[n.b. - page numbers refer to printed text. Available at https://archive.org/details/blackmansburden0000will ] CHAPTER XVI Just after this conference had closed Dr. Henry E. Cobb, of New York City, one of our leading trustees, requested me to give a full statement of what had been accomplished up to that time, April, 1909; and I wrote him the following letter, which I take the liberty to give here, because it sums up well the work that we had suc- ceeded in doing during the first six years of our labors: “My DEAR Dr. Cozns: In reply to your letter of recent date asking for a statement of the work of this Institu- tion, permit me to say that although we started here in a wilderness six years ago, with absolutely no capital, with no immediate friends, strangers amidst strange surround- ings, Our motives questioned on the one hand, and our ability to accomplish our object on the other, with noth- ing but hope founded on faith, we have gone steadily for- ward in the building up of an industrial educational In- stitute similar to Hampton and Tuskegee, until to-day our institution is among the most successful in this sec- tion of the South. “In all our departments,—industrial, academic, Bibli- cal, night and day school,—we have enrolled five hundred students this year, and have employed twenty-five teach- ers and officers. Our teachers have been educated at some of the best schools in the country, North and South. Although we are careful not to neglect the academic work, our school is distinctly industrial, and among the THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 183 industries agriculture takes first rank. Domestic science, I believe, comes second. When I tell you that ninety-five per cent. of my people in the state of Mississippi are en- gaged in some form of agriculture you will readily under- stand why we are careful to give accurate training in this particular subject. Other industries taught are carpentry, wheelwrighting, blacksmithing, sawmilling, and general lumber manufacturing, brick laying and plastering, broommaking, printing and bookbinding, dairying, stock- raising, poultry raising, sewing and dressmaking, milli- nery, cooking, electrical engineering, laundering, and gen- eral housekeeping. Some of these industries,—the saw- mill, for instance,—are well equipped and are more than self-supporting, while the majority of them must still come under the ‘infant industry’ class. “On the grounds proper there are three large buildings and eleven small ones; out on the plantation there is one large building surrounded by thirty cottages, farm- houses, barns, and so on. The farm proper, including timber lands, consists of one thousand five hundred and ten acres. The entire property is valued at seventy-five thousand dollars, and I am happy to say that there is not one cent encumbrance on a single dollar’s worth of the property. “But our labors have not been confined to the building of a material Institution. We have built our Institution, as it were, in the hearts of the people. We have changed the condition of things so materially that it is difficult to describe the changes that have taken place. Six years ago the ownership of homes by my people was almost wholly unknown; it was difficult to find a Negro that had a home of his own with more than two rooms, re- gardless of the size of his family. To-day Negroes in 184 THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN the neighborhood own more than three thousand acres of land, and many of them have erected comfortable cot- tages with from three to five rooms, having some pictures on the walls and some books on the shelves as well as some flowers in the yard. “You will better appreciate the value of the changes when I tell you that six years ago some of the people were so vicious that all idea of evening services at the various churches had to be abandoned by the older people in order to keep their sons and daughters out of prisons and chain gangs. When a gathering was attempted at night it usually resulted in a free-for-all fight, in which revolvers and razors were used indiscriminately, to the injury of some of the congregation and the imprisonment of others. “It is gratifying to note that all this has nearly passed away at Utica. In practically all the churches the ser- vices are orderly and are held night or day, at the will of the worshipers. No ‘blind tiger’ whiskey is sold about the churches now; and many of the congregations com- pare favorably with audiences I have seen in more en- lightened sections of the country. “Six years ago there were men and women living to- gether as man and wife and rearing children, without the semblance of a legal tie, but I am glad to say that public sentiment has so changed that it has compelled the dis- continuance of these illegal and degrading practices. All the persons living together illegally were made to marry by due forms of law, or leave town, and they are now happier. The former state of things could not exist here now. Not only would the colored people themselves re- fuse to tolerate it, but the white officers of the law would not permit it. THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN © 185 “All this measures, though very inaccurately, the work we have helped to accomplish during these six years, out- side of what might be expected of an ordinary school. Now, just a word about how we have done it. “We organized ourselves into what we called ‘exten- sion workers,’ then we divided the local territory into as many divisions as there were teachers in the faculty, assigning a given division to each worker. All the time that was not spent in the actual work of the school was spent among the people. Once a month the teachers would meet in our chapel and compare notes, and once a year all the people in the various divisions were brought together for a conference and for general instructions; we learned of them, and they learned of us. The work has been enlarged until this year the whole county of Hinds, a section of territory equal to the state of Rhode Island, is under the practical moral charge of the twenty- five teachers of our school. We shall further enlarge the scope of the work from year to year. “The results of this extension work have impressed every one of our friends that has visited the school. When Dr. G. S. Dickerman, of New Haven, Conn., sec- retary of the John F. Slater Fund Trustees, visited us about a year ago, his parting remark to me at the little station was: ‘What impresses me most about your work is, not what you have done at the school, but what you have done in this community.’ “Dr. Bradley Gilman, of Boston, formerly for many years pastor of the Church of the Unity at Springfield, Mass., who paid us a visit last October at the time Dr. Booker T. Washington was here, has written me the fol- lowing letter: ‘ ‘My DEAR Mr. Hortzctaw: Among many incidents 186 THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN of my recent trip through the South with Dr. Washington nothing is more firmly or agreeably stamped upon my memory than is my visit to your school at Utica. What I saw there gave me every assurance of your success. What I said to you there I repeat now: namely, that such good work and results as you show at Utica,—you being a graduate of Tuskegee,—is a veritable guarantee of the wisdom and worth of the Tuskegee method. ““T hope that you will go on with great courage and that you will find ample support for your work, which richly deserves support. The solution of the Negro prob- lem by true education is the only solution, and my visit, to the South made me more hopeful of results than I was before.’ “Tt may also interest you to note what Dr. Washington himself thinks of my efforts. He says: ““Tt was my privilege to visit Utica, Mississippi, and to see something of the work of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute, of which Mr. William H. Holtzclaw is Principal, in October, 1908. I cannot speak too cor- dially of the effective way in which Mr. Holtzclaw and his co-workers are attacking the problems presented to them. The school is located in a section where it has an opportunity to do effective work among the Negro people. ““Mr. Holtzclaw is deserving of the encouragement and support of all who may become interested in the work he is doing at Utica.’ “WILLIAM HOLTZCLAW, Principal.” It has always been my policy to keep the school out of debt and the property unencumbered. At the end of the THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 187 school year, if I did not have quite sufficient funds to meet all our obligations, I have appealed to Negro friends and then to the whites, and have resorted to many devices for raising money among my own people, in order to keep the Institution out of debt.