Booker T. Washington to Charles W. Chesnutt, 9 March 1906

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Chesnutt

THE NEGRO RURAL SCHOOL.

When the Negroes of this country emerged from slavery some forty years ago they were a people almost wholly illiterate. Slaves were not permitted to learn to read and education was discouraged among the free Negroes of the South.

The last census shows that within forty years more than half of the Negroes in most of the Southern states have thrown off the burden of ignorance. The Negro like other races has its faults, but it is safe to say that no race has ever shown itself more eager to learn and no race, in a similar stage of civilization, has ever made, I am convinced greater progress in the same length of time. This is to a large extent the work of the Negro rural school, taught mainly by Negro teachers and supported to a greater or less extent by the voluntary contributions of the Negro farmers.

Few people, even those who know them best, understand the personal sacrifices and the moral effort it has cost the masses of the Negro people to achieve this result. The first Negro teachers were earnest men, as a rule, but they had very little preparation for their work. Very often they have had to teach in a log hut which let in upon them, with equal impartiality, the sun and rain of summer or the colds of winter. The children, accustomed to run at large in the open air, were often illy prepared to sit for hourse[sic] in the cold of winterm[sic] while they were studying their lessons. A very good description has been given of the struggle that students underwent by William H. Holtzclaw,³ a former student at Tuskegee⁴ and now head of the Normal and Industrial Institute at Utica, Miss. in a book recently published, called "Tuskegee and its People."

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"I was put to school at the age of six", he says. Both father and mother were determined that their children should be deducated. School lasted two months in the year—July and August. The schoolhouse was three miles from our house, but we walked every day, my oldest sister carrying me astride her neck when I gave out. Sometimes we had an ear of roasted green corn in our basket for dinner, or a roasted sweet potato, but often simply persimmons, or fruit and nuts picked from the landlord's orchard and from the forest.

When cotton began to open, in the latter part of August, the landlord wanted us to stop school and pick cotton, and I can distinctly remember how my mother use to outgeneral him by slipping me off to school through the woods, following me through the swamps and dark places, with her hand on my back, shoving me on till I was well on the way, and they returning to try and do as much in the fields that day as she and I together would be expected to do. When the landlord came to the quarters early to look for me, my mother would hide me behind the cook-pot and other vessells[sic]. When I was a little older I had to play my part on the farm. Mother now worked another scheme. I took turns with my brother at school and at the plow. What he learned at school in the day was taught me at night, and vice versa. In this way we got a month of school each during the year, and got the habit of home study."

I do not mean to suggest that the conditions in the South were everywhere as bad as here described. The Mission Schools, which were established in the period directly after the war, gave instruction to may[sic] thousands.⁵ But in the rural districts the conditions were and are today very bad, and the case of Mr. Holtzclaw, even though it is exceptional, is still typical.

In those early days the teachers often knew little more than the pupils, but they did the best they could.   --3-- In speaking of his teachers Mr. Holtzclaw: "I usually had different teachers every year, as one teacher seldom cared to stay at a place more than a session. I well remember the disadvantages of this custom. One teacher would have me in a Third Reader and fractions, another in the Fifth Reader and addition. When I reached the point where the teacher ordered me to get a United States History, the book-store did not have one, but sold me a biography of Martin Luther instead, which I studied for sometime, thinking that I was learning something about the United States. I did not know what the United States was or was like, although I had studied geography and knew something about South America and Africa; and my teacher did not tell me. My teacher at this time was a good man, but that was all. Many of our teachers knew very little, but I thought they knew everything, and that was sufficient, for their teaching was wholesome. I remember one or two, however, whose work, under the circumstances, would be hard to match even now.

Conditions have improved considerably since Mr. Holtzclaw went to school in Alabama. The recent law which compells[sic] teachers to take a state examination has weeded out many of the incompetent men, but it has resulted in closing up many of the school[sic] because there were not teachers to fill them. It has deprived the schools, also, of a good many teachers who, though they were not strong in the books, exercised a wholesome influence upon the people.

On the other hand there has been a very earnest effort on the part of the Negro farmers themselves to improve their schools. For instance, in Macon County, where the Tuskegee Institute is located, something over $2,7000[sic] has been raised during the past six months, by voluntary contributions of the Negro farmers of the county for improving the school houses and lengthening the school terms. Largely through the efforts of these people themselves,   --4-- with the aid of the primary school fund which has been entrusted to the Tuskegee Institute for the benefit of the rural schools, something like twenty-five school buildings will be erected or remodeled and the school term in the majority of the schools in the country will be increased from four to eight months.⁶

At the last meeting of the Tuskegee Negro Conference⁷ we had reports that a similar work was being done in other parts of the country wherever the people were coming under the influence of the industrial schools or where the institutions of higher learning had been able to extend their influence to the people of the country districts surrounding them.

In conclusion I may say that I know nothing in the life of the Negro people today more encouraging or more hopeful than the evidence which these efforts to help themselves, offers of the desire and the determination of the masses of the people, in spite of difficulties and discouragemensts, to struggle up and get upon their feet, morally, materially and spiritually.