South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-03-05
GARY SYSTEM IN
USE At TUSKEGEE
FOR THIRTY YEARS
Kansas City Man Believes Great
Influence on Submerged
Negro Race is Spreading Out
From Alabama.

KANSAS CITY, March "a Negro
institution Of learning, the Tuskegee
institute OF Alabama, with $500 stu
dents. founded by Booker Washing
ten, has been for 80 years quietly
putting into practice all the ideas
about education that are at the bot
tom OF the sO-called Gary and other
new systems of secondary education.
SO il somewhat appears TO Jacob Bill
likopf. who has just returned from
a trip TO the Tuskegee institute, where
he was present at a meeting of the
board of trustees. The board includes
Jane Adams and Julius Rosenwald
of Chicago. Seth Low. former mayor
of New York. and .ther persons prom
inent in the United States.
The Tuskegee system, according to
Mr. BHlikopf, prepares the unedu
Gated Negro to be Of use TO his fell
low men. The institute has 40 depart
ments. Those include shoemaking.
laundry work. tailoring, printing,
dressmaking. etc. They are housed in
103 buildings. over 90 per cent of
which were put up by the students
themselves. But not only did the stu
dents put up the buildings. but they
also prepared the materials. even to
the point Of making the brick used.
Earn Board by school Work.
In fact. says Mr.. Billikopf, this
work of construction is typical Of the
way in which every article, every
thing, which is used or consumed at
Tuskegee institute today is made
there.
The system is more adequate than
anything L have ever SEEM" Mr.. Bill
kopf said after his return. Every
student Is supposed to pay $40
month for board, and the system Of
labor is 50 well worked out that every
student can pay by his daily labor in
providing things for the institute and
getting his own education at the same
time. for his board. Some of them
even have something coming TO them
at the end of the month. / have yet
to see in any other place such q close
relationship between books and work.
In arithmetic the problems have TO
do with the practical jobs of the stu
dents. In English they write essays
on their work in the shops. In read
ing, they read African Slavery by
Booker T. Washington"
Rhetoricals Even Are Practical
Mr.. Billikopf was asked if this was
not reproduction OF the Gary sys-
tenn" He replied that the two were
very much alike but that this had
been going on at Tuskegee for more
than 20 years
''They have rhetorical exercises at
the institute once a month, and our
party was fortunate enough 10 be
present at one Of them. Instead of
the expected Across the Alps Lies
ITALY, this is what we saw. A girl
gave q talk on how to prepare
meal. And moreover, she actually
prepared it before our eyes, explain
ing the chemical properties Of it, and
its physiological value. The preser-
walton OF fruit was the next Grafton
treated in the same way. Another
orator, in Overalls and with sleeves
rolled up, put up the framework of a
bedroom, and the girl who followed
him equipped and decorated it, max
ing the fullest use of stenciling and
OF raffia work. 1 felt that the pro
gram was an education in itself for
us.
sH3y Their Works"
''Tuskegee is the nucleus of a great
influence which is spreading out in
the Negro belt. Mr.. Rosenwald is
helping them TO put up modern Ne
gro schools all over the south, giving
a certain amount, which they must
match.
1T IS impossible to describe the
sensations Of a person who has exper-
fenced what members of the visiting
party were able to see and undergo
at the institute. We saw the stu
dents in their immense dining room
observing a decorum that no univer-
sity commons can match. We heard
some Of the Negro men and women
who have gone out OF Tuskegee tell
OF their work, a work that is in many
respects heroic in its unbending eff
fort to uplift the race against great
odds"
Mr.. Billikopf said that it was a Tus-
kegee graduate who Won the $500
prize offered by EverybOdy's magazine
some time ago for the best essay on
prohibition. The same man won one
OF the Hart Schaffner & Marx prizes
on a subject OF economies and also
won a prize offered by the St Louis
POst-Dispatch on What Made Mis-
souri, a Great state" The Negro had
never been in Missouri.