Twentieth Century Negro Literature Part 47

WHAT IS THE NEGRO TEACHER DOING IN THE MATTER OF UPLIFTING HIS RACE?

BY PROF. H. L. WALKER.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Prof. H. L. Walker]

PROF. H. L. WALKER, A. B.

Prof. H. L. Walker was born near the city of Augusta, Ga., in the year of 1859. His parents, Wesley and Adline Walker, were the property of slave owners to whom they rendered allegiance until 1864 and 1865, when Sherman took his triumphal march through Georgia and the Carolinas. At the fall of the Confederacy young Henry went with his parents to Wilmington, N. C., where they spent about a year, during which time young Henry for the first time saw the inside of a school, taught by those pioneering teachers from the North. At the close of this year the family left Wilmington and went to Augusta, Ga., which city has been the scene of our subject's boyhood and the basis of his literary career.

The public schools of Augusta were completed by 1874 and upon the recommendation of all of his teachers young "Henry," as he was familiarly called, was matriculated at the Atlanta University, one of the most noted of Negro colleges in the South. In this inst.i.tution he studied for eight years, coming out in 1882 with the cla.s.s honor and the degree of A. B. His parents died during his early boyhood, even before he had entered the Atlanta University, so that in his efforts to complete his collegiate career he had to rely largely upon his own resources, and the very kind a.s.sistance of his foster parents, and other friends whose protege he was.

Prepared for his life work, he left school in June, 1882, and was immediately elected princ.i.p.al of the Mitch.e.l.l Street Graded School, Atlanta, Ga., his examination papers being the best offered for this position. In the following month--July--he was also elected President of the Georgia State Teachers' a.s.sociation for Colored Teachers, of which body more will be said later. As a student at College our subject was studious, popular with professors and students, and acquired that a.s.siduity and strict adherence to business that has since characterized all his subsequent life. In the profession of teaching he continued to rise higher and higher each year, holding positions of trust and honor under each of the State's superintendents of education down to the present inc.u.mbent. For eighteen years he has held sway in the public school of the city of Augusta, during which time Mr. Walker has officered the Second Ward Grammar School, the famous Ware High School and at present the First Ward High School, which position he still fills with dignity and credit to himself and race. As Peabody expert, Mr. Walker, by appointment of the successive State superintendents of education, has occupied the lecture platform in all parts of the State, with the best lecturers, white and Colored, that money could command, and they have all cheerfully conceded his ripe ability to master and handle successfully such subjects as have been a.s.signed him from year to year. As a practical school man and well-informed scholar, Mr. Walker is always at home. As a Peabody lecturer he has often been p.r.o.nounced one of the best in the State. Every Summer his services are in demand in various parts of the State. For ten years Mr. Walker was the honored President of the Georgia State Teachers' a.s.sociation, Colored, and no man has since filled that honored chair whose administration has in any way rivaled the success of Mr. Walker. During his ten years the a.s.sociation was built up as it has never been since. The intelligence of the State--white and Colored--came together in these annual meetings and made this gathering of educators and leaders the most representative body in the State.

Mr. Walker is easy of address and modest in all things, never contending for honors. Several years ago, at its annual exercises, his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of A. M. as a deserved tribute and recognition of the literary work he has accomplished. As a polished orator Mr.

Walker has been heard with profit and delight in all parts of the State. Some of his addresses before the State Teachers' a.s.sociation are considered real gems of literature.

After a lapse of some thirty-eight years, or a little better than a generation, we are asking the question, "What is the Negro Teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race?" In so brief a period of years it would seem to savor of arrogance to ask a question so seemingly fraught with significance, so inopportune and, too, about a people so recently freed from bondage that they have not yet had the time to grow a generation of teachers. It took England more than a generation to grow an Arnold at Rugby. It took France more than several generations to produce a Guizot, and Pestalozzi, whose reputation as a teacher widens with the universe, is the product of years of experimental acc.u.mulations of Swiss ingenuity. And yet it may be pardonable arrogance on our part to say that at this first milestone in our educational career we pause here long enough to take an inventory of what the Negro teacher has done and is still doing in the matter of uplifting his people. In the pioneering or experimental period of Negro education there were no Negro teachers, but it is safe to say that as early as 1875 a few Negroes, daring to rush in where angels would fear to tread, began the profession of school teaching.

It is from this date that we may safely begin to reckon the services of the Negro teachers as a cla.s.s. I make bold to lay down the proposition that wherever G.o.d has ordained intellect that intellect is capable of the highest development; for mental ability is a divine endowment. The intellect may be the possession of an Indian, a Mongolian, an Arab, a Negro, a Hindoo or a Caucasian. Textures may differ, but all mental organisms are the same in color, fiber, and mode of operation and development. It must then follow that the proper training of the intellect must produce the same results upon all races when properly applied. That training which has made the Mongolian, or the German, or the Caucasian race great and powerful will of necessity, under similar conditions, produce like results in the Negro race. Let us now see what the facts show. It is largely through the instrumentality of our schools that Negroes have been taught to place a higher and a proper valuation upon their citizens.h.i.+p, and the importance of the ballot when it is wielded for the maintenance and perpetuation of good government. As a cla.s.s of citizens Negroes are peaceable and law-abiding, and must not be reckoned with the migratory hordes of anarchists, nihilists, and the wreckers of law and order that infest our Eastern and Western sh.o.r.es. In our schools, too, Negroes have learned that it is theirs to pet.i.tion respectfully for the enjoyment of their rights, and the redress of grievances so often unjustly imposed upon them. In the last two decades the influence of the schools, colleges and industrial inst.i.tutions and seminaries of all kinds has wrought wonderful changes in the home life of the Negro race. Purer homes now abound; intemperance is giving way to sobriety and economy; love and order have driven out hate and confusion; the golden rule and the Bible are taken as the measurement of conduct; and, where-ever Negro communities are found, cozy little cottages, and often palatial homes with thoughtful and convenient appointments, have taken the place of the very many little one-room huts in which all the whole range of domestic life was wont to be performed. In these new homes a better and more intelligent cla.s.s of children is being reared to fit in the scheme of our advancing civilization. These are very hopeful signs of a better generation and a brighter day for the American Negro.

Our Negro teachers and leaders have instilled into the race a desire for the acc.u.mulation of property and wealth, and the keeping of bank accounts. "Put money in thy purse," "Put money in thy purse." This advice from Shakespeare is ripening in the minds of all thoughtful Negroes, and the results are being universally manifested. In the United States the valuation of Negro property runs far into the millions. In the state of Georgia alone Negroes are paying taxes on $15,629,811 worth of property; of this amount $1,000,000 represents the increase of a single year--1900 to 1901.

In the domain of literature and the varied professions the education of the Negro has furnished us as lawyers, Hon. D. Augustus Straker, Detroit, Michigan; Hon. R. B. Elliott, late of Columbia, South Carolina; Hon. Jno. R. Lynch, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., paymaster United States Army; Hon. J. W. Lyons, Augusta, Georgia, register Treasury, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Hon. H. M. Porter, Augusta, Georgia, lawyer at the bar.

As statesmen Negro education has produced Hon. Frederick Dougla.s.s, "The old man eloquent," late of Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Hon. B. C. Bruce, ex-registrar Treasury, late of Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Hon. Geo. W. Murray, ex-member Congress, Columbia, D. C.; Hon. Geo. H. White, ex-member Congress, North Carolina.

As poets, Mrs. Frances E. N. Harper and Paul Lawrence Dunbar are samples of a splendid cla.s.s.

As musicians it might suffice to say that Blind Tom, Black Patti and Madam Selika are only samples of a large cla.s.s.

Negro education has furnished us pulpits better filled with intelligent men, devout and pious; and with modern churches that are in harmony with the Christian demands of the age. In the Ec.u.menical Conference recently held in London, the Negro clergy represented there were from all parts of the civilized world, and the high tribute paid to their ability and ecclesiastical character was the comment of all the English papers. Our bishops and eminent pulpit divines are largely young men, the product of our Negro schools. Dr. C. T. Walker, now of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, New York, and the foremost pulpit orator in all the Baptist ranks, perhaps, is a native of Georgia soil, and a product of our Georgia schools. But I must not prolong this account with a long list of bishops, D. D's., LL. D's., M. D's., diplomats, artists, painters, mechanics, inventors, and successful business men, who are the product of Negro education, but before closing this humble effort it is but proper that we should make mention of some of the men who are universally regarded as masters in the profession of teaching, and who in themselves are great benefactors of the Negro race. The following educators have wrought much in the matter of elevating their race in all the essentials of right-living. The most conspicuous figure just now in the firmament of Negro educators is President Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton, who has at his command both the hand and the heart of the American people. The far-reaching influences of his work at Tuskegee, Alabama, where, perhaps, more than 1,300 Negro youths are taught all the useful and honorable methods of labor, are too well understood to merit further comment here. President J. H. Lewis, president of Wilberforce University, Ohio, has and is still doing a work that will tell on ages and tell for G.o.d in the matter of developing Negro ability along the lines of higher intellectual manhood. Prof. R. R. Wright, president of the State Industrial College, Savannah, Georgia, is a pioneer in the work of uplifting the Negro youth, and his excellent work recently begun at the state college is already teeming with fruit. Miss Lucy C.

Laney is a woman of rare and well-developed intellectual attainments.

The Haines Normal and Industrial School, with all of its influence for good, will ever be an imperishable monument to her memory. Her reputation as a woman of ability and culture is universal. Prof. W.

H. Council, of Alabama, is hardly second to President B. T. Was.h.i.+ngton in his n.o.ble work in Alabama of uplifting Negro youth.

In professors, W. S. Scarborough, who holds the chair of Latin and Greek in Wilberforce University, Ohio; Prof. W. H. Crogman, chair of Latin and Greek, Clark University, Atlanta, Georgia; Prof. Kelly Miller, chair of mathematics, Howard University, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Prof. J. W. Gilbert, chair of Latin and Greek, Paine College, Augusta, Georgia; and Prof. W. E. B. DuBois, chair of science and economics, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia, we have the ripest examples of high-cla.s.s scholars.h.i.+p. These men, steeped in the love and sciences of all ages and people, have won respect and recognition in all the inst.i.tutions, and among all educators of world-wide reputation, both European and American. They are only samples of a large cla.s.s of educated Negroes who have given a very high literary tone to Negro intelligence. In an account like this, which necessarily must be brief, it must not be expected that we could elaborate into details about any one of the features above mentioned. In mentioning them thus briefly it is only our purpose to call attention to the great work now being accomplished by the Negro teachers.

In closing these brief lines it might be well to consider several charges made against the educated Negro. It is charged that education teaches Negroes how to commit crime, etc. Because some educated Negroes commit crime and do wrong that is no more of an argument against the education of the Negro race than it would be an argument against the education of the Caucasian race, because some educated white men commit crime and do wrong. If a man has indigestion from eating the wrong kind of food that ought not to be taken as an argument against eating. Educated Negroes as a cla.s.s are among our best American citizens.

Again, there are still some "back numbers" belonging to the old school of thought who still charge a lack of ability on the part of Negro scholars to absorb and a.s.similate the same amount of intelligence that the Caucasian race does.

In our humble school career in the state of Georgia we have sat on the same seat with the boys and girls of the Caucasian race, and, often, in the recitation room, under the same professor in the higher cla.s.sics and sciences, we have shared the same book with them, and yet at the time of reckoning term standing we have seen those white professors give the members of these mixed cla.s.ses their cla.s.s rating in their various subjects, and the average percentage of Caucasian and Negro pupils in all these subjects would be a matter of significant comment.

In many instances like these, both in the North and South, the ability of our Negro scholars is so forcibly demonstrated; and what the Negro teachers may yet do for their race and for civilization will be left as a rich inheritance for the enjoyment of an advancing civilization.

Of all teachers it may be said that he who shapes a soul and fits it for an eternal habitation in the blissful Beyond has erected for himself a monument that eclipses in grandeur and architectural beauty all the conceptions of a Solomon, though Solomon was the wisest of men.

TOPIC XXIII.

IS THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE ELEVATION OF THE NEGRO?

BY DR. D. W. ONLEY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dr. D. W. Onley]

DR. D. WATSON ONLEY.

Dr. D. Watson Onley, the eldest child of John E. and Mary J.

R. Onley (nee Wheele), was born in Newark, N. J. When but two years old his parents moved to Brooklyn, N. Y. He was early taught to read and write by his mother, afterward he was sent to the Raymond Street public school, Prof. Chas. A.

Dorsey, princ.i.p.al. Here he showed a capable mind, by his easy mastery of all the subjects a.s.signed him, and by his standing among his fellows.

At the age of thirteen, by force of circ.u.mstances, his progress in school was checked, his parents having changed residence, going to Florida, transferred him to entirely new scenes, environments and conditions. After attending school in Jacksonville, Fla., for three years, he entered the college preparatory course of Atlanta University.

In 1876, returning North, he entered and took a collegiate course in Lincoln University, after which he took two years'

technical course in Boston, Ma.s.s.

In 1880 he married an accomplished young lady of one of the first families of Charleston, S. C., Miss Ella L. Drayton.

Two charming and accomplished daughters of this happy union are Charlotte E. and Mary M., the elder one a graduate of the Normal school at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., and a teacher in its public school. The younger daughter is at present a pupil in Normal School.

In 1885 he returned to Jacksonville, Fla., began business as architect and builder. After three years of prosperous business, he launched upon the world the first steam saw and planing mill, owned and operated entirely by colored men to manufacture lumber in all its forms for house building. The plant grew rapidly, increasing in facilities and continued prosperous until by the hand of an incendiary it was swept by fire. The State Normal and Industrial College of the State needing a practical and efficient man to take charge of their technical department, solicited his services, where he taught all branches of architectural and mechanical drawing, manual training, uses and care of wood-working machinery and steam engine.

Not being thoroughly satisfied with his surrounding conditions, he struck out for a new line of work, that of dentistry, which, after three years of hard study, struggle and sacrifice, with the cares and responsibilities of a family upon him all the while, he finished at Howard University, dental department, and immediately opened an office in Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. where he enjoys a lucrative practice. His life has been a busy one, and his success only represents what many have accomplished who have on hand a good stock of push.

In answer to this question I would say that the press next to the school has done more for the intellectual advancement, hence, elevation, of the Negro, than anything else. When I say press, I mean specifically the Negro press, which is an integral part of the American press of the country. It is his positive mouthpiece, effective when other audiences are denied him. Before Negro newspapers, the Negro had nothing to set forth his claims and true status. The race consequently speaks through the press to plead its cause.

Reviewing the history and growth of the Negro press of this country since it was launched by John B. Russwurm in New York City, March 30, 1827, to the present, comparing style of form, character of matter, increase of circulation, widespread and universal interest, the great host of contemporaries that have joined in making a vast throng of channels through which we can advocate our cause without fear of having it misrepresented or smoothed over, but bringing forth our opinions to truly enlighten the world. The general support given speaks volumes for the good it has done in elevating the Negro.

In conducting the Negro newspaper of to-day as compared with fifteen years ago there is a marked change. The success then in maintaining and increasing the circulation depended largely in appealing to the vanities of the subscribers in parading their name in print, calling attention to many things of no consequence to the public, less to themselves; but to-day in a very large degree that is changed; it has become distasteful, which is a very healthful sign along the lines of improvement of taste.

While it is true the majority of Negroes care little but for local news, doings of their own race, care but little for the news of the great wide world, it must be conceded a step far in the right direction if they can be interested at all. The Negro press, like all others, had to begin at the bottom and grow, not patterned particularly after any other paper, but fas.h.i.+oned to suit the tastes, conditions and interests of its customers. It is the privilege of the editor, not only to shape public opinion, pointing out the policy that alone will conserve to our best and lasting interest, but to develop the tastes, and so elevate the race which he serves. Through the press the editor sees that the interests, as far as our freedom and rights are concerned, are in no wise abridged, circ.u.mscribed or destroyed. In a large measure this has been one of the great benefits to the race; through the medium of the press we have been awakened to our condition, and our rights, and we jealously guard and clamor for their enjoyment and recognition. Although dark clouds of prejudice and lawlessness obscure our pathway, yet we are surely though slowly moving on in the pathway already blazed before us.

In the hands of the Negro, the press has been an educator to the whites as well as to the Negro, reflecting his manhood and capacity; this, too, has elevated the Negro's appreciation of manhood and appreciable standing among men.

Before Negro newspapers we were unknown in history, art and science.

Like the Negro exhibits at all the great fairs, they have served to open the eyes of the blind, and to remove an ignorant prejudice which was against us.

To-day we find the leading journals of this country clipping and editorially commenting upon topics discussed and articles appearing originally in Negro newspapers, and more than this, find the Negro newspapers for sale on the princ.i.p.al stands where newspapers are to be had, indicating the demand. In this city it would be hard not to find the "Colored American" and "Was.h.i.+ngton Bee" at the newsdealer's. "Yes, we keep them," I have heard to the query about the above papers; "they are good sellers." Now what is true in this city is no doubt true in other places where the local papers have secured recognition from their standing and worth.

The Negro newspaper has taken such a stand that its columns are read by white patrons, many of whom take pride and interest in noting the advancement of their brother in black.

Many newspapers published by whites have taken advantage of this condition, and the Negro's interest in the press, and have set aside columns devoted to his individual interest; have procured competent Negro reporters to gather all facts and doings of the race of special interest to it, and are published daily.

This has increased the circulation by thousands of new subscribers who eagerly seek to know just what is going on among them. The causes of non-support of the Negro press is no argument that the press has not been elevating, nor any argument against its possibilities. This is largely a condition due to poverty, illiteracy and inferiority of paper, but time will bring about a change. In the hands of the Negro the press has been a success. Failure in management and poor financial profit have been to one and all engaged in the pursuit, yet the net result shows success, not failure; and its success demonstrates the possibilities of the race, notwithstanding the lack of encouragement.

SECOND PAPER.

IS THE NEGRO NEWSPAPER AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE ELEVATION OF THE NEGRO?