Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, September 1899: Vol. LV, May to October, 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, September 1899: Vol. LV, May to October, 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The second day of my stay at Tuskegee, as I came out of the rude
buildings where the conference had been held, a young colored man
waiting at the door accosted me. "Is not this Mr. ----," he said, "and
at the World's Fair were you not in charge of such an exhibit?" naming
one of the educational exhibits. I said I was the man. "Don't you
remember me?" he added, telling me where he had been working at the
time. I did remember him perfectly, and asked how he happened to be so
far removed from Chicago.
"It was like this," he said. "Next year I went to the Atlanta
Exposition. While there I heard Mr. Washington speak, and learned
about his school where negro boys could learn a trade. I had always
been at a disadvantage because I did not know how to do any kind of
work really well. So I came here and began to learn carpentering. I
have the trade nearly learned now, and when I graduate from here I
shall know how to really work."
Soon after beginning my long car ride from Tuskegee back to the North
I stepped into the mail car on the train to post some letters. The
envelopes I had used bore the imprint of Tuskegee Institute in the
corner. As I handed them to the postal clerk, he glanced at the
printing in the corner and exclaimed: "I say, that Booker Washington
is a wonderful man, isn't he? I never saw him, but he's teaching those
people there to work." Then he went on to tell me about a young
colored man whom he had known who had gone to Tuskegee and learned
harness-making, and then come home to set up business for himself.
This man told me later that he had never been farther north than
Louisville.
It seemed to me as if here was an interesting coincidence of unsought
testimony, and all tending to show how consistently Tuskegee teaches a
gospel of work. Industrial training goes hand in hand there, with
mental and moral teaching, in earnest effort to help the thousand
young negro men and women there and make their lives count for the
most possible for themselves and their race.
[Illustration: A CLASS IN MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.]
Any one who has heard Mr. Washington speak at any length to audiences
of his own race knows how earnestly he advocates industrial education
for the negro. As might be expected, then, we find at Tuskegee
practical hand training. The advantage is twofold. The students not
only learn to work, but in doing so many are enabled to work out all
or a part of the expenses which otherwise in many cases would have
prevented them from remaining at the school.
[Illustration: ARMSTRONG HALL. One of the oldest buildings at
Tuskegee.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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