The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-08-31
THE COLORED NORMAL.
A CORRESPONDENTS VISIT TO THE
SCHOOL AT TUSKEGEE, ALA
How the Institution Began Work-Whst
Is Done in the Industrial Depart
Misunderstanding of the Hosts
"A Strange Scene.
rTuskeoee (Ala4 Cor Inter Ocean. ]

annual appropriation of $4,000 for the
establishment and maintenance Of col
ored normal school at Tuskegee, with the
condition that the money should be used
in paying teachers salaries. In order
that advantage might be taken OF this
establish the school who had the pluck
to bestir himself and secure funds for
buildings and the necessary equipment.
The state superintendent of instruction
wrote to Gen. Armstrong, of Hampton
fame, asking him to find principal
Gen. Armstrong named MIR. Barker L.
Washington, one of his numerous pro-
teges, who had come TO Hampton with
only 80 cents in his pocket
Mr.. Washington opened his school in
dilapidated country church on July 4, IN
1881, after only one weeks preparation,
with a membership of thirty students In
less than four short years the school has
attained membership Of nearly 200 STU
dents, each one of whom signs contract
when he comes here that he will teach at
least two years in the public schools Of
Alabama and has twelve teachers, for
whose service the state now pays So, 900 q
year; the institution owns $50 acres
of land, free of debt; brickyard from
which 10, 900 bricks are daily turned out
by the students, and windmill and
tank sixty-five feet in the air, with pipes
and attachments for carrying water to any
part of the premises; there is one
college building which cost So, 800, and
another to cost over $40, 900 In process of
erection-being built by students-besides
poultry houses, sheds, ETC.; there is
printing Office, a carpenter shop, laun-
dry, a sewing school, forty acres of grow
ing crops, with live stock and tools;
and preparations are now being made
with the limited funds that are at the
command of this most deserving school to
add to the Industrial department black
smithing, tinsmithing, shoemaking, fruit
canning, broom making and saw MILL
There is also night school for the very
poorest scholars Ito whom the institute
furnishes employment by the day. and a
public colored school to give normal prac
tice to these prospective teachers, after the
analogy of the Butler school at Hampton.
went on a tour of inspection of the
premises in company with Professor
Washington, the state superintendent of
education, and some other prominent
white citizens. The splendid work of
the young principal has won the sympa-
thy and cooperation of even the southern
white people. We saw mammoth pota-
toes, turnips cabbages, and various other
vegetables
Washington, "but I wouldn't have it
otherwise [ got it with that fact in
view / want the students to learn how
to make good land out of poor land. 1t
is a small achievement to grow good crops
on rich land We are trying to raise an
intelligent class of farmers
In the carpenter shops were exhibits of
furniture made by the students, beds,
washstands, tables, etc, In the girls In
dustrial department were shawls, aprons
shirts, hats, tides and other articles of ap-
parel or household use.
In the meantime colored people had
been hocking to the school from all the sur
rounding country: Both sides of the
street were lined for nearly half a mile
with the wagons and buggies of people
who had come five, ten, fifteen twenty,
and even twenty five miles that morning,
1t had been raining for nearly a week.
and yet on this day the heavens smiled
their pleasantest. Nature would not dare
to weep on such an occasion. I took oc-
had just been smothered with kisses by
a radiant daughter who had been to school
for three months without visiting home:
what do you think of this SCHOOL,"
"Don't it beat all, sah?" was the reply
"Yere we black folks was four years ago,
not knowing dat such thing as eddica-
ton was for us. Now jess see de kyar-
riagesl | got up and started long TO day
light. Twas rainin' den, but jess prayed
de good Lawd to pull back his clouds an
let the daylight shine through. An he
did. Use boun' now dat my chilluns shall
have chance eff I didn't.
The multitude was fed by Professor
Washington under a grove of four mann
moth mulberry trees. the finest mulberry
trees ever saw.
After this collation. everybody adjourned
to the college chapel. That is everybody
did who could get inside. When the stu
dent choir of 100 voices commenced sing
ing that timex pressibly sweet plantation mel
ody Bright Sparkles in the Churchyard,
looked about over the sea Of black faces
fringed in front with few white ones
faces Of former slave owners; and some
how a lump gathered in my throat
am not sentimental, but somehow l had
to keep winking fast or my brimming
eyes would have run over. Two decades
ago who would have dared to predict that
such an audience of we'll dressed, eager,
earnest colored people would so soon
gather on such an occasion, while some
whites who could not get chairs would be
found sitting on the edge Of the plat
form.
Parrhasius would have given all the
world to be able to paint dying groan.
But l would have given a whole universe
of worlds, had they been mine, to have
been able to depict in words the peculiar
emotion OF that strange, inspiring occa
An officer who had been on duty at The
Tombs number of years died the other
day of typhoid fever, believed to have been
brought on by foul exhalations from q hole
lately made in the yard, and his death ha;
called some attention to the danger lurking
in that particular place. An old resident
tells me he remembers very well when the
very spot where the Tombs stands was GOV.
cred with dirty pond known to the Goth
amiteS Of those times.aS the Collect.
The neighborhood was all marshy and the
pond sluggish, and when the prison was
built right where the pond had been-be- |
fore it was filed with dirt-A great many
citizens believed that the site selected was |
very bad Work to enlarge the prison |
somewhat is now going on, and it is to this !
work that the death of the officer is believed |
to be due. At a depth of eight feet the con-
tractor found himself right down in the |
water-a black, greasy sort OF water, emit
ting an abominable smell that gets into the
air of the whole neiohborhood When the