Norwich bulletin., 1917-02-17


 ]; STORY REToLD
 I discimus": We learn. not for school, but for life, which these boys and girls of earlier classes twist to sigfli- fly:
 While in the Norwich Free Aca- denny we were taught. not for school but for life; and the passing of the years impresses us with the fact that upon for c11aracter- forming. for equip ping the tyro to face life and the world braveiy. and to do his bit in a
 manner name s to prove that the in inssitution ni ideals for him to measure up to. This, too, is the unvaryins theme
 the ns socistx ine in New Yerk But of all the strange instances of Norwich Free Academy impress. none could be stranger than that influence Washington. Granted. it was but in-
 direct influence; it had it's effect. nev- ertheless.
 What MT. Leavens had not time to tell in detail. while welcoming the boys from Hampton, happened some- thing like this:
 Back in 1880, the senior class of the Academy had a remarkable number of girls named Mary. all of them fa- vorites with the undergraduate boys of that era, but none quite as pop l ular as was pretty Mary Fletcher Mackie, who is now a resident of Newburgh- on- the Hudson. / As mulch of the subscribed fund for | the Academy had been expended for | the building and it's equipment, when fH1 efh vuyac ha brown structure with it's dignified tower standing four-square. a build ! ing as solid as was the principle of a | liberal education upon which it was economy during those first years; so a number of the Mary girls were de- puted to teach in certain divisions of the lower classes.
 Happy and studious to an abnormal | degree was the boy whom kind fate committed to the bench from which he faced Miss Mary Maekie as his tu- Commencement of 1860 came, and | when the N. F. A. term opened the following fall there was a painful sense
 of loss among those boys who had ad- vanced to higher scholastic dignity; for while some of the Mary girls of the graduate class remained in Nor
 wich. the comedy Mary Mackie had gone.
 But in that strange evolution of happenings small and significant which we call life. she was not to be lost sight of, or her influence to> be curtailed by the change of local In due and proper time, word came that she had joined the faculty of the l wonderful new school for the educa- tion of co1ored youth founded at l tative undertaking: since there were courageous and liberal citizens who dared to, declare, in works and well as l in words, that the status of the indi- vidual was not a matter of skin alone; that the negro had a right to be taught, and trained, and uplifted, and that aiding him toward this striving l for some ideals above those of his then almost helpless state devolyed | with grave weight upon the white race, through whose cupidity the in- | famous slavery of the black mans au- cestors had come to srnirch the na-
 tion's history: to result in evils which untold blood and treasure have not yet wholly eradicated-
 Well, not much was known up | north of pretty Mary Mackie's work | at Hampton; merely that she was | teaching and working there; and so l the years went on.
 Out in coal mine in West Vir- I ginia, when time was ripe. little ragged colored boy. who didn't know much about his mother or father, or | if he ever had either, and to whom | life was pretty hard proposition. be- l tween the alternatives of man-joh l daily task and starvation if he should 1 shirk 1t, heard something which was l almost astounding news; to wit, that | somewhere, over in Virginia, there
 had been created by some benevolent white folks a school for colored boys | and girls in which they were taught l things just like white boys and 1 girls
 Hampton. in Virginy! He pondered l the name in his confused little brain, dirty. and outcast, waif that he was, | owned by nobody in particular. The idea which sprung from the amaz- hearing, as some bird of passage drops strange shore seed upon the barren stretch of sand far inland sprouted and grew and was cherished {; i of fiction, that mere child, through his first public manifestation of the greatness of character and indomita I ble will which were to mark his ca reer in later life, actually made his way over the almost five hundred in- | tervening miles from his coal-mine to i that unknown goal, Hampton Meantime, before his running away, | he had had experiences of stern and strict New England training which | were to serve him in good stead. The wife of one of the mine over | seers. who was too particular to be | satisfied with the careless work of the maids to be procured thereabouts, de- | cided to train the little mine-boy to | do household tasks after the most ap- | proved. New England fashion. l A qrim and fussy lady she was, and one almost aches for the small | boy who had to learn to sweep | square corners" and do other stunts I which must have come pretty hard | upon a castaway evolved from easy 1 going slavery. But this boy of rare ! qualities had it in him even to suit | the prim dame-a fact upon which his l future mysteriously hinged
 | When small, weary Booker Wash I indton finally arrived at the wondrous school of which he had so long dream | ed, 1t was to Miss Mary F. Mackie | that he was committed. to determine
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