Part 4

By the fall of 1904 it seemed that the time had come. In a little rented house, with five girls, Mrs. Bethune began what is now the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls. By means of concerts and festivals the first payment of five dollars was made on the present site, then an old dump-pile. With their own hands the teacher and the pupils cleared away much of the rubbish, and from the first they invited the co-operation of the people around them by lending a helping hand in any way they could, by "being neighborly." In 1905 a Board of Trustees was organized and the school was chartered. In 1907 Faith Hall, a four-story frame house, forty by fifty feet, was "prayed up, sung up, and talked up;" and we can understand at what a premium space was in the earlier days when we know that this building furnished dormitory accommodations for teachers and students, dining-room, reading room, storerooms, and bathrooms. To the rear of Faith Hall was placed a two-story structure containing the school kitchen and the domestic science room. In 1909 the school found it necessary to acquire a farm for the raising of live stock and vegetables and for the practical outdoor training of the girls. After six weeks of earnest work the twelve-acre tract in front of the school was purchased. In 1914 a Model Home was built. In this year also an additional west farm of six acres, on which was a two-story frame building, was needed, asked for and procured. In March, 1918, the labors of fourteen years were crowned by the erection and dedication of a spacious auditorium; and among the speakers at the dedication were the Governor of Florida and the Vice-President of the United States. Efforts now look forward to a great new dormitory for the girls.

Such a bare account of achievements, however, by no means gives one an adequate conception of the striving and the hopings and the praying that have entered into the work. To begin with, Daytona was a strategic place for the school. There was no other such school along the entire east coast of Florida, and as a place of unusual beauty and attractiveness the town was visited throughout the winter by wealthy tourists. From the very first, however, the girls were trained in the virtues of the home, and in self-help. Great emphasis was placed on domestic science, and not only for this as an end in itself, but also as a means for the larger training in cleanliness and thrift and good taste. "We notice strawberries are selling at fifty and sixty cents a quart," said a visitor, "and you have a splendid patch. Do you use them for your students or sell them?" "We never eat a quart when we can get fifty cents for them," was the reply. "We can take fifty cents and buy a bone that will make soup for us all, when a quart of berries would supply only a few."

For one interested in education few pictures could be more beautiful than that of the dining-room at the school in the morning of a day in midterm. Florida is warm often even in midwinter; nevertheless, rising at five gives one a keen appetite for the early breakfast. The ceiling is low and there are other obvious disadvantages; but over all is the spirit of good cheer and of home. The tablecloths are very white and clean; flowers are on the different tables; at the head of each a teacher presides over five or six girls; the food is nourishing and well-prepared; and one leaves with the feeling that if he had a sister or daughter he would like for her to have the training of some such place as this.

Of such quality is the work that has been built up; and all has been accomplished through the remarkable personality of the woman who is the head and the soul of every effort. Indomitable courage, boundless energy, fine tact and a sense of the fitness of things, kindly spirit, and firm faith in God have deservedly given her success. Beyond the bounds of her immediate institution her influence extends. About the year 1912 the trustees felt the need of so extending the work as to make the school something of a community center; and thus arose the McLeod Hospital and Training School for Nurses. In 1912, moved by the utter neglect of the children of the turpentine camp at Tomoka, Mrs. Bethune started work for them in a little house that she secured. The aim was to teach the children to be clean and truthful and helpful, to sew and to sweep and to sing. A short school term was started among them, and the mission serves as an excellent practice school for the girls of the senior class in the Training School. A summer school and a playground have also been started for the children in Daytona. Nor have the boys and young men been neglected. Here was a problem of unusual difficulty. Any one who has looked into the inner life of the small towns of Florida could not fail to be impressed by the situation of the boys and young men. Hotel life, a shifting tourist population, and a climate of unusual seductiveness, have all left their impress. On every side to the young man beckons temptation, and in town after town one finds not one decent recreation center or uplifting social influence. Pool-rooms abound, and the young man is blamed for entering forbidden paths; but all too often the Christian men and women of the community have put forth no definite organized effort for his uplift. All too often there results a blasted life--a heartache for a mother, or a ruined home for some young woman. In Daytona, in 1913, on a lot near the school campus, one of the trustees, Mr. George S. Doane, erected a neat, commodious building to be used in connection with the extension work of the institution as a general reading-room and home for the Young Men's Christian Association; and this is the only specific work so being done for Negro boys in this section of the state. A debating club, an athletic club, lecture club, and prayer-meetings all serve as means toward the physical, intellectual, and spiritual development of the young men. A "Better Boys Movement" is also making progress and the younger boys are becoming interested in canning and farming as well as being cared for in their sports and games.

No sketch of this woman's work should close without mention of her activities for the nation at large. Red Cross work or a Liberty Loan drive has alike called forth her interest and her energy. She has appeared on some great occasions and before distinguished audiences, such as that for instance in the Belasco Theatre in Washington in December, 1917, when on a noteworthy patriotic occasion she was the only representative of her race to speak.

Her girls have gone into many spheres of life and have regularly made themselves useful and desirable. Nearly two hundred are now annually enrolled at the school. The demand for them as teachers, seamstresses, or cooks far exceeds the supply. In great homes and humble, in country or in town, in Daytona or elsewhere--North, South, East, West--they remember the motto of their teacher and of the Master of all, "Not to be ministered unto but to minister;" and year after year they accomplish better and better things for the school that they love so well and through it for the Kingdom of God.

* * * * *

Two thousand years ago the Savior of Mankind walked upon the earth, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and the people hid as it were their faces from him. But one day he went into the home of a Pharisee and sat him down to meat. And a woman of the city, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, exceeding precious, and began to wash his feet with her tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. And there were some that had indignation among themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? But Jesus said, Let her alone. She hath wrought a good work on me. She hath done what she could. Verily, I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

To-day as well as centuries ago the Christ is before us, around us, waiting. We do not always know him, for he appears in disguise, as a little orphan, or a sick old woman, or even perhaps as some one of high estate but in need of prayer. Let us do what we can. Let each one prove herself an earnest follower. To such end is the effort of Mary McLeod Bethune; and as we think of all that she has done and is doing let us for our own selves once more recall the beautiful words of Sister Moore: "There is no place too lowly or dark for our feet to enter, and no place so high and bright but it needs the touch of the light that we carry from the Cross."

MARY CHURCH TERRELL

VI.

MARY CHURCH TERRELL

With the increasingly complex problems of American civilization, woman is being called on in ways before undreamed of to bear a share in great public burdens. The recent great war has demonstrated anew the part that she is to play in our factories, our relief work, our religious organizations--in all the activities of our social and industrial life. The broadening basis of the suffrage in some states and the election of a woman to a seat in Congress have also emphasized the fact that in the new day woman as well as man will have to bear the larger responsibilities of citizenship. In all this intense life the Negro woman has taken a part, and she will have to do still more in the future. Even before the Civil War there were women of the race who labored, sometimes in large ways, for the influencing of sentiment and the salvation of their people. In the present period of our country's history new problems arise, sometimes even more delicate than those that went before them and even more difficult of solution--problems of education, readjustment, and of the proper moulding of public opinion. They call for keen intelligence, broad information, rich culture, and the ability to meet men and women of other races and other countries on the broad plane of cosmopolitanism. In public life and in the higher graces of society no woman of the race has commanded more attention from the American and the international public than Mary Church Terrell.

The life of this woman is an example of the possibilities not only of Negro but of American womanhood. She has appeared on platforms with men and women of other races, sometimes sturdy opponents on public questions, and more than held her own. She has attended an international congress in Europe and surpassed all the other women from her country in her ability to address audiences in languages other than English. With all this she has never forgotten the religious impulse that is so strong in the heart of her people and that ultimately is to play so large a part in their advancement. One admirer of her culture has said, "She should be engaged to travel over the country as a model of good manners and good English."

Mary Church was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Robert R. and Louisa Ayres Church. When she was yet very young her parents sent her to Ohio to be educated, and here she remained until she was graduated from the classical course in 1884. Then for two years she taught at Wilberforce University in Ohio, and for one year more in a high school in Washington. Desirous of broadening her attainments, however, she now went to Europe for a period of study and travel. She remained two years, spending the time in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, generally improving herself in language. On her return she resumed her work in Washington, and she was offered the registrarship at Oberlin College, a distinct compliment coming as it did from an institution of such high standing. She declined the attractive position, however, because of her approaching marriage to Robert H. Terrell, a graduate of Harvard College and formerly principal of a high school in Washington, who was appointed to a judgeship in the District of Columbia by President Roosevelt.

Since her marriage Mrs. Terrell has written much on topics of general interest and from time to time has formally appeared as a public lecturer. One of her strongest articles was that on Lynching in the _North American Review_ for June, 1904. The centenary of the birth of Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1912 found her unusually well posted on the life and work of the novelist, so that after she lectured many times on the subject she brought together the results of her study in an excellent pamphlet. She was the first president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, was twice re-elected, and, declining to serve further, was made honorary president for life. She was chosen as one of the speakers at the International Congress of Women held in Berlin in June, 1904. Said the _Washington Post_ of her performance on this occasion: "The hit of the Congress on the part of the American delegates was made by Mrs. Mary Church Terrell of Washington, who delivered one speech in German and another in equally good French. Mrs. Terrell is a colored woman who appears to have been beyond every other of our delegates prominent for her ability to make addresses in other than her own language." In a letter to some of the largest newspapers in the country Mrs. Ida Husted Harper said further: "This achievement on the part of a colored woman, added to a fine appearance and the eloquence of her words, carried the audience by storm and she had to respond three times to the encores before they were satisfied. It was more than a personal triumph; it was a triumph for her race."

Mrs. Terrell has ever exhibited an intense interest in public affairs. On the occasion of the discharge of the Negro soldiers in Brownsville, Texas, in 1906, she at once comprehended the tremendous issues involved and by her interviews with men high in the nation's life did much for the improvement of a bad situation. When, some years ago, Congress by resolution granted power to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia to appoint two women upon the Board of Education for the public schools, Mrs. Terrell was one of the women appointed. She served on the Board for five years with signal ability and unusual success, and on the occasion of her resignation in 1912 was given a magnificent testimonial by her fellow-citizens.

It would be difficult to record all the different things that Mary Church Terrell has done or the numerous ways in which she has turned sentiment on the race problem. In recent years she has been drawn more and more to her own home. She is in constant demand as a speaker, however, and one or two experiences or incidents must not pass unremarked. In 1906 she was invited by Prof. Jeremiah W. Jenks to come to Cornell University to deliver her address on the Bright Side of the Race Problem. She was introduced by Prof. F. A. Fetter of the Department of Economics. When she had finished her lecture she was greeted by deafening applause, and then she was surrounded by an eager crowd desirous of receiving an introduction. One enthusiastic woman exclaimed, as she warmly shook the speaker's hand, "I was so glad to hear you say something about the bright side, and--do you know?--every Southern faculty woman was here." A little later she was the guest of honor at a reception in the home of Ex-Ambassador Andrew D. White, the first president of Cornell University.

Just what Mary Church Terrell means as an inspiration to the young women of the Negro race one might have seen some years ago if he could have been present at Spelman Seminary on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of this the largest school for Negro girls in the world. She was preceded on the program by one or two prominent speakers who tried to take a broad view of the race problem but who were plainly baffled when they came face to face with Southern prejudice. When Mrs. Terrell rose to speak the air was tense with eagerness and anxiety. How she acquitted herself on this occasion, how eloquently she plead, and how nimbly and delicately she met her opponents' arguments, will never be forgotten by any one who was privileged to hear her.

The compliments that have been paid to the eloquence, the grace, the culture, the tact, and the poise of this woman are endless. She exhibits exceptional attainments either on or off the platform. Her words bristle with earnestness and energy, quickly captivating an audience or holding the closest attention in conversation. Her gestures are frequent, but always in sympathetic harmony. Her face is inclined to be sad in repose, but lights quickly and effectively to the soul of whatever subject she touches. Her voice is singularly clear and free from harsh notes. She exhibits no apparent effort in speaking, and at once impresses an audience by her ease, her courage, and her self-abnegation. Through all her work moreover constantly thrills her great hope for the young men and women of her race, so many of whom she has personally inspired.

Such a woman is an asset to her country and an honor to the race to which she belongs.

End of Project Gutenberg's Women of Achievement, by Benjamin Brawley