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Educating for Life Under Construction - DRAFT IN PROGRESS
Heart, Head, and Hands: by emphasizing this slogan of Booker T. Washington's, Christiansburg Industrial Institute aimed to education the whole person. The goal was not primarily to produce scholars, and it was not simply to train workers. Instead, its goal was to prepare African American young people for life in a society that discriminated against them. CII faculty sought to equip students not only with academic and vocational skills, but also with a communal sense of duty and spiritual fortitude Principal Edgar A. Long derided the post-emancipation schools that he claimed "regaled" a student "with Latin Idioms and Greek conjugations and then turned him loose to cook and wait on the table as before." Long joked that this only allowed the freedman to "spill greece on you while he spoke Greek at you whereas before he could only spill greece on you." CII followed Tuskegee in incorporating domestic and manual trades in its curriculum: agriculture, animal husbandry, gardening, carpentry, blacksmithing, shoemaking, printing, millinery, sewing, and cooking. At CII, Long worked to emphasize both academic and vocational training. In 1910, he lobbied the FFA for increased curricular emphasis on reading and history. For Long's 1910 account of the state of the curriculum, read this excerpt from his "Report of Principal to the Educational Committee," 31 March 1910. FFA Minutes, copy at Montgomery County School Board.
CII's farm was a point of special pride. Animal husbandry and agriculture were ususally seen as masculine endeavors, but at CII, girls also often took agriculture classes and sometimes worked on the farm. The farm provided opportunities for boarding students to earn money for school, and perhaps most importantly, it produced much of the food consumed on campus--corn, cornbread, beans, potatoes, vegetables, milk, and beef. Principal Long took playful delight in describing the Thanksgiving feast held in Baily-Morris Hall in 1911. To read Long's account of Thanksgiving 1911, click the image below: Community outreach was always an important goal of CII. The farm served as a local model for new methods of agriculture and its modern water works may have inspired other people in town to install running water in their houses. CII faculty and students actively participated in the Y.M.C.A., in local churches, and in the county teacher's association. To read Long's 1909 account about CII's community work, click the image below. Long was proud of the volunteer work his students engaged in, especially those in the Anna Woolman Circle, a benevolent society named for a Philadephia Friend. Long reported, for example, that on Thanksgiving Day, 1911:
In 1908, CII began hosting statewide Summer Institutes for African American teachers. Within the segregated state school system, these seminars provided a crucial opportunity for dedicated faculty to improve their schools despite systematic discrimination. Here, teachers from all over the state participated in seminars and lectures designed to enhance their teaching skills. Countless teachers over the years returned home to apply ideas and methods learned at CII, improving their own schools all across Virginia. Poetry and progress went hand in hand at CII. Arts and spirituality emphasized the "heart" in CII's education, bolstering the CII community and helping tell a story of progress. Booker T. Washington once asserted that "No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem." Long himself was a poet, and while CII emphasized vocational training, its principal continued to practice his art. In his first poem, written as a Tuskegee student in 1892, he wrote, "Better have some love and trouble / Than no trouble and no love." This sentiment informed Long's outlook on life, and he sought to convey that to CII's students. Read the first page of Long's poem, "Reflections," click the image below. Long applied his rhetorical skills in weekly chapel messages to the CII student body. He touched on topics of industriousness, such as "Carelessness" or "On Being Dependable," always seeking to fortify his student spiritually at the same time. "Be A Daniel," he counseled, who "Did not fear the Lions Den, " and who, like John Brown, "would not consent to do wrong even though failure invited death." In another message, he urged his students to "play the game of life and learn to put one over on 'em," to "beat the game." But he also reminded them that "the forces of evil are trying are working just as hard to put one over on you." Students and faculty saw CII as part of a larger history of progress for African Americans, and they used theatre and "Negro spiritual" singing to convey that story. In a student performance of a "Historical Pageant," the story moved from the singing of "Mammy is Massy gwin sell us tomorrow?" to the portrayal of Emancipation and "A school up to date taught by a Negro teacher." To read the outline for the "Historical Pageant," click the image below. CII's graduates collectively embodied the school's mission of educating the "heart, head, and hands." The Class of 1910, accordingly, was a diverse lot. Principal Long noted that one graduate was a minister's son whose "taste seems to run to loud socks and flashy hat-bands." More often, Long focused on students' vocational strengths and ambitions. Elizabeth Bandy and Ollie Mosley planned to train as nurses. Willie Huckstep and Bettie McClanahan planned to be school teachers. Charles Henderson wanted to be a machinist; he had "a practical turn of mind" and did not "get much from books." Archie Helms had "done considerable reading aside from text books"; he wanted to study medicine at Howard University. To read Long's report on the Class of 1910, click on the page section below: To read Long's report on the further schooling and employment of CII graduates from 1907, 1908, and 1909, click on the image below:
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Above: Excerpts from Edgar A. Long, "Annual Report of Principal to Educational Committee [FFA]," 31 March 1910, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College.
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