting one. He was a Virginian by birth, although he

Illustration

GEORGE R. SMITH COLLEGE


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moved later with his father to Kentucky, and finally migrated with his father-in-law to Missouri. Here in this new country, by natural genius, will power, and hard work, he amassed a fortune and made a place for himself in the affairs of the State.

        Although a Southerner by birth and at certain times, by force of circumstances, an owner of slaves, he was unalterably opposed to the whole system. His father had owned about forty slaves, but had freed most of them before his death. In the debates just preceding the war George R. Smith took a very active part, and he stood uncompromisingly for the Union.

        He was a big man in every way; he had a deep resonant voice, great courage, and high ideals; he was broad-minded, and, although sometimes severe in statement, he was kindly at heart. Little children loved him.

STORY OF THE SCHOOL

        After the death of General Smith his daughters, impressed by the work being done for Negroes by the Methodist Episcopal Church, although they were themselves members of another church, gave to the Freedmen's Aid Society twenty-eight acres of land at the edge of the city of Sedalia for the founding of a college for Negroes. The gift was made in 1888, but it was not until 1894 that a building was erected and the school opened. Fifty-seven students were enrolled the first year. The school was regularly chartered in 1903. Since its


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organization more than two thousand students have profited by its instruction. The school has always been small in numbers because of its limited dormitory and class-room facilities, but up to its capacity it has done excellent service. Funds have never been available for the erection of much needed buildings until the coming of the Centenary. It is expected that in the near future the present dormitory can be remodeled and a new one for girls erected.

THE STUDENTS

        Most of the students come from Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, although they come from as far West as California and as far North as Illinois and Wisconsin. One of the present students is a native of Africa. In that far-off country he read in a paper of the George R. Smith College and decided that it was the school which he wished to attend. With the aid of his mother he secured passage to New York, and, in company with another native African boy, he made the far journey to the new land. After a few months of waiting table in New York city he moved on to Sedalia, where he is now "working his way" through school. Upon his forehead he bears the scars of gashes made by the native African doctor to let out the black fever. When he has finished his schooling he expects to return to his native land. Thus the influence of George R. Smith College is being extended even beyond the sea.


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        Many of the students at the school are employed in Sedalia, and their labor is much appreciated. In fact, the people of the town have cooperated most effectively with the school in this matter of supplying opportunities for the students to work. Some do housework; others act as yard boys, waiters, porters, and in other capacities. One girl is an expert salad maker at the local hotel, and she has been paying her way through school by making salads; another works in an office, and so the list might be extended.

STUDENT ACTIVITIES

        The students maintain a number of literary, athletic, and religious organizations. They have football, baseball, and basket-ball teams for the boys and a basketball team for girls. Much emphasis is put upon training in public speaking. A State oratorical contest is held each year, and for two years George R. Smith College has won first place in it. During a recent year the debate team of the school was undefeated in the State. Special training is given to the religious life, and the school regularly maintains a scholarship in Liberia.

COOPERATION

        The colored constituency of the school has been most loyal in its support. One active colored woman in Oklahoma, herself a graduate of Bennett College is building up a dairy for George R. Smith


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by inducing various colored churches of the Lincoln Conference to buy thoroughbred Holstein calves and give them to the school. She is also active in sending students, and she recently had two of her own sons and a niece at the school. One successful Negro doctor of Oklahoma, himself a graduate of George R. Smith and later of Meharry Medical College, has had three children in attendance.

THE GRADUATES

        The graduates of the George R. Smith College are to be found in many professions and scattered in many States. Some are in the trades; a considerable number are employed by the Government; one girl was the first colored girl to be employed as a typist in the Missouri State Legislature. More than one third of the ministers in the Central Missouri Conference are either graduates or former students of the college. Dr. B. F. Abbott, pastor of Union Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church in Saint Louis, is an alumnus of the school. More than twenty of its graduates are in the medical profession; one of these is now a professor at Meharry Medical College and another is part owner of a much needed hospital for colored people in Oklahoma City.

THE PRESIDENT

        The president of George R. Smith College is Professor R. B. Hayes, a capable colored man devoted


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to the interests of his people. Born in Texas, he received his public school and high school education in Kansas and Oklahoma. He then entered Baker University in Kansas. Here he majored in science and received both his A.B. and his A.M. degrees. In college he was prize-winner in oratory and he also represented his school in intercollegiate debate. He won this recognition in spite of the fact that he worked his way through school as a cook in a position for which he qualified by making biscuits to please Dr. Parmenter. Later he took special work at the University of Chicago. After graduating from Baker he went to Philander Smith College, where for thirteen years he was in charge of the Science Department. In 1916 he was called to take charge of George R. Smith College, and since that time he has been quietly but effectively building his life into the life of the school and influencing for good the lives of the boys and girls who attend it.

Philander Smith College

        In the capital city of Arkansas stands Philander Smith College, ministering to the nearly half a million Negroes in the State. It has a main college building, a large dormitory, a small office building, the home of the president, and the Adeline Smith Home, under the direction of the Woman's Home Missionary Society.

        This school was opened in connection with the


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local Negro church in 1877. It was then known as Walden Seminary. In 1883 the Philander Smith family gave ten thousand dollars toward the erection of the present main building.

RESULTS OF THE WORK

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT JAMES M. COX

The first class was graduated from the school in 1888. Since that time the graduates have totaled more than five hundred. This was the first school for the higher education of the Negro to be established in the State. Of the more than two thousand teachers in the colored schools of the State of Arkansas a very large proportion were trained here at Philander Smith. The president of the State Teachers' Association is a graduate of this school. One graduate of this school was employed for several years as a representative of the International Sunday School Association; several have gone to Africa as missionaries; one is now a professor at Gammon Theological Seminary; and others are successful ministers, doctors, dentists, railway mail clerks, lawyers, business men, housewives, and teachers. To a gratifying degree the students of Philander Smith College have gone out to engage in effective and unselfish service. This school too has extended its influence far beyond the confines of
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its own State, and pupils come to it from as far West as California.

THE ADELINE SMITH INDUSTRIAL HOME

        The work of the Adeline Smith Industrial Home in connection with the college was begun in 1883. The Home, which is under the auspices of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, accommodates about seventy-five girls, and the training which they receive in it gives them ideals of home life and practical skill in applying them to concrete situations. The work in domestic science and sewing is open to all of the girls in the school.

PRESIDENT COX

        Philander Smith College has never had but two presidents; the first was the Rev. Thomas Mason, a white man from the North; the second and present incumbent of the office is the Rev. J. M. Cox, a Negro. President J. M. Cox was born in Alabama in 1860. He was educated at Clark University, where he graduated in 1884. He then entered Gammon Theological Seminary, completing the course in 1886 and being the first man to receive a degree from the seminary. He went directly to Little Rock, and for eleven years taught Greek and Latin in Philander Smith College. In 1897, after President Mason resigned, Professor Cox was made president, and he has been continuously in charge of the school since that time. During his long years


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Illustration

PHILANDER SMITH COLLEGE
Adeline Smith Industrial Home, Student Choir, Main Building, Young Men's Bible Class, a Picnic Party


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of service he has had a chance to see not only his students but his own children go out into fields of useful service. One son served in the army; another is a successful dentist; one daughter spent four years at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and is now teaching at Clark University; a second daughter is a teacher at Morgan College; and a third is still studying in college.

THE FUTURE OF THE SCHOOL

        This school has a large field of usefulness open to it. The very pressing need for teachers and for other trained workers is a continual challenge to it. The school is cramped in its present quarters. It is hoped that the Centenary will make possible a much needed extension of the facilities and program of the school.


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CHAPTER X

THE CAROLINAS

Claflin College and Bennett College

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT L. M. DUNTON

        SOUTH CAROLINA is one of the two States in the Union which have a larger Negro than white population. From the standpoint of Negro education conditions are far from satisfactory; 387 out of every one thousand of the Negro population over ten years of age being illiterate. In other words, the State has well over a quarter of a million Negroes over ten years of age, who cannot write, and the prospect of rapidly and radically changing this situation is not as bright as might be desired. The public school has gotten too far behind its task to quickly catch up with it. Thus a recent report of the State Agent for Negro Schools in South Carolina says:

        The school buildings are in most instances wretched, the terms short, the salaries low, practically no equipment, and the preparation and fitness of the teachers generally very inferior. . . .We cannot expect the health and morals of the Negro race to be improved as


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long as 100 children are crowded into a room where there is room for only 50 or 60 children, with the ventilation and other sanitary conditions bad. The children cannot make much progress in schools with a term of only two or three months, under teachers not prepared for the work and having twice the number of children they ought to have. . . .Practically every Negro school is overcrowded, some of them dreadfully so. The houses are generally in a very dilapidated condition. . . .Often the number of seats is entirely inadequate, and at the same time the seats are generally of every imaginable kind and condition. A great many class rooms have no blackboard. Most Negro teachers in Negro schools have charge of from seventy-five to a hundred children, and often they have more than a hundred children in their rooms. . . . Often the teaching is only a farce.

        These fragments from an official State report help to suggest something of the distressing need for Negro education in the State and of the utter inadequacy of equipment and facilities for meeting that need. The same report recommends the lengthening of the school term to five months. It also records the fact that for the first time a recognized public high school for Negroes exists in the State; in other words, for the first time in the history of the State there is one public high school for a Negro population totaling well up toward a million.

THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH AT WORK

        In the midst of this overwhelming need the Methodist Episcopal Church has long been at work. The South Carolina Conference was organized in 1866. Three Years later the buildings and grounds


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of the Orangeburg Female College were purchased and Claflin University, named after a former governor of Massachusetts, was organized. More than three hundred students were enrolled the first year. In 1872 the State of South Carolina established the South Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical College at Orangeburg in connection with Claflin. An experimental farm was provided and industrial training was largely developed in addition to the classical course which was maintained from the first. In 1896, pursuant to a policy adopted by the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, these two schools were separated so far as management was concerned, although they still remain friendly neighbors with campuses adjoining. Since 1883 the trustees of the John F. Slater Fund have contributed regularly to the work of the Industrial Department. Their liberality has made the extended industrial development possible.

PRESENT EQUIPMENT AND WORK OF THE SCHOOL

        Claflin College has an excellent campus of about fifty acres with a score or more of buildings well adapted to school purposes. The principal ones are a fine and modern main building, a large and commodious girls' dormitory, a large boys' dormitory, a home where girls from the surrounding country may live and provide their own food while in school, a library building, a dining hall, and a large industrial building. The campus is conveniently located just at the edge of the city of Orangeburg and


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Illustration

CLAFLIN COLLEGE
Tingley Hall, a Campus Scene, and The Boys' Dormitory


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within easy walking distance of the railroad station. The region round about is largely devoted to the raising of cotton. From these farms crude, untaught Negro boys and girls come to Claflin, where, as they go through the various departments of the school, they are gradually transformed into alert, intelligent, and useful citizens. Some go into the trades; some teach school; some become Christian ministers; and some go on to professional schools to study medicine, dentistry, the law, or theology. It has been said that a list of the district superintendents and leading ministers of the South Carolina Conference, which is the largest Negro Conference in the Methodist Episcopal Church, together with a list of the leading colored lawyers physicians, and business men of the entire region, would almost be a list of the graduates and former pupils of Claflin. Many of them were converted in the special meetings held nearly every year on the Claflin campus.

PRESIDENT AND MRS. DUNTON

        

Illustration

MRS. L. M. DUNTON

President and Mrs. L. M. Dunton are both from New York State. While attending Syracuse University Mr. Dunton's health became seriously impaired, and he was obliged to go South to a milder climate. In 1873 he arrived in Orangeburg, where he became
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a teacher and where without premeditation on his part he discovered his life work among the colored people of the South. His direct connection with the school was not continuous. He served for several years as pastor and presiding elder until 1883, when he was elected vice-president of Claflin. A few months later, in 1884, he became president of the school. Since that time the remarkable development of Claflin has been closely interwoven with the earnest and effective service of Dr. Dunton and his talented and cultured wife.

        The part which Mrs. Dunton has played has been a most important one. Although working most of the time without salary, she has given herself unreservedly to serving in the classroom and in the field, promoting the work. With her skill and thorough training in modern languages perfected by years of diligent study and travel abroad, she has made a most varied contribution to the school. The influence of Mrs. Dunton has not been limited to the campus, however. During the years when Dr. Dunton's health would not permit him to be in the North during the winter she traveled widely, presenting the work of the school and making friends for it. She spoke in nearly every State from Maine to California, and that she spoke effectively the many buildings on the Claflin campus testify. One of them, against her will, is named in her honor. The finest building on the campus, Tingley Hall, used as the main college building came as the result of her courtesy to a stranger


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at the Orangeburg station. She has played an important role in building up the remarkable Music Department at Claflin, and in a multitude of other ways has left her imprint upon the life of the school. Whenever the story of Claflin is told it will record the nearly half a century of devoted service given by President and Mrs. Dunton.

THE FUTURE OF THE SCHOOL

        The future of Claflin is full of promise. The fine traditions of the school, the good physical equipment, and the distressing need on every hand for its ministry provide the setting for a future of unusual usefulness. It is important, however, that the present small endowment of this school be substantially increased if it is to measure up to the demands placed upon it.

Bennett College

        Bennett College, at Greensboro, North Carolina was organized by the Freedmen's Aid Society in 1873. It occupies an attractive campus just at the edge of the city. Throughout its history it has been characterized by the devotion of its colored constituency to it and by the usefulness of the lives of its graduates. It records among its alumni more than twenty doctors and a goodly number of merchants, teachers, dentists, college professors, farmers, postal clerks, and others. In the turning of men to the ministry Bennett College has an enviable


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record, having sent more graduates to Gammon Theological Seminary than any other school. Both of the Negro Bishops elected at the 1920 General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Bishop Matthew W. Clair and Bishop Robert E. Jones, are listed as alumni of Bennett.

CROWDED CONDITIONS

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT FRANK TRIGG

For some time the story of Bennett has been a story of over-crowding. Two pupils have been put at desks made for one and three pupils at desks made for two. Six or eight individuals have occupied sleeping quarters designed for four; cots have been set up by night and taken down by day; and halls have been filled with trunks which should have been elsewhere had there been space for them. The reason for this badly congested condition lies both in the eagerness of the large Negro population of North Carolina to take advantage of the educational opportunities which are offered and also in the utter inadequacy of the physical equipment of the school. A situation which was bad enough was made worse by the burning of one of the old school buildings which had been erected some years previously by the gifts of the colored people of North Carolina. This brick building
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housed a boys' dormitory, the school chapel, and other rooms adapted and used for school purposes. Since the fire the boys have been forced to find lodgings in the Negro homes of Greensboro, and school assemblages have been held in Saint Matthew's Methodist Episcopal Church, more than a mile away from the campus. The fire did, however, pave the way for a much needed remaking of Bennett physically. It is now proposed to erect a modern dormitory, a chapel and administration building, and a refectory. The strengthening of the work of the Board of Education for Negroes through the Centenary program of advance has already made possible the beginning of the new dormitory and the work on this and other needed buildings will move forward as rapidly as funds are made available.

THE STUDENTS

        The students are an alert group of young colored Americans. A number of them served in the World War and others have already given a good account of themselves in a variety of occupations. During the summers some go back to the farm and others scatter throughout the North engaging in a multitude of remunerative activities.

THE STORY OF A POOR BOY

        Some years ago there was born in Greensboro a colored boy, whom the parents named Robert. The home was not one of luxury, but of the utmost simplicity.


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There were many difficult times in "making both ends meet"; but there was also Bennett College. Perseverance and diligence on the part of both mother and son made possible the completion of the course offered by Bennett, and then the son went on to Gammon Theological Seminary.

Illustration

BENNETT COLLEGE CAMPUS

The going was not an easy one, for it brought the criticism of neighbors upon the mother for sending away her oldest son; and it cost her the sacrifice of a home already partly paid for. The boy, however, did not disappoint her, for he was none other than Robert E. Jones, the present honored Bishop of the New Orleans Area of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who without Bennett College
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might never have had the opportunity of an education. And the mother, born in slavery but determined that her boy should have his "chance," does not regret the sacrifice she made or the price she paid. She rejoices to-day not only in the service which her oldest boy has been permitted to render, but also in the success of her other boy, who, a graduate of another school conducted by the Board of Education for Negroes, is the executive head of one of the best housed and most successful Negro Young Men's Christian Associations in the United States.

PRESIDENT FRANK TRIGG

        President Frank Trigg of Bennett College was born in the Governor's mansion in Richmond, Virginia, with, as he humorously relates, "the face of Patrick Henry in oil" looking down upon him. In spite of these seemingly auspicious circumstances he was born a slave. He was eleven years old when the Civil War ended. All through it he remained faithful to his mistress. One of the greatest achievements of his life was when, with all of the men away in the army, he hitched up a mule and an old gray horse and drove four miles into the country in order to get wood to keep the home of his mistress warm. Shortly after that event he sacrificed an arm in her service, but in spite of that handicap he has made a remarkable record. In order to get an education he drove a scavenger wagon, and although he was taunted for his occupation


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he refused to receive aid which he did not earn. He went to Hampton Institute, where he won his way into the affections of General Armstrong. Since his graduation he has come up through a long life of useful service to occupy his present position. Possibly one of the best testimonies

Illustration

KENT HOME

to the consistency of the life he has lived lies in the fact that his children have all gone out to enter useful and honorable fields of service.

KENT HOME

        Since 1884 the Woman's Home Missionary Society has cooperated in the work at Bennett through Kent Home. The original building was destroyed by fire, but it has been replaced by a larger one,


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which is taxed to its capacity. Courses in millinery, sewing, and cooking are given for the benefit of all the girls in the school. In addition the girls who live at the Home receive special training in the art of home making under the direction of the capable and efficient leaders provided by the society.


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CHAPTER XI

IN "SUNNY TENNESSEE"

Morristown Normal and Industrial College and Walden University

        

Illustration

PRESIDENT JUDSON S. HILL

ON a commanding elevation at the edge of the city of Morristown, Tennessee, is the fifty-acre campus of Morristown Normal and Industrial College. It has a beautiful new main school building, toward which Andrew Carnegie and others contributed, one fine large dormitory building which also serves as a dining hall, a teachers' cottage, the New Jersey Industrial Home under the auspices of the Woman's Home Missionary Society, and two industrial buildings. Not far away is the comfortable home of the president of the school, and a short drive into the country brings one to the beautiful three-hundred-acre farm which is also the property of the school. This is the school physically, but back of every building and back of every improvement stands the steady and persistent effort
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of President J. S. Hill, who since the organization of the school has been in charge of the work.

IN THE BEGINNING

        In August, 1881, the Rev. Judson S. Hill went to Morristown to serve the "Morristown Circuit," or,

Illustration

ORIGINAL BUILDING AT MORRISTOWN NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE

in other words, to take charge of a white church which did not then exist. It was tacitly understood, however, that his main job was to organize a school for Negroes in Morristown. He did not delay long, for in September immediately following his arrival the school was opened. The school was called Morristown Seminary, and the
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pupils ranged in age from seven to seventy years. An appropriation of three hundred dollars was made by the Missionary Society for the support of Mr. Hill as pastor. As a teacher be received no salary. There was one other teacher the first year, who was paid from tuition funds received. One interesting circumstance has grown out of the fact that some of the first pupils were old men and women, namely, that, although the school is only forty years old, there are actually in attendance to-day some of the fifth generation descendants of those first pupils.

CONVERTED SLAVE MART

        One of Bishop Henry W. Warren's first official acts was to purchase in 1881 a home for this new school. The building secured had previously been known as the Reagan High School but the building itself had had an interesting history before it ever came to be used for school purposes. It was erected as a Baptist church, and later converted into a slave mart, where human beings were bought and sold. By a curious coincidence one of the presiding elders of the Methodist Episcopal Church was, as a boy, sold in this building with a calf, and later he returned to it to get an education. One of the present teachers of the school was sold in this building as a slave for the sum of $1,156. He later returned to it as a pupil and then for years taught in the old building. This slave market still stands as a part of one of the industrial buildings.


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WORKING WITH THE HANDS

        Special emphasis has been put upon industrial training here and every pupil is expected to spend a portion of each day in the workshop. The principal industries taught are broom-making, woodworking, and printing. A machine shop is maintained, and for a considerable number of years a foundry was operated. This latter has, however, been discontinued. It is expected that the recently purchased Wallace Farm will enable the school to offer more extended agricultural training than it has been able to provide in the past. A part of the industrial training for girls is under the direction of New Jersey Home, although the actual teaching is done in the new, modern, and well-equipped main school building. Here various courses in domestic science and domestic art are effectively taught. and opportunity for specialization is afforded.

REACHING THOUSANDS

        Since the organization of the school more than ten thousand students have been trained in it. Of these students more than two thousand have gone out to teach school among the people of their own race. Thus the school has multiplied its influence many times. By a special arrangement with the public-school authorities the school provides instruction in the elementary grades to a large proportion of the colored boys and girls of the community


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in addition to the more advanced normal, college preparatory, and special courses upon which the chief emphasis is placed. More than half the members of the East Tennessee Conference were

Illustration

MAIN BUILDING, MORRISTOWN NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE

trained here. In order to reach individuals who are employed during the day it is customary to maintain a night school during the winter months.

FROM PERSECUTION TO COOPERATION

        One of the personal triumphs of President Hill has been his winning of the confidence of the white people in the midst of whom he has labored. When the work was undertaken forty years ago, the attitude


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was one of suspicion. It is interesting to note that President Hill was recently made chairman of a committee to revise the charter of the city of Morristown.

MEASURING UP TO THE NEED

        Notwithstanding the beautiful campus and the several buildings, the school is still not in a condition to measure up to its opportunities. Its greatest lack is dormitory space and dining facilities. A new dormitory for boys and a new modern refectory are urgently needed. If these were provided, it would be possible to admit to the advantages of the school a large number of applicants who must now be turned away for lack of space.

        

Illustration

WALLACE FARM


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BUILDING UNDER FAVORABLE CIRCUMSTANCES

        In this matter of building Morristown possesses some distinct advantages; the timber on Wallace Farm supplies the necessary lumber; an excellent bed of clay on the campus is used with the aid of student labor to make the bricks; a deposit of limestone provides the necessary lime; an abundance of wood for burning the lime and operating the brick ovens is available; and the school is equipped for the making of flooring, doors, sash, frames, and similar items. The bricks for Crary Hall, the money for the building of which was largely contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Horace Crary of Binghamton, New York, and for other buildings were made on the campus. For the proposed new boys' dormitory, refectory, and hospital a quarter of a million feet of lumber have already been cut on the farm and drawn to the campus, and a half a million bricks have been made by student labor. When the funds are made available for the proposed buildings it will be possible to move forward with them promptly, for much of the raw material will be at hand ready for use. Thus by dint of hard work, sacrifice, and wise planning the school, which began in an old building and with an acre and a half of land, has grown from one building to nine and from its original small plot to three hundred and seventy-five acres, with the entire property free from debt. Much of this development has been made possible by friends, some of


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them outside of the Methodist Church, whom Dr. Hill has won for the work.

The Walden School

        The school so long known as Walden University was started in 1865 in the basement of Clark Memorial Church, Nashville, Tennessee. The following year it was moved to the "Gun Factory," a building erected for the manufacture of munitions. It was never used for that purpose, however, but was occupied by Federal troops. At the close of the Civil War Dr. John M. Walden, the secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society, secured the use of the building for a Negro school and placed the Rev. John Braden in charge of it. For one year Mr. Braden with his wife and little girl lived in the Gun Factory and conducted the school. In 1867 it became necessary to find a new location, and a piece of property having upon it a two-story brick building was purchased; money was appropriated for the erection of two other buildings, and the school was given the name Central Tennessee College. Later other buildings were added, and the course of study was developed.

        In 1876 a Medical Department, now Meharry Medical College was organized. Three years later a Law Department was added. In 1886 a Dental Department, now Meharry Dental College, was included; and in 1889 a Pharmaceutical Department, now Meharry Pharmaceutical College, was started.


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A Theological Department had been included from the early days. An Industrial Department, which taught carpentry, printing, needlework, dressmaking, housework, cooking, millinery, nursing, black-smithing, tinning, wagon making, and, ultimately, iron, brass, and steel working, was started in 1884.

Illustration

SOME WALDEN BUILDINGS

An African Training School for those who were considering missionary work to Africa was opened in 1888, and classes in shorthand and typewriting were organized in 1889. Thus, under the wise and efficient leadership of Dr. Braden, the school became in fact a "university." Graduates from its various departments went out in large numbers to occupy important positions with credit to themselves
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and to the institution from which they came. Four bishops in the various branches of Methodism were trained here, including Bishop I. B. Scott of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

ACCIDENTS

        Possibly no school had a more encouraging development than Central Tennessee College (later changed to Walden University), the first school organized by the Freedmen's Aid Society. In recent years, however, a. series of circumstances and accidents has tended to limit the work of the school. In 1900 President Braden died and the school was deprived of his capable leadership. Three years later, near midnight of December 18, 1903 a disastrous fire broke out in one of the buildings and twelve lives were lost. Self-seeking lawyers urged relatives of injured persons to bring suit against the school, with the result that suits were instituted to the amount of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. For years while these suits were pending, it was deemed inadvisable to rebuild or to purchase new equipment. The school inevitably suffered and it has never regained the prestige and standing of its early days.

A NEW LOCATION

        While Walden has decreased in the size and scope of its program, the Meharry Colleges, which started as departments of Walden, have grown remarkably and until their present buildings have become inadequate.


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An arrangement has now been made whereby the Walden buildings adapted to the use of Meharry are to be turned over to that institution, and a new and more suitable location has been secured for the Walden School. In this new environment it is expected that this old and really great school will still have a long period of usefulness in the years ahead.


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CHAPTER XII

WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

        IN order to appreciate the significance of what has been accomplished during the last half century in the education of the Negro it is necessary to think in terms of individuals. The imagination must picture cabins -- one-room cabins, two room cabins, three-room cabins, and cabins of many sorts -- cabins with little furniture, little lighting, no upstairs, and few or no conveniences. To these must be added vast stretches of cotton, corn, and cane, made possible by the labor of millions of colored men, women, and little children. And then there must be visualized the multitudes of untutored boys and girls who have come from these homes to the schools of the Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, there to learn how to use the simplest modern conveniences; to study reading, writing, arithmetic algebra, geometry, music, the Bible, business, and many other arts and sciences. Nor is the picture complete until it includes a steady stream of teachers, mechanics, farmers, business men, musicians, preachers, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and lawyers emerging from these schools to go out to minister to the people of their own race and to make their contribution


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to the total of the world's human achievement.

        To look out upon the work which remains to be done is to face a task which is still enormous, but the remarkable progress of the past renews one's courage. A little more than half a century ago Negro education was prohibited by law; to-day some sort of an educational system for Negro children is supported by every State in which there are Negroes. There are multitudes of public schools, particularly in the rural sections, which are hardly worthy of the name of "school"; but a few years ago there were no schools at all. Even a poor school marks a beginning of something that can be improved, and a very bad school may be better than no school at all. Opposition to Negro education is largely a thing of the past, and cooperation has taken its place. There are, indeed, many grounds for encouragement, not the least of which is the change which has taken place in the Negro himself.

A NEW NEGRO

        If there is one thing more than another which stands out in the present race situation in America, possibly it is that we have to-day a new Negro; a Negro who is very unlike the Negro of the past and whom it is very easy to misunderstand. Some deprecate the change and are inclined to attribute it to the Negro's participation in the World War. Doubtless the war taught the Negro many things,


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Illustration

THE OLDER GENERATION AND THE YOUNGER GENERATION


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but, war or no war, the coming of the new Negro was as inevitable as the coming of the springtime. Any attempt to hold him back will be ultimately as effective as a similar attempt to stop the rising of the sun. The stage has been set for a new act and the forces behind it are such that, while the performance may be marred by unsympathetic auditors, nothing can permanently delay the presentation. Quietly, and most effectively because quietly, the Negro is insisting that he be treated as a man. He believes that he has demonstrated physically, morally, and intellectually that he is entitled to that consideration. The fawning "hat-in-his-hand" Negro belongs to another generation; the alert, intelligent, capable, self-reliant Negro characterizes the present. The danger, and without doubt there is real danger, arises when we insist on treating the second as though he were still the first.

        Fortunately there is an awakening to this very important situation. A noted Southern orator recently recognized this change when from the platform he said: "Yes, friends, we understand the 'nigger,' but I want to tell you that we do not understand the Negro."

HUNGER FOR EDUCATION

        And one of the characteristics of the new Negro is his hunger for an education. He understands better than the Negro did a generation ago the sacrifice and labor involved in getting an education, but he also understands its value, and he is content


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to pay the price. It is little short of amazing to see the patient, long-continued, and diligent effort which a colored boy or girl will put into the getting of and the paying for an education, and yet, although many of the pupils are extremely poor, one may go from school to school without ever hearing a story of poverty unless he diligently searches it out. The students are not given to complaining, but they are determined to get an education in spite of handicaps. And the opportunities are not equal to the demand made upon them. It is not only the Methodist schools but also others which are crowded beyond capacity. One school reports a thousand advance applications; some are taking registrations for several years in advance, and others maintain extended waiting lists.

THE ABILITY OF THE NEGRO

        Many curious ideas are afloat as to the native ability of the Negro. Some insist, even to-day, with due gravity, that the Lord never intended the Negro to be developed intellectually beyond the merest rudiments of an education. Others claim with equal solemnity that no colored man except a mulatto ever gained distinction, and other similarly unfounded theories are widely circulated. As a matter of fact we have as yet no satisfactory basis for comparing the intellectual achievements of the black man and those of the white man. It is very easy to attribute to natural limitations conditions which grow out of an entirely inadequate diet, out


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of bad and unstimulating home conditions, and out of almost utter lack of preparation for the task at hand. Multitudes of Negroes have never had a chance to learn to read and write, and it is hardly fair at the moment to consign them unheard to the class of the mentally incapacitated. The important question, however, is not to determine whether the black man is intellectually inferior to or superior to the white man, but whether, as a child of the living God and a citizen of this free nation, he is to have a chance to make the most of himself. Professor W. H. Crogman of Clark University spoke wisely for his own race when he said: "When you begin to educate a human being it is hard to tell to what altitude he may rise. Let him feel that the earth is beneath him, God above, and nothing in the intermediate space to check his growth or chill his aspirations, and then you may begin to teach him the alphabet." It would indeed be premature to begin to draw limits for the development of the Negro. Already individual Negroes have done almost everything that a white man has ever done, from the painting of a picture to traveling to the North Pole or dying patriotically for their country. Time alone can tell how far the race will travel along paths of culture and intellectual development.

MINGLING OF THE RACES

         The shibboleth of "racial purity" has been the watchword of many who have opposed the granting of opportunities for development to the Negro. The


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implication has been that education tended to break down the difference between the races. In this connection Bishop Robert E. Jones has recently called to our attention the pertinent fact that in the more than half a century of Methodist educational work in the South, during which members of both races and both sexes have mingled freely in the common work of the schools, there has never in all that time been a case of intermarriage between the races or a scandal involving individuals of opposite race.

        In this connection it is interesting to note that although the schools of the Board of Education for Negroes of the Methodist Episcopal Church are all co-educational the moral conduct of the pupils has been of a very high order. Strict supervision, emphasis upon the training of the religious life, and the fact that most of the pupils are in school to secure a better start in life, has made the question of discipline a relatively simple matter.

THE NEGRO SHOULDERS RESPONSIBILITY

        In the beginning of the work all of the teachers and other workers were white men and women from the North. Professor W. H. Crogman was the first colored teacher to be employed by the Freedmen's Aid Society. He began his work at Claflin University in 1870. Since that time the number of colored workers in the schools has steadily increased. Already more than half of the school presidents and principals and more than three fourths of all the teachers are Negroes. These colored workers


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have measured up in a most satisfactory manner to the responsibilities placed upon them. The Negro, too, very quickly assumed a portion of the financial burden of the schools. Buildings have been erected from money contributed by Negroes, poor colored people have, out of their poverty, contributed to the work of the schools, colored teachers have refused more alluring offers elsewhere in order to stay by their tasks, and pupils have paid both board and tuition from the very first. In fact scholarships in the schools have been conspicuous chiefly for their absence.

RESULTS AND ASPIRATIONS

        The story of the achievements of the schools under the auspices of the Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church has never been told and never will be told; it is too extended a tale for that. Its record is to be found in the nearly quarter of a million students whose lives have been directly touched by the work and in the millions of others who have in turn been touched by them. The schools have been a most important factor in making possible the present Negro constituency of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which to-day consists of more than two thousand ministers and more than a third of a million church members who in the first year of the Centenary of Methodist Missions contributed nearly half a million dollars to the Centenary fund. The influence of the schools has, however, gone far beyond the


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limits of any one denomination and has permeated for good every colored church in the United States, to say nothing of the missionaries whom it has sent to Africa.

        It is doubtful whether any other similar amount of missionary money has ever yielded more satisfactory returns than has that invested in Negro education during the last half century, and yet never in that time has the board been able to do its work as it ought to have been done, for lack of funds. Buildings have been dilapidated and overcrowded; teachers have been underpaid; needed equipment has been lacking; libraries have been absent when they ought to have been present; much needed gymnasiums have failed to materialize; and schools which have sorely needed endowment have had little or none. Yet in spite of embarrassments growing out of tantalizing unmet needs, the work has moved forward and its results have often been more substantial than the instruments through which they have been achieved.

        The well coordinated system of schools which has been built out of the many separate educational ventures begun long ago has demonstrated its right to live. It is the privilege of an awakened church to help it to live a fuller, a richer, and an even more fruitful life in the future than it has in the years which have passed.



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SCHOOLS UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR NEGROES, OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 1922


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SECRETARIES OF THE FREEDMEN'S AID SOCIETY AND THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR NEGROES


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ROSTER OF PRESIDENTS AND PRINCIPALS OF THE SCHOOLS OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR NEGROES, OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH


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HISTORICAL MEMORANDA

        1866 August 7th, 8th. The Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church organized in Trinity Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.

        1866 August 20th. First meeting of the Executive Committee.

        1868 General Conference commended work of the Society to the Church.

        (1868-1872) In the latter part of this quadrennium aid was first given to white school work in the South by relieving the Seminary at Ellijay, Georgia, of embarrassing debt.

        1870 November 1st. Society incorporated "for the relief and education of Freedmen and others, especially in cooperation with the Missionary and Church Extension Societies of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

        1872 General Conference approved Act of Incorporation of the Society and constituted it one of the Benevolent Societies of the Church. Collections first reported in General Minutes and $100,000 apportioned to the Annual Conferences for the work.

        1880 The specific approval of the white school work by the General Conference was followed by its steady extension.

        1888 Name modified so as to read, "The Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society;" and educational work among both colored and white people in the Southern States placed under direction of this Society.

        1892 Charter amended providing for a General Committee to represent the whole Church in managing the Society.

        1900 General Conference appointed Commission to


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consider Benevolent Societies and make plan for consolidation.

        1902 July 2d. Commission met at Ocean Grove, N. J., and recommended that the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society be directed to obtain from the State of Ohio an amended Act of Incorporation under the corporate name of "The Board of Education, Freedmen's Aid, and Sunday Schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

        1904 Report of Commission adopted by General Conference.

        1906 December 31st. Charter amended as above.

        1907 February 26th. First meeting of Consolidated Board.

        1908 General Conference ordered reorganization of Consolidated Society. Committed work of establishing and maintaining Institutions among Negroes of the South to "The Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church." Maintenance and administration of white schools of the South to the "Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

        1908 July 9th. Final meeting of Consolidated Board. Organization of Board of Managers of the Freedmen's Aid Society. Amendment to Charter recommended.

        1908 October 14th. Charter amended.

        1916 General Committee discontinued by General Conference.

        1916 Lincoln Sunday to be observed in all the churches, by order of General Conference.

        1920 General Conference directed change of name to the Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. December 3, 1920, amended charter secured from the State of Ohio. Office of Board, 420 Plum Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.