Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements — John Shaqi
Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements
History
Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements
Tuskegee Institute
This is true also of girls in the normal classes. They spend one hour in
basketry study, making in all three hours away from their individual
trades each week. Theory is combined with practise, and many a fanciful
thought is woven in with the reed and raffia of the Indian baskets,
African purses, belts, and pine-needle work-baskets. The shuck hats and
foot-mats are so foreign in design that one often wonders how it were
possible to utilize the same material in so widely different purposes.
But our girl is progressive, and not a few instances have occurred when
one has been informed of the presence of a Tuskegee student in a remote
country district, by the inevitable shuck hat prettily designed and worn
by an utter stranger. So remunerative has been the work that many have
earned money enough from the sales of these hats to purchase books for
the school year and pay their entrance fees.
Few girls work at typesetting. Those learning the trade are in the Boys'
Trades Building. The same is true of the girl tailors, who are as
capable workers in the trade as the boys. The majority of these girls
are in night-school, and of late years have not earned much for their
work. In former years the greater body of the students were working
their way through school, and by their labor would earn enough to
complete their education in the Academic Department and the Industrial
as well. Last year the pay schedule was reduced, and many appeals for
assistance came from those battling their way through. A young girl
whose monthly statement warned her that she owed the school $15, at the
end of the school year wrote the following:
"DEAR MRS. WASHINGTON: I write to inform you of the enormous sum
that I owe on my board bill. I am not satisfied, because I want to
earn something in life, but it seems that means and opportunity
will not permit me. I can't help from crying when I think how
anxious and willing my people are to help me to be something, and
yet they are unable to help me.
"My mother has struggled to bring up eight of us, and now is to the
point where she can give me no more help, and that leaves me alone
to be something by myself. I am anxious to enter day-school so I
may finish my course of study and my trade, and at last let my
mother see me a good, noble woman, who will take care of her.
"I will thank you very much for your kindness, if you will look
into my board bill and help me as soon, and as much, as possible.
Yours gratefully."
As the day girls have put in so many hours of work recently under the
new system, it eliminates the necessity of so many night-school girls
being paid for their work. It is to the interest of the school and its
day-students that fewer work their way through school, and the time has
come to teach this fact. The boy or girl for a time will stagger in the
attempt to gain education, but will be all the more able, later, to
reach the desired goal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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