Booker T. Washington Part 19

Previous to this he had written Mr. Lee the following letter relative to the general problem of the teaching efficiency in his department:

_November 24, 1914._

_Mr. Lee, Director Academic Department:_

When you return, I want to urge that you give careful but serious attention to the following suggestions:

First, I am convinced that we must arrange to give more systematic and constant attention to the individual teachers in your department in the way of seeing that they follow your wishes and policy regarding the dovetailing of the academic work into the industrial work.

I am quite convinced that the matter is taken up in rather a spasmodic way; that is, so long as you are on hand and can give the matter personal attention, it is followed, but when you cease to give personal attention to it or are away, matters go back to the old rut, or nearly so.

In some way we must all get together and help you to organize your department so that this will not be true.

There are two elements of weakness in the academic work: First, I very much fear that we take into it every year too many green teachers, who know nothing about your methods.

This pulls the whole tone of the academic work down before you can train them into your methods. I am quite sure that though you might not get teachers who have had so much book training, that it would be worth your considering to employ a larger number of Hampton graduates or Tuskegee graduates, who have had in a measure the methods which you believe in instilled into them.

In my opinion, the time has come when you must consider seriously the getting rid of, or shifting, some of your older teachers. You have teachers in your department who have been here a good many years, and experience proves that they do not adapt themselves readily and systematically to your methods. I think it would be far better for the school to find employment for them outside of the Academic Department, or to let them take some clerical work in your department, than for them to occupy positions of importance and influence, which they are not filling satisfactorily and where they have an influence in hurting the character of the whole teaching.

All these matters I hope you will consider very carefully.

I am sure that the time has come when definite and serious action is needed.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Princ.i.p.al.

First and last on these apparently aimless strolls with a stenographer he visited not only the cla.s.srooms and shops but every corner of the great inst.i.tution. He would return to his office with a notebook full of memoranda of matters to be followed up or changed, and of people to be commended or censured for their efficient or inefficient handling of this, that, or the other piece of work. Once after writing a series of letters calling attention to ragged tablecloths, unclean napkins, and uncleanliness in other forms in kitchens, bakery, and dining-rooms without the desired result, he personally took charge of the situation, organized a squad of workers, put things in proper condition, and then insisted that they be kept in such condition.

His pa.s.sion to utilize every fraction of time to its maximum advantage led him even to smuggle a stenographer into the formal annual exercises of the Bible Training School so that he might during the exercises clandestinely dictate notes for the head of the Bible school as to those features in which the program was weak, failed "to get across," did not hold the interest of the people, seemed to be over their heads, or whatever might be his diagnosis of the difficulty. He was not interested in the program for and of itself, but was keenly interested in its effect upon the people. If it interested and helped them, it was a good program; if it did not, it was a poor program and no amount of learning or technical perfection could redeem it. He sometimes reduced his more scholarly teachers to the verge of despair by his insistence that there should be nothing on the program at any exercise to which the public was invited which the every-day man and woman could not understand and appreciate.

In opening the chapter we mentioned Booker Washington's faculty for giving attention to apparently trivial details without losing sight of his large policies and purposes. This was part of his habit of taking nothing for granted. He never a.s.sumed that people would do or had done what they should do or should have done any more than he a.s.sumed they would not or had not done what they should. He neither trusted nor distrusted them. He kept himself constantly informed. Every person employed by the inst.i.tution from the most important department heads down to the men who removed ashes and garbage were under the stimulating apprehension that his eye might be upon them at any moment. He hara.s.sed his subordinates by continually asking them if this or that matter had been attended to. He would sometimes ask three different people to do the same thing. This resulted in wasted effort on somebody's part, but it always accomplished the result, which was all that interested him. He took nothing for granted himself and he insisted that his subordinates take nothing for granted. He was a task master and a "driver" but he taxed himself more heavily and drove himself harder than he did any one else. Like other strong men, he had the weaknesses of his strength, and probably his most serious weakness was driving himself and his subordinates beyond his and their strength.

His eye was daily upon every part of the great machine which he had built up through an exhaustive system of daily reports. These reports were placed on his desk each morning when at the Inst.i.tute and mailed to him each morning when away. They showed him the number of students in the hospital with the name, diagnosis, and progress of each case.

From the poultry yard came reports giving the number of eggs in the incubators, the number hatched since the day before, the number of chickens which had died, the number of eggs and chickens sold, etc.

Similarly daily reports came from the swine herd, the dairy herd, and all the other groups of live stock.

He received also each morning a report from the savings department giving the number of new depositors, the amounts of money deposited and withdrawn, and the condition of the bank at the close of the previous day. There was, too, a list of the requisitions approved by the Business Committee the previous day giving articles, prices, divisions, or departments in which each was to be used and totals for different cla.s.ses of requisitions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mr. Washington was a great believer in the sweet potato. He personally supervised the work of preparing for sweet potato planting.]

The Boarding Department head would report just what had been served the students at the three meals of the day before. In running over these menus he would give a contemptuous snort if he came upon any instance of what he called "feeding the students out of the barrel."

By this he meant buying food which could as well or better have been raised on the Inst.i.tute farms. He objected to this practice not only because it was more expensive, but because it eliminated the work of raising, preparing, and serving the foods which he regarded as a valuable exercise in civilization. He also insisted that everything raised on the farms should in one way or another be used by the students. Besides serving to the students every variety of Southern vegetable from the Inst.i.tute's extensive truck gardens, he always insisted that their own corn be ground into meal and that they make their own preserves out of their own peaches, blackberries, and other fruits. In other words, he made the community feed itself just as far as possible. And this he did quite as much because of the knowledge of the processes of right living which it imparted as for the money which it saved.

The Treasurer also submitted a daily report of contributions and other receipts of the previous day with the name and address of each contributor. Mr. Washington arranged to receive and look over these daily reports even when travelling. Hence, in a sense, he was never absent. Only very rarely and under most unusual circ.u.mstances did he cut this means of daily contact with the multifold activities of the inst.i.tution.

Although a task master, a driver, and a relentless critic, he was just in his dealings with his subordinates and his students, very appreciative of kindness or thoughtfulness, and generous in his approbation of tasks well done. Three of the younger children of officers of the school, while out walking with one of their teachers, discovered a fire in the woods near the Inst.i.tute one day. After notifying the men working nearby, the children hurried home and wrote Mr. Washington a letter telling him about the fire. They had heard him warn people against the danger of forest fires and of the great harm they did. This letter the three children excitedly took to the Princ.i.p.al's home themselves, as it was on Sunday. He was not in, but the first letter he dictated on arriving at his office the next morning was this:

_March 24, 1915._

_Miss Beatrice Taylor, Miss Louise Logan, Miss Lenora Scott:_

I have received your kind and thoughtful letter of yesterday regarding the forest fire and am very grateful to you for the information which it contains. It is very kind and thoughtful of you to write me. I shall pa.s.s your letter to Mr. Bridgeforth, the Head of the Department, and ask him to look after the matter.

[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Princ.i.p.al.

In the fall of the same year he addressed this letter of appreciation to Mr. Bridgeforth, director of the Agricultural Department, mentioned in the note of the children:

_Princ.i.p.al's Office,_ _Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, Alabama_

_October 4, 1915._

_Mr. G.R. Bridgeforth, Director of Agricultural Department:_

I have been spending a considerable portion of each day in inspecting the farm, and I want to congratulate you and all of your a.s.sistants on account of the fine sweet potato crop which has been produced. It is certainly the finest crop produced in the history of the school.

You deserve equal commendation, especially in view of the season you have had to contend with, in connection with the fine hay crop, the pea crop, and the peanut crop.

I wish you would let the members of your force know how I feel regarding their work.

I believe if the farm goes on under present conditions, that at the end of the year it will very much please the Trustees to note the results accomplished especially so far as the Budget is concerned.

[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Princ.i.p.al.

His quick mind and his keen sense of humor would sometimes lead him to make fun in a kindly way of his slower colleagues. The members of the Executive Council and the Faculty sometimes felt he treated them rather too much as if he were the teacher and they the pupils. His frequent humorous sallies and stories exasperated some of the more serious-minded members of his staff very much as Lincoln's sallies and stories exasperated some of the members of his Cabinet, particularly Secretary Stanton. This sense of humor was undoubtedly with Booker Washington as with Abraham Lincoln one of the great safety valves without which he could not have carried his heavy burden as long as he did.

Among other things he always insisted that the human element be put into the work of the inst.i.tution and kept in it. He would reprimand a subordinate just as sharply for failure to be human as for a specific neglect of duty. He was particularly insistent that all letters to the parents of the students should be intimate and friendly rather than formal and stereotyped. He believed that nothing would more quickly or more surely kill the effectiveness of the school than the application of cut-and-dried theories and formulas to the handling of the students and their problems. He never lost sight of the fact that the most perfect educational machine becomes worthless if the soul goes out of it.

On his return from trips he would write a personal letter about their boy or girl to each parent whom he had met while away. After he had addressed a meeting and was shaking hands with those who came forward to meet him a man would say, as one once did, with embarra.s.sed pride, "I 'spec you know my boy--he's down to your school. He's a tall, black boy an' wears a derby hat." When Mr. Washington got back to Tuskegee he sent for "the tall, black boy" with the derby hat and wrote his proud father all about him.

On his return from journeys he would write individual letters not only to the parents of students and to his hosts and hostesses, but to each and every person who had tried in any way to contribute to the pleasure and success of his trip. On returning from the State educational tours which we have described he would write personal letters of thanks and appreciation not only to every member of the general committee on arrangements which had managed his tour throughout the State, but also to every member of the local committees for the various towns and cities which he visited. He would also write such a letter to the Governor or Mayor or whatever public official or prominent citizen had introduced him. Usually on these tours school children, or a group of women representing a local colored women's club, would present him with flowers. He would in such cases insist that the name of each child or each woman in the group be secured so that he might on his return write to each one a personal letter of thanks. Many such letters are now among the treasured possessions of humble Negro homes throughout the country.

Recognizing that Tuskegee's chief claim to support from the public must be found in the achievements of her graduates he built up the Division of Records and Research to keep in constant touch with the graduates and gather information about them and their work. By this means he could find out in detail at a moment's notice what most of the graduates were doing and in terms of statistics what all were doing. Eighteen to twenty of them are building up or conducting schools on the model of Tuskegee Inst.i.tute in parts of the South where they are most needed. With these he naturally sought to keep in particularly close touch.

With funds provided for the purpose by one of the Tuskegee Trustees, committees of Tuskegee officers and teachers are sent from time to time to visit these schools established by Tuskegee graduates. They act as friendly inspectors and advisers. The following is the plan of report drafted for the guidance of these committees:

OBSERVATIONS

1. Physical.

(a) Cleanliness of premises.

(b) Keeping up repairs.

2. Teaching.

(a) Methods of instruction.

(b) Books used, etc., that is, are they up to date.

(c) To what extent correlation is being carried out.

(d) Visiting teachers might give some definite demonstrations in methods, etc.

(e) Special meetings with the faculty should be held.

3. Financial.

(a) To what extent does the school keep up with its accounts so that its receipts and expenditures can be easily ascertained?