Tuesday 16 April 2019

“Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than to be in bad company”

Today’s post, intends to do a little review on an amazing autobiographical read that connects with agricultural lands, and in sync with our event line-up for these past days!

Well, if I should suggest a must-read, a lovable read and a motivating read rolled up in one, for everyone from all ages and climes, it would be the autobiography of one of the mosttt influential Black men in the United States, Booker T Washington!

His autobiography titled, Up From Slavery contains finest gems of purest ray serene, that spur us to action with the most confident stride, ahead!

Up from Slavery is a witness to the wonderful fact that, a committed and determined individual, inspite of how harsh one’s circumstances could be, if only there’s a single-minded commitment and determination within him, could achieve anything, exceeding above that which others could only dream of!

Brought up as a slave child, who did not have the means to learn reading and writing, Washington’s dreams and sighs were achingly and longingly turned towards the schoolroom where his master’s children were studying! He had that deep thirst and fervent longing within him to learn reading and writing!

One fine day, by a lucky accident, he came to know about a recently established boarding school that catered exclusively to the Blacks, called Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute!

This place was to be a game-changer for the entire course of his life!

He impulsively decided to himself that he would be educated there, with little idea about the costs and the fees for his education! The place was quite far n far off, and so he slept in snatches under bridges and beside hedges, with almost nothing to eat, and at last finally arrived at his desired destination, Hampton.

He looked so impoverished, penniless and dirty, that even his teachers ignored him. But one day, the way and the manner in which he skillfully swept his lecture hall spick and span, with such elegance, found him favour in the eyes of his teacher!

He narrates the incident in so simple a prose –

Giving y’all the lines from Booker himself, culled from Chapter 3 –

As soon as possible after reaching the grounds of the Hampton Institute, I presented myself before the head teacher for an assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and a change of clothing, I did not, of course, make a very favourable impression upon her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student.

I felt that I could hardly blame her if she got the idea that I was a worthless loafer or tramp. For some time she did not refuse to admit me, neither did she decide in my favour, and I continued to linger about her, and to impress her in all the ways I could with my worthiness.

In the meantime I saw her admitting other students, and that added greatly to my discomfort, for I felt, deep down in my heart, that I could do as well as they, if I could only get a chance to show what was in me.

After some hours had passed, the head teacher said to me: "The adjoining recitation-room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it."

It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. 
Never did I receive an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner had thoroughly taught me how to do that when I lived with her.

I swept the recitation-room three times. Then I got a dusting-cloth and dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table, and desk, I went over four times with my dusting-cloth. Besides, every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner in the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that in a large measure my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning of that room.

When I was through, I reported to the head teacher. She was a "Yankee" woman who knew just where to look for dirt. She went into the room and inspected the floor and closets; then she took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls, and over the table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor, or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly remarked, "I guess you will do to enter this institution."

I was one of the happiest souls on Earth. The sweeping of that room was my college examination, and never did any youth pass an examination for entrance into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine satisfaction. I have passed several examinations since then, but I have always felt that this was the best one I ever passed.

Miss Mary F. Mackie, the head teacher, offered me a position as janitor. This, of course, I gladly accepted, because it was a place where I could work out nearly all the cost of my board.

Thus was Booker T Washington allowed to prove his merit by sweeping a lecture hall and thence was admitted and hired as a janitor too!

At Hampton Institute, one of the most important lessons that Booker T Washington had learnt was the value and dignity there is, to work!

He was in awe to see for himself, men and women of all hues, and more specially white men and women who came from such wealthy and illustrious families, busy tidying up the rooms, washing their doors and windows, polishing up the shoes and the furniture, in school!

He saw for himself that the people at Hampton took great pride in doing what they did, and never thought for once that doing manual labor would lower their dignity or prestige!

Soon Washington was invited to head the newly created Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute! There, he put his skills and his ideals to good use. He was convinced that his first task ever would be to make people realize that a mere education was never a passport to life of wealth and comfort. In addition, education doesn’t mean that one has to escape from manual labour.

To Washington, hence, doing manual labour was a part and part of an educated individual, but the beauty of manual labour for the educated is to labour more efficiently and wisely, by using their knowledge to good use especially in the field of agriculture and animal husbandry.

With this in  mind, he made all the students, and even his school’s teachers to do manual labour like doing agriculture, gardening, feeding the animals, etc, so that they could realize the value and the charm, the happiness and the satisfaction, the pride and the dignity there is, to manual labour.

Hence, Washington had made it mandatory that, when students graduated from Tuskegee, they were to return to their hometowns, as transformed individuals, who are able to share with their kith and kin their newly learnt knowledge and best practices in agriculture, farming, breeding livestock, and taking care of themselves! (Remember, the American South is known much for its agriculture and its plantations!)

It’s with this in mind, that, Hampton and Tuskegee were called agricultural and technical institutes, in sharp contrast to colleges or universities, where one would study for the law, medicine, or liberal arts, but not learn a vocation or a trade.

The Tuskegee Institute is known even today for being the only institute that was built from scratch, only by its own students, who, in the process of nurturing the campus, learned for themselves how to make furniture, how to make bricks, how to raise crops, how to cultivate the land, how to breed the animals, and how to adopt new and innovative methods of farming in agriculture.

With this noble objective in mind, students learnt new agricultural skills each day, skills that would be of immense usefulness to their people, their folk, their land and the entire American South as well!

Let me end my little take on this delightful autobiographical read, with some memorable lines worth embracing with a ‘muahhh’ and worth cherishing for all of our lives on this planet!

Here goes a few nutritional nuggets from Booker T Washington’s Up from Slavery for us all -

“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”

“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”

“Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than to be in bad company”

“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

“There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.”

“In my contact with people, I find that, as a rule, it is only the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls – with the great outside world.”

Yesss! Let’s live for others, open up our souls and learn the ennobling dignity there is, to manual labour!

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