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Methodist Adventures in Negro Education:
Electronic Edition.

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

Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition supported the electronic publication of this title.

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First edition, 2000
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Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
2000.

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Source Description:
(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)

        The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-CH digitization project, Documenting the American South
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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