Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 134
24.03.2006
before them, to be diagnosed and remedies applied at once. Through such
schools farm instruction is being carried to the Negroes of every Black Belt
County of Alabama.
T. M. Campbell of the Tuskegee Institute, the District Agent in charge of these
Extension Schools for the Negro Farmers of Alabama, reports that among the
subjects taught the men are home gardening, seed selection, repair of farm tools,
the growing of legumes as soil builders and cover crops, best methods of
fighting the boll-weevil, poultry raising, hog raising, corn raising, and pasture
making. The women are instructed in sewing, cooking, washing and ironing,
serving meals, making beds, and methods for destroying household pests and
for the preservation of health. At all the meetings the names and addresses of
those present are taken for the purpose of following them up by correspondence
from the district agent's office, so that the benefits of the instruction shall not be
lost from one year to another. The slogan for these Alabama schools is:
"Alabama Must Feed Herself." Practically all the black farmers have shown a
pathetic eagerness to learn and the white farmers and the white
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demonstration agents everywhere have heartily coÖperated. Churches,
schoolhouses, and courthouses have been placed at the district agent's disposal
for the Extension School session. One of the most hopeful features of the
experiment has been the great interest in this new and better farming aroused
among the boys and girls--an interest which the ordinary rural school sadly fails
even in attempting to arouse. All told throughout the State 3,872 colored people
attended these schools the first year. The sessions were usually opened by a
prayer offered by one of the rural preachers. In one such prayer the preacher
said among other things: "O Lord, have mercy on dis removable school; may it
purmernate dis whole lan' an' country!" At another meeting, after the workers
had finished a session, some of the leading colored farmers were called on to
speak. One of them opened his remarks with the words: "I ain't no speaker, but I
jes wan' a tell you how much I done been steamilated by dis my only two days
in school!"
A report of one of these schools held recently at Monroeville, Ala., reads: "Only
subjects with which the rural people are directly concerned are introduced and
stressed by the instructors, such as pasture making, necessary equipment for a
one and two horse farm, care of farm tools, crop rotation, hog raising, care of
the cow, seed selection, diversified farming, how to make homemade furniture,