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Up from Slavery [3]
The Struggle For An Education
Booker Taliaferro Washington |  | | Note: Our pure intention in uploading race-related materials here on this website is to educate young readers on historical events. Therefore, many dehumanizing words are replaced, and some negative sentences relating to any race are either removed or rewritten to an acceptable standard without loosing the writer’s own content. | One day, while working in the coal mine, I happened to overhear two miners discussing a great school for people of color somewhere in Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any school or college that was more pretentious than the little coloured school in our town. 1 | In the darkness of the mine, I noiselessly crept as close as I could to the two men who were talking. I heard one tell the other that not only was the school established for members of any race, but it also provided opportunities for poor but worthy students to work out all or part of the cost of their board and, at the same time, be taught a trade or industry. 2 | As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must be the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, about which these men were talking. I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it: I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night. 3 | After hearing of the Hampton Institute, I continued to work in the coal mine for a few months longer. While at work there, I heard of a vacant position in the household of General Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the salt furnace and coal mine. Mrs. Viola Ruffner, the wife of General Ruffner, was a “Yankee” woman from Vermont. Mrs. Ruffner had a reputation all through the vicinity for being very strict with her servants, and especially with the boys who tried to serve her. Few of them remained with her for more than two or three weeks. They all left with the same excuse: she was too strict. I decided, however, that I would rather try Mrs. Ruffner’s house than remain in the coal mine, and so my mother applied to her for the vacant position. I was hired at a salary of $5 per month. 4 | I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner’s severity that I was almost afraid to see her and trembled when I went into her presence. I had not lived with her many weeks, however, before I began to understand her. I soon began to learn that, first of all, she wanted everything kept clean about her, that she wanted things done promptly and systematically, and that at the bottom of everything, she wanted absolute honesty and frankness. Nothing must be sloven or slipshod: every door, every fence, must be kept in repair. 5 | I cannot now recall how long I lived with Mrs. Ruffner before going to Hampton, but it must have been a year and a half. At any rate, I here repeat what I had said more than once before, that the lessons that I learned in the home of Mrs. Ruffner were as valuable to me as any education I have ever gotten anywhere else. Even to this day, I never see bits of paper scattered around a house or in the street that I do not want to pick up at once. I never see a filthy yard that I do not want to clean, a paling off of a fence that I do not want to put it on, an unpainted or unwhitewashed house that I do not want to paint or whitewash, or a button-off one’s clothes, or a grease-spot on them or a floor, that I do not want to call attention to it. 6 | From fearing Mrs. Ruffner, I soon learned to look upon her as one of my best friends. When she found that she could trust me, she did so implicitly. During the one or two winters I spent with her, she allowed me to attend school for an hour a day during a portion of the winter months. However, most of my studying was done at night, sometimes alone and sometimes under someone whom I could hire to teach me. Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged and sympathized with me in all my efforts to get an education. It was while living with her that I began to get together my first library. I secured a dry-goods box, knocked out one side of it, put some shelves in it, and began putting into it every kind of book that I could get my hands upon, and called it my “library”. 7 | Notwithstanding my success at Mrs. Ruffner’s, I did not give up the idea of going to the Hampton Institute. In the fall of 1872, I determined to make an effort to get there, although, as I have stated, I had no definite idea of the direction in which Hampton was or of what it would cost to go there. I do not think that anyone thoroughly sympathised with me in my ambition to go to Hampton unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting on a “wild-goose chase”. At any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that I might start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been consumed by my stepfather and the remainder of the family, except a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which to buy clothes and pay my travelling expenses. 8 | My brother John helped me all that he could, but of course, that was not a great deal, for his work was in the coal mine, where he did not earn much, and most of what he did earn went in the direction of paying the household expenses. 9 | The thing that touched and pleased me most in connection with my starting for Hampton was the interest that many of the older people of colour took in the matter. They had spent the best days of their lives in slavery and hardly expected to live to see the time when they would see a member of their race leave home to attend a boarding school. Some of these older people would give me a nickel, others a quarter or a handkerchief. 10 | Finally, the great day came, and I started for Hampton. I had only a small, cheap satchel that contained a few articles of clothing I could get. My mother, at the time, was relatively weak and broken in health. I hardly expected to see her again, and thus, our parting was all the more sad. She, however, was very brave through it all. At that time, there were no through trains connecting that part of West Virginia with eastern Virginia. Trains ran only a portion of the way, and stagecoaches travelled the remainder of the distance. 11 | The distance from Malden to Hampton is about five hundred miles. I had not been away from home many hours before it began to grow painfully evident that I did not have enough money to pay my fare to Hampton. One experience I shall long remember. I had been travelling over the mountains most of the afternoon in an old-fashioned stagecoach when, late in the evening, the coach stopped for the night at a typical, unpainted house called a hotel. All the other passengers, except myself, were white. In my ignorance, I supposed that the little hotel existed to accommodate the passengers who travelled on the stagecoach. 12 | The difference that the colour of one’s skin would make, I had not thought anything. After all the other passengers had been shown rooms and were getting ready for supper, I shyly presented myself before the man at the desk. I indeed had practically no money in my pocket with which to pay for bed or food, but I had hoped in some way to beg my way into the good graces of the landlord, for at that season in the mountains of Virginia the weather was cold, and I wanted to get indoors for the night. Without asking as to whether I had any money, the man at the desk firmly refused even to consider the matter of providing me with food or lodging. This was my first experience of discovering what the colour of my skin meant. In some way, I managed to keep warm by walking about, and so I got through the night. My whole soul was so bent upon reaching Hampton that I did not have time to cherish any bitterness toward the hotel keeper. 13 | By walking, begging rides both in wagons and in cars, in some way, after several days, I reached the city of Richmond, Virginia, about eighty-two miles from Hampton. When I reached there, tired, hungry, and dirty, it was late in the night. I had never been in a large city, and this instead added to my misery. When I reached Richmond, I was completely out of money. I had not a single acquaintance in the place, and, being unused to city ways, I did not know where to go. I applied for lodging at several places, but they all required payment, which I did not have. 14 | Knowing nothing else better to do, I walked the streets. In doing this, I passed by many food stands where fried chicken and half-moon apple pies were piled high, making them present a most tempting appearance. At that time, I would have promised all that I expected to possess in the future to have gotten hold of one of those chicken legs or one of those pies. But I could not get either of these, nor anything else to eat. 15 | I must have walked the streets till after midnight. At last, I became so exhausted that I could walk no longer. I was tired, hungry, and everything but discouraged. Just about the time when I reached extreme physical exhaustion, I came upon a portion of a street where the board sidewalk was considerably elevated. I waited for a few minutes till I was sure that no passers-by could see me, and then crept under the sidewalk and lay for the night upon the ground with my satchel of clothing for a pillow. Nearly all night, I could hear the tramp of feet over my head. The next morning, I found myself somewhat refreshed, but I was extremely hungry because it had been a long time since I had eaten a substantial meal. 16 | As soon as it became light enough for me to see my surroundings, I noticed that I was near a large ship and that this ship seemed to be unloading a cargo of pig iron. I went immediately to the vessel and asked the captain to let me help unload it so I could earn money for food. The captain, a white man who seemed to be kind-hearted, consented. I worked long enough to earn money for my breakfast, and it seems to me, as I remember it now, to have been about the best breakfast that I have ever eaten. 17 | My work pleased the captain so well that he told me I could continue working for a small amount per day if I desired. I was happy to do it. I continued working on this vessel for several days. After buying food with the small wages I received, there was not much left to add to the amount I needed to pay my way to Hampton. To economize in every way possible to be sure to reach Hampton in a reasonable time, I continued to sleep under the same sidewalk that sheltered me the first night I was in Richmond. Many years after that, the colored citizens of Richmond very kindly tendered me a reception at which there must have been two thousand people present. This reception was held not far from the spot where I slept the first night I spent in the city, and I must confess that my mind was more upon the sidewalk that first sheltered me than upon the recognition, agreeable and cordial as it was. 18 | When I had saved what I considered enough money with which to reach Hampton, I thanked the captain of the vessel for his kindness and started again. Without any unusual occurrence, I reached Hampton with a surplus of exactly fifty cents with which to begin my education. To me, it had been a long, eventful journey:, but the first sight of the large, three-story, brick school building rewarded me for all that I had undergone to reach the place. 19 | If the people who gave the money to provide that building could appreciate the influence the sight of it had upon me, as well as upon thousands of other youths, they would feel all the more encouraged to make such gifts. It was the largest and most beautiful building I had ever seen. The sight of it gave me new life. I felt that a new kind of existence had now begun, that life would now have a new meaning. I felt that I had reached the promised land, and I resolved to let no obstacle prevent me from putting forth the highest effort to fit myself to accomplish the most good in the world. 20 | As soon as possible after reaching the grounds of the Hampton Institute, I presented myself before the head teacher for an assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and a change of clothing, I did not, of course, make a very favourable impression upon her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student. I felt that I could hardly blame her if she got the idea that I was a worthless loafer or tramp. For some time, she did not refuse to admit me, nor did she decide in my favour, and I continued to linger about her and to impress her in all the ways I could with my worthiness. In the meantime, I saw her admitting other students, and that added greatly to my discomfort, for I felt, deep down in my heart, that I could do as well as they if I could only get a chance to show what was in me. 21 | After some hours had passed, the head teacher said to me: "The adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it." 22 | It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. Never did I receive an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner had thoroughly taught me how to do that when I lived with her. 23 | I swept the recitation room three times. Then I got a dusting cloth and dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table, and desk, I went over four times with my dusting cloth. Besides, every piece of furniture had been moved, and every closet and corner in the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that, in large measure, my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning of that room. When I was through, I reported to the head teacher. She was a “Yankee” woman who knew just where to look for dirt. She went into the room and inspected the floor and closets; then, she took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls and over the table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly remarked, “I guess you will do to enter this institution.” 24 | I was one of the happiest souls on Earth. The sweeping of that room was my college examination, and never did any youth pass an examination for entrance into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine satisfaction. I have passed several examinations since then, but I have always felt that this was the most challenging one I have ever passed. 25 | I have spoken of my own experience in entering the Hampton Institute. Few, if any, had the same experience that I had. Still, about the same period, hundreds found their way to Hampton and other institutions after experiencing similar difficulties to those I went through. The young men and women were determined to secure an education at any cost. 26 | The sweeping of the recitation room in the manner that I did has paved the way for me to get through Hampton. Miss Mary F. Mackie, the head teacher, offered me a position as a janitor. This, of course, I gladly accepted because it was a place where I could work out nearly all the cost of my board. The work was challenging and demanding, but I persevered. I had a large number of rooms to care for and had to work late into the night, while at the same time, I had to rise by four o’clock in the morning to build the fires and have a little time in which to prepare my lessons. In all my career at Hampton, and ever since I have been out in the world, Miss Mary F. Mackie, the head teacher to whom I have referred, proved to be one of my strongest and most helpful friends. Her advice and encouragement were always helpful in strengthening me in the darkest hour. 27 | I have spoken of the impression that was made upon me by the buildings and general appearance of the Hampton Institute. Still, I have not spoken of that which made the most significant and most lasting impression on me, and that was a great man, the noblest, rarest human being that it has ever been my privilege to meet. I refer to the late General Samuel C. Armstrong. 28 | It has been my fortune to personally meet many of the great characters, both in Europe and America. Still, I have never met any man who, in my estimation, was the equal of General Armstrong. Fresh from the degrading influences of the slave plantation and the coal mines, it was a rare privilege for me to be permitted to come into direct contact with such a character as General Armstrong. I shall always remember that the first time I went into his presence, he made the impression upon me of being a perfect man: I was made to feel that there was something about him that was superhuman. 29 | It was my privilege to know the General personally from the time I entered Hampton till he died, and the more I saw of him, the greater he grew in my estimation. One might have removed all the buildings, classrooms, teachers, and industries from Hampton and given the men and women there the opportunity to come into daily contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been a liberal education. The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education that one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women. Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges learn to study men and things! 30 | General Armstrong spent two of the last six months of his life in my home at Tuskegee. At that time, he was paralyzed to the extent that he had lost control of his body and voice to a considerable degree. Notwithstanding his affliction, he worked almost constantly night and day for the cause to which he had given his life. I never saw a man who so completely lost sight of himself. I do not believe he ever had a selfish thought. He was just as happy in trying to assist some other institution in the South as he was when working for Hampton. Although he fought the Southern white man in the Civil War, I never heard him utter a bitter word against him afterward. On the other hand, he was constantly seeking to find ways by which he could be of service to the Southern whites. 31 | It would not be easy to describe the hold that he had upon the students at Hampton or the faith they had in him. In fact, he was worshipped by his students. It never occurred to me that General Armstrong could fail in anything that he undertook. There is almost no request that he could have made that would not have been complied with. When he was a guest at my home in Alabama and was so severely paralyzed that he had to be wheeled about in an invalid’s chair, I recall that one of the General’s former students had to push his chair up a long, steep hill that taxed his strength to the utmost. 32 | When the top of the hill was reached, the former pupil, with a glow of happiness on his face, exclaimed, I am so glad that I have been permitted to do something hard for the General before he dies! While I was a student at Hampton, the dormitories became so crowded that it was impossible to find room for all who wanted to be admitted. To help remedy the difficulty, the General conceived the plan of putting up tents to be used as rooms. As soon as it became known that General Armstrong would be pleased if some of the older students would live in the tents during the winter, nearly every student in school volunteered to go. 33 | I was one of the volunteers. The winter we spent in those tents was an intensely cold one, and we suffered severely. I am fairly certain that General Armstrong never knew, because we made no complaints. It was enough for us to know that we were pleasing General Armstrong and that we were making it possible for an additional number of students to secure an education. More than once, during a cold night, when a stiff gale would be blowing, our tent was lifted bodily, and we would find ourselves in the open air. The General would usually pay a visit to the tents early in the morning, and his earnest, cheerful, encouraging voice would dispel any feeling of despondency. 34 | I have spoken of my admiration for General Armstrong, and yet he was but a type of that Christlike body of men and women who went into the Schools for the blacks at the close of the war by the hundreds to assist in lifting my race. The history of the world fails to show a higher, purer, and more unselfish class of men and women than those who found their way into those schools for blacks. 35 | Life at Hampton was a constant revelation to me: was constantly taking me into a new world. The matter of having meals at regular hours, eating on a tablecloth, using a napkin, the use of the bathtub and the toothbrush, as well as the use of sheets on the bed, were all new to me. 36 | I sometimes feel that almost the most valuable lesson I got at the Hampton Institute was in the use and value of the bath. I learned there for the first time some of its values, not only in keeping the body healthy but in inspiring self-respect and promoting virtue. In all my travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton, I have always, in some way, sought my daily bath. Sometimes, when I have been the guest of my own people in a single-roomed cabin, it has not always been easy to do except by slipping away to some stream in the woods. I have always tried to teach my people that every house should have some provision for bathing. 37 | For some time, while a student at Hampton, I possessed but a single pair of socks, but when I had worn these till they became soiled, I would wash them at night and hang them by the fire to dry so that I might wear them again the next morning. 38 | The charge for my board at Hampton was ten dollars per month. I was expected to pay a part of this in cash and to work out the remainder. To meet this cash payment, as I have stated, I had just fifty cents when I reached the institution. Aside from a very few dollars that my brother John was able to send me occasionally, I had no money with which to pay my board. I was determined from the beginning to make my work as a janitor so valuable that my services would be indispensable. This I succeeded in doing to such an extent that I was soon informed that I would be allowed the full cost of my board in return for my work. 39 | The cost of tuition was seventy dollars a year. This, of course, was wholly beyond my ability to provide. If I had been compelled to pay the seventy dollars for tuition, in addition to providing for my board, I would have been compelled to leave the Hampton school. General Armstrong, however, very kindly got Mr. S. Griffitts Morgan of New Bedford, Mass., to defray the cost of my tuition during the whole time that I was at Hampton. After I finished the course at Hampton and had entered upon my lifework at Tuskegee, I had the pleasure of visiting Mr. Morgan several times. 40 | After being at Hampton for a while, I found myself in difficulty because I did not have books and clothing. Usually, however, I got around the trouble of books by borrowing from those who were more fortunate than myself. As to clothes, when I reached Hampton, I had practically nothing. Everything that I possessed was in a small hand satchel. My anxiety about clothing increased because General Armstrong made a personal inspection of the young men in ranks to ensure their clothes were clean. Shoes had to be polished; there must be no buttons off the clothing and no grease spots. 41 | To wear one suit of clothes continually, while at work and in the schoolroom, and at the same time keep it clean, was instead a complex problem for me to solve. In some way, I managed to get on till the teachers learned that I was in earnest and meant to succeed, and then some of them were kind enough to see that I was partly supplied with second-hand clothing that had been sent in barrels from the North. These barrels proved a blessing to hundreds of poor but deserving students. Without them, I question whether I should ever have gotten through Hampton. 42 | When I first went to Hampton, I do not recall that I had ever slept in a bed that had two sheets on it. In those days, there were not many buildings there, and room was very precious. There were seven other boys in the same room with me:. Most of them, however, were students who had been there for some time. The sheets were quite a puzzle to me. The first night, I slept under both of them, and the second night, I slept on top of them:, but by watching the other boys, I learned my lesson in this and have been trying to follow it ever since and to teach it to others. 43 | I was among the youngest students at Hampton at the time. Most of the students were men and women, some as old as forty. As I now recall the scene of my first year, I do not believe that one often has the opportunity of coming into contact with three or four hundred men and women who were so tremendously in earnest as these men and women were. Every hour was occupied in study or work. Nearly all had had sufficient actual contact with the world to teach them the importance of education. 44 | Many of the older ones were, of course, too old to master the textbooks very thoroughly, and it was often sad to watch their struggles:, but they made up in earnest much of what they lacked in books. Many of them were as poor as I was, and besides having to wrestle with their books, they had to struggle with poverty, which prevented them from having the necessities of life. Many of them had aged parents who were dependent on them, and some were men who had to provide support for their wives. 45 | The great and prevailing idea that seemed to take possession of everyone was to prepare himself to lift the people at his home. No one seemed to think of himself. And the officers and teachers, what a rare set of human beings they were! They worked for the students night and day, in seasons and out of season. They seemed happy only when they were helping the students in some manner. Whenever it is written, and I hope it will be the part that the Yankee teachers played in the education of the blacks immediately after the war, it will make one of the most thrilling parts of the history of this country. The time is not far distant when the whole South will appreciate this service in a way that it has not yet been able to do. 46 ★ |  |
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56 reads • Jun 2025 • 4914 words • 46 rows
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