Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements

ooker T.

iss Susan B. Anthony, "because you are trying so earnestly to teach your girls other means of livelihood besides sewing, housework, and cooking." This is the problem we have been trying to solve at Tuskegee for over twenty yea

KER T. W

Industries

s fresh from the soil of Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, or Florida. After the last gripless hand-shake, with the tremulous, "Take care of yourself, honey," the hard-working father and mother have turned their faces ho

he has remained in school during the summer vacation, and within two years has entered day-school with enough to her credit to finish her education. When the happy parents return to see their daughter graduated, after six or seven long years, their faces are radiant

en an opportunity to learn plain sewing in that division. She was promoted to the Dressmaking Division at the end of the year, and received her certificate at the close of two years, after working every day and attending night-school. She spent the last two years of her school life in the Millinery Division, and received her certificate from that division with one from the Academic Department on her graduation. During

t 50 per cent came from country districts all over the United States. A large majority of them asked to enter the Dressmaking Division to learn that trade; but, after the fi

13; housekeeping, 38; dining-room, 29; hospital, 20; kitchen-gardening, 8; poultry-raising, 7; tailoring, 14; dairying, 10; printing, 6; broom-making, 26; mattress-making, 18; upholsteri

truction equally in the Academic and Industrial Departments. This year this scheme worked successfully by an arrangement that placed one division in the Academic Department on Mondays, We

ugh to lend the highest source of pleasure. Though the girl usually comes with a hazy conception of what the days in school will really mean for the ripening of those powers that she earnestly intends to u

re. New emotions, new purposes, new resolutions chase one another in her thoughts, and she becomes a stranger to herself only to find her bearings first in her own r

le furniture of the room. But a few pictures, a strip of carpet before each bed, a bright table-covering, soon give the room the appearance of home, an

ement in schoolroom or workshop, and a haven of peace during the quiet hours of the Sabbath! Roommate meets roommate, quick to re

and the tricks of speech that betray the sectional birthright, proclaim to the ever-observant table-mates the status of each newcomer, and she rises or falls in estimation just so far as her metal rings tru

, then finishes her room-duties and is ready for work at ten minutes of seven wherever she happens to be assigned. If she is a dishwasher, she doe

ications for transfers from the sewing divisions to this outside work. Equipped in an overall gingham apron and sunbonnet of the same material, t

d the local market, the stage takes the group out to the patch two miles back on the farm-and that is happiness unalloyed for the scho

ish has a natural, practical bearing, arising from the fact that one hour has been spent with the theory class of the workroom studying the warp and woof of the materials used, perhaps the sixth or seven

ailor-made dresses in silk and cloth, measuring, drafting, cutting, and fitting, has many a representative in the schoolroom the succeeding day; an

n geometry on her school-days and mechanical drawing on her work-days. When our girl has finished her course in drawing and begins one of the uniform hats worn by the hundreds of girls, she ranks among the first milliners of the land in the estimation of the beginners. She completes hat after hat, drapes them

IN MIL

de for shaping and trimming hats. They plod on, and win at last. Then there is the girl whose parents wish her to open a millinery establishment

ute for the hair filling of a more expensive manufacture, and they have an advantage in the matter of cleanliness. Covering screen frames made in the Carpentry Division for the numerous rooms, caning couches, rockers, and stools, help add to the variety of work in the division. The girl is not awarded her certificate until sh

nfines of the girls' broom-factory at Tuskegee Institute. The poultry-yard bought the seeds threshed off the broom-stalks; the hundreds of old handles collected cost nothing, and when the wiring, stitching, and clipping were finished and the girl saw the first broom turned out, there was triumph in the fact that the industry was the most inexpensive and still the most productive of cred

ighing and measuring materials to make more soap to add to the boxes standing in the soap-room. Girls up-stairs in the wash-room are busy rubbing at the tubs. Some girls are starching, and others are sending baskets down on the elevator for girls below to hang in the drying-room. Others are in the assorting-room putting away clothes-bags into numerous boxes. The ironing-room farther

ions, each busily engaged at her chosen trade. At the ringing of the bells in each division at stated hours, classes form and pass to the training-kitchen for their lesson in cooking. Both night-school

elts, and pine-needle work-baskets. The shuck hats and foot-mats are so foreign in design that one often wonders how it were possible to utilize the same material in so widely different purposes. But our girl is progressive, and not a few instances have occurred when one has been informed of the pr

rs have not earned much for their work. In former years the greater body of the students were working their way through school, and by their labor would earn enough to complete their education in the Academic Department and the Industrial as wel

use I want to earn something in life, but it seems that means and opportunity will not permit me. I can't help from cr

, and that leaves me alone to be something by myself. I am anxious to enter day-school so I may finish my co

you will look into my board bill and help me as

id for their work. It is to the interest of the school and its day-students that fewer work their way through school, and the time has come to teach

their turn at housekeeping in the Practise Cottage of four rooms. No girl is graduated from the school without the finishing touch of the little home. Marketing, the planning of meals, table-setting, the care of table- and bed-linen, dusting, sweeping, and everything else pertaining t

ght by the distinguished visitor, who came from a stroll in the "piney" woods. The girls, apprehensive of their success in preparing the dinner for one with so cultured a palate, felt visibly relieved on the disappearance of the roast, the vegetables, and the de

preparatory classes go to the study-hour, and those who have been working at the trades during the day spend two hours in night-school covering half as much ground as those

pel, and her white ribbon on Sundays when she passes the platform as she marches by out of the Chapel to her room. Her carriage at least identifies her class-sta

ing the week. Our girl attends the Christian Endeavor Sunday mornings at nine, Chapel at eleven, Sunday-school at one, and, after dinner is out of the way, spends the enforced quiet hour in her room from three until four

eek is here and the hundreds of young people whose lives have come in touch with one another pass on to their homes. Some go out as helpful workers, giving useful service to others; many will return to complete the course