Every new student at the time of his enrollment was requested to state whether or not he was a member of church. If a negative response was received, he was kindly informed it would be regarded as a serious disappointment, if he did not become an active Christian worker, during the period he enjoyed the privileges of the Academy. As a means of enabling every one to manifest their decision to live a Christian life, Decision days were held frequently during the term. The first one always occurred at least one week before Christmas; and the others about the Day of Prayer for Colleges, Easter and Memorial Sabbaths. When advantage could not be taken of a voluntary visit on the part of a neighboring pastor the co-operation of one of them was always solicited.
On the first occasion Rev. William Butler was present, Feb. 11, 1906, and took for his theme in the morning, the Good Shepherd, and in the evening, the New Heart, his own heart was gladdened by seeing twenty-three young people come to the front in response to his appeal and pledge themselves to live a Christian life. A month later the pastor's heart was gladdened anew by receiving fourteen of them into the membership of the church and administering baptism to ten of them. Two years later, as the result of an evangelistic meeting held on the evening of the closing day of the Farmers' institute, January 1, 1908, Mr. Butler, who was one of the speakers at the institute, had the pleasure of seeing twenty-one other students manifest a decision to live a Christian life. Rev. Wiley Homer, T. K. Bridges and Samuel Gladman, assisted and with encouraging results on other decision days.
In 1910, Washington's birthday, Thursday, was observed by a patriotic and evangelistic meeting at which impressive addresses were delivered by Rev. W. J. Willis of Garvin and Rev. A. B. Johnson of McAlester. Among those present were thirteen that had not previously manifested a decision. In response to the appeal of Mr. Willis, every one of these thirteen voluntarily arose, came forward and gave their pledge to live a Christian life. The attainment of a voluntary pledge from every student in attendance at that time made this an eventful occasion. It was also deeply impressive. Every one joined in the joyful congratulatory procession.
As it was the last glad and happy decision day before the loss of the Girls' Hall, which occurred on the second Sabbath following, it has been commemorated by an engraving from a photo, thoughtfully taken before hand by Miss Mary Weimer, in which may be seen David Michael, Livingston Brasco, and William Shoals, who have just returned from the timber with vines and white flowers to decorate the chapel for this meeting.
The unexpected disappointments experienced in establishing the self-help department are worthy of a brief mention. They serve to illustrate some foolish notions that prevailed among some of our first patrons, and prepare the way for a good suggestion.
The aim of this department is to enlarge the scope of the training work of the institution by the employment of students, as far as possible, to do the necessary work during vacations as well as the chores during the school-terms; and by this means, reducing the number of hired helpers, afford lucrative employment to the greatest number of students, as a means of self help.
In view of the needy and helpless condition of the people in their new homes, and the urgent prospective demand for more teachers, one would naturally suppose every family would be eager to take advantage of such an opportunity. The scheme however was a new one and it was regarded with suspicion and disfavor. The effort to have leading families, those that seemed to stand in the nearest relation to it by having previously enjoyed its privileges most freely, co-operate in the establishment of this plan, by permitting one of their children to remain at the academy during the vacation period or even do extra work a part of the day during the term, and thereby be able to continue and complete a course of study that would fit them for teaching, proved a complete disappointment. This disappointment was the occasion of two earnest appeals before two different meetings of the Presbytery, but neither of them received more than a respectful hearing, no favorable response.
Some, whose children had been previously carried from year to year gratuitously, no doubt, regarded it as the innovation of a stranger, who was adroitly depriving them of their former rights and privileges; while others seemed to view it as a discovery to their neighbors, that they were not able to pay for the education of their children. Some of the larger girls at the academy, when requested to arrange to do some extra work at the school declined, saying they had homes of their own and did not have to work for others away from home.
That this was not the sentiment, however, of all the larger girls appears in the following incident. A very promising girl of sixteen came to the school of her own accord. She was animated with the desire to become a christian teacher. About the middle of the term, a younger brother called with the request from her mother, that she return home. No reason was assigned and she knew of no good one. She sent her mother word that she desired to remain, and resumed her studies. Two weeks later an older brother called with a pre-emptory demand that she return home with him. The reason assigned by her mother for this unexpected and arbitrary request was, "Daughter can get along without school as well as her mother." It seems scarcely necessary to state that this promising and aspiring young lady was not permitted to return.
The first to acquiesce in the arrangement to pay a part of their term expense by working at the academy during the vacation were some boys, who had not learned to work; and it seemed impossible for them to conceal the fact that they did not want to work. They were not old enough or did not know enough to appreciate the privileges accorded to them; and as many as three of them ran away, when most needed.
The work deserted by two of these boys was undertaken by a third one, not then a student. He was a willing worker and at the end of the summer found that his job at the academy was his best one during the season. He illustrated the difference between the worthy and the worthless. The worthy achieve success where the worthless make a miserable failure.
It was left for some thoughtful young people living at a distance to come, take advantage of the opportunities thus afforded and make this self-help or industrial department a real, visible and practical success. While deriving a life-long benefit for themselves, they have conferred a lasting benefit to the institution by remaining long enough to reach the higher grades. Their efficient service in various lines of work has served to show that the varied and thorough training given during recent vacations has been very valuable to them.
The vacation period has afforded the best opportunity for instruction and practice on the organ, for reading the many good books in the library and for special training in farming, carpentry and in the various kinds of work, like canning fruit or the manufacture of sorghum, that require attention only during the summer months. It has hitherto seemed to be the golden period of the year when the personal responsibility and general efficiency of the student has been most rapidly developed, a fact no doubt due to the freer daily association with the superintendent and teachers. The full course of training provided at the institution can be fully enjoyed only by those who remain during the summer months.
The vacation workers have always been regarded as members of the Oak Hill family and every personal want has been promptly supplied. The habit of reading or learning something every day, kept them prepared for doing their best work on the first as well as their last day of the term; while others would take a week or month, perhaps before they could settle down to good work in the school room. They were allowed a reasonable credit for every day they worked during the vacation and were not requested to do any extra work during the term, except in cases of emergency. The self-help students, who rendered extra service during the term, dropped one study, and they also received a reasonable allowance for all the extra work they performed.
Effective christian work by students at home during the summer vacation was admirably illustrated by the young people attending the Presbyterian college at Jamestown, North Dakota, during the summer of 1913.
Every student at the close of the term had formed the decision to lead a christian life. Under the inspiration of a resident lawyer, John Knouff, a number of them became members of the mission band that had for its object the in gathering of new scholars into their own Sabbath schools, and the college they were attending.
The result was a very pleasant surprise and a source of great profit to all of them. They reported the organization of a score of new Sunday schools in neglected communities, and an enrollment of 1231 new scholars through their instrumentality. An incidental result was a greatly increased enrollment of new students at the college they had so worthily represented.
Where does the money come from that is necessary to meet the monthly allowances placed to the credit of the self-help students? This is a very practical question and a few thoughts on it may be helpful.
When a farmer employs a man to help him on his farm he expects to pay him from the annual cash income, when the products of the farm are sold. This would naturally be true of the boys who do the farm work at Oak Hill if there was a surplus to sell; but hitherto it has not been sufficient to meet the demands of the boarding department and stock.
It would however not be true of the work of the boys who build fence, clear new land or erect and improve buildings. The product of the labor of these students is a permanent improvement, that increases the value of the land to the owner, and it cannot be sold annually for cash, like the products of the farm.
But the superintendent has to pay cash for the groceries consumed by these students the same as for the others; and when their monthly allowance for labor is transferred to the enrollment or other account book, it represents an item for which some one must furnish him the cash. Where will he get his money? Who will furnish it to him? Manifestly he must look to the owner of the property for it, and the owner in this instance is the Board of Missions for Freedmen. By using tools and implements the student has been trained in their use and the results of his work have become a permanent possession of the Board.
In as much as most permanent improvements do not ordinarily bring any direct annual income to the Board, but serve rather to increase the facilities of the school and provide additional opportunities for self-help, the question arises, "Where does the Board get the money for the support of the self-supporting students?"
The answer to this inquiry is, the Board has to solicit and receive it from the friends of christian education.
This is a very important statement and it is often not very clearly understood. When the actual cost of carrying a student through a seven months term is found to be about $50.00 then that is the lowest amount that will enable the superintendent to carry a vacation worker, as a self-supporting student, through the period of an entire year.
There are some features of this problem that are quite interesting. The student that does the most for the permanent improvement of the institution that has educated him, commonly called his "Alma Mater," or fostering mother, finds at the time of completing his course, that by that means he has done most for himself, by advancing more rapidly than others in the course of training and study. He has also done something in the way of increasing the facilities for the education and uplift of his race.
Whilst his employment was creating a demand for a benevolent gift from some friend of christian education he was unconscious of that fact, and is happy in the consciousness, that he is earning his way through school like a man;—one, who wants to make most of himself. He goes forth to enter upon the duties of active life as a true or "good soldier" prepared to "endure hardness," if necessary, and ready to lend a helping hand to other worthy young people.
The zealous interest of the superintendent in this self-help industrial department appears in the broad foundation he had hoped to lay for it in the purchase of so many acres for the Oak Hill farm.
There were other good motives that prompted the purchase of land, when the opportunity was afforded to do so at it which price in 1908 such as provision for future supplies of wood as a cheap fuel, about twenty-five cords a year being needed, and ample pastures for the herds of cattle and hogs, that are easily and profitably raised and greatly needed, but the most urgent motive was the earnest desire to provide an agricultural base large enough to enable the self-help department of the academy to become in time self-supporting.
"Enlargement" and "permanent improvement" became the watchwords while laying the foundation for this department.
The manifest need of it had been deeply and indelibly impressed. The conviction also prevailed that, when properly organized and developed, so as to meet their most urgent needs, the self-help department in an educational institution works like a live magnet in attracting the patronage of many worthy young people.
Permanent improvement year after year by self-supporting students, seeking training is an arrangement that has in it the germ of expansion, that means enlargement and growth with passing years. This was the ideal towards which we were moving with might and main. We wanted to plant the live magnet, that would make Oak Hill an attractive and pre-eminently useful educational center for all the Choctaw Freedmen.
There are no annual taxes on lands used for public or mission school purposes, and all the annual income tends to lessen to the Board, the local expenses of the teachers and students. The net income from the farm is the surplus that remains after deducting the cost of management from the gross receipts.
Whenever this net income is more than sufficient to cover the local support of the teachers, it goes toward the support of the self-supporting students; whenever it is sufficient to cover all of their monthly allowances, this self-help department is self-supporting; and special remittances from the Board will not then be needed for the worthy, industrious and ambitious young people, in that department. The attainment of this object is worthy of noble and constant endeavor.
It is also worthy of note, that good agricultural lands, purchased at the government price in a new section of the country that is destined to be filled with new settlers, is always a good investment. The land rapidly increases in value where the incoming of new settlers causes a rapid increase in the population.
This annual increase in the value of new land is known as its "unearned increment." This unearned increment is now accruing to the Board on every acre that has been purchased. Those that were purchased first have already doubled in value.
Every acre of land added to the Oak Hill farm at its virgin price means now, by reason of its annual income and gradual increase in value, a live unit added to the permanent endowment of the institution and enlarges the scope of the self-help department.
The negro needs to be taught to be "self-dependent, self-reliant and self-respecting."
Wherever public schools have been established and supplied with good teachers and text-books, they have rendered efficient service in improving the condition of the people. The lack of text-books has caused many of the rural schools to prove very inefficient, one textbook often having to serve as many as three pupils, Then there are yet large sections of some of the southern states in which there are no public schools for the colored people.
In proportion as the colored people attain a general christian education and become progressive, industrial workers, do they rise to their natural inheritance; an inheritance that brings to them what America now holds of freedom, justice, opportunity and benevolence to the oppressed of other lands, that are coming a million a year, to locate in this land of civil and religious freedom.
Among their essential needs to self-support are a fair industrial opportunity, distribution, education and equal protection of the laws.
Whenever too many unskilled workers, including women and children, crowd into towns and cities, the number that have to live in poverty-stricken hovels is greatly increased. Their general health and good morals are also endangered.
Every youth will do well to adopt the thrilling watchwords of the early American patriots, "Virtue, Liberty, and Independence."
Rev. John A. McAfee, the eminent founder of Park College, Parkville, near Kansas City, Missouri, realizing the need of hardy and energetic ministers during the pioneer days of Missouri and Kansas, manifested a commendable wisdom and foresight in the planting of that institution, by making special provision for the self-help of those, who were candidates for the ministry and those wishing to be missionary teachers. The self-help department then established has greatly promoted its growth, and increased its usefulness. The visitor now sees a beautiful campus of 20 acres occupied by massive stone buildings erected largely by student labor. They include a fine administration building, chapel, library, observatory, boarding and professors houses, and a half dozen large dormitories. He will also find an attendance of 420 students, and a farm of 500 acres cultivated by them.
Its worthy representatives in the ministry may now be found in nearly every state of the Union and many, as foreign missionaries and teachers, are doing a noble work in other lands. A large proportion of its most worthy representatives owe their present position and usefulness to the opportunity for self-help, provided in the agricultural and mechanical departments, while pursuing their studies at this classical institution.
It was founded in 1875 and was named after Col. George S. Park, the friend and helper of Rev. John A. McAfee. He donated the original college building and one hundred acres of land. At present the college owns 1000 acres, 500 of which are in the college farm. Both of its worthy founders died about the year 1890, but the good work of the institution they planted is going forward with annually increasing usefulness. Though established more recently than many others, it is now very highly prized as one of the most important of our Presbyterian colleges, in maintaining the supply of well trained ministers and christian teachers.
Having stated the aims and advantages of the self-help department the following suggestion to parents seems appropriate.
If you have a bright son or daughter that can be spared for a time at home, take your child, as Hannah did Samuel, while he is young enough to learn rapidly, to the superintendent of the academy, and, if the way be clear, enter into an agreement as Hannah did, that he shall remain there, if needed, until he has completed the course of study provided at the institution, earning his expenses, as far as possible, by his own industry.
Regard your contract as a matter of honor and refrain from calling him away when his services have begun to be of some value to the institution, merely because you need some one to do a few day's work. Encourage him to be true and faithful, that he may win and hold the esteem and confidence of his instructors.
If a number of parents will pursue this policy, the academy will accomplish its mission and prove a boon and blessing to you as a people, one generation serving another.
Public education is at present passing through a transition stage. The emphasis in the school courses of previous generations was upon the culture of the mind and the appeal was made for a high classical training, but now that the work on the farms as well as in the shops is largely done by costly machinery, the emphasis of school work is being rapidly transferred to the hand, and the appeal is for manual or vocational training and domestic science.
Its aim is to reach and train for a successful self-supporting career, the great majority of young people who cannot pursue their studies beyond the fifth to the eighth grades.
Our country has made wonderful progress in the arts and sciences including new inventions, during the last half century. The scope of the "Natural Philosophy" and "Familiar Science" of a few years ago has been very greatly enlarged.
The country has been spanned and crossed in every direction by great systems of standard and interurban rail-ways. Automobiles are in popular use on the highways and powerful tractors do the threshing, corn-shelling and plowing on the farm. Oil engines and electric motors are in use on the farms and in the homes of the people. The last of the good agricultural lands have been opened for settlement and are now occupied. Agriculture, animal husbandry, horticulture, dairying and even housekeeping have been reduced to a science, by the statement of essential principles, the same as in architecture and civil-engineering. Success in them depends on a practical knowledge of the art, as well as a theoretical knowledge of the science.
A few years ago the pressing demand was for teachers and normal instructors for their preparation. The demand for teachers in constantly increasing numbers continues, but it is now rivaled by the present demand for young people, who understand the principles of mechanical construction, whose hands have been trained to use costly and delicate machinery aright and properly care for it. Success and self-support on the farm as well as elsewhere now require the trained hand as well as the intelligent mind.
Self-support is essential to the possession of a permanent and happy home.
No home can be permanent while there is no assured means of support. While the father depends on uncertain day labor and the mother knows little or nothing of economy in the household and even less about the care, training and discipline of children, there can be but little progress made in the home or church life.
Dependent homes mean dependent churches, while prosperous homes mean self-supporting churches. In this fact is found a great motive for the church in her educational missionary work to make suitable provision for teaching the young the useful or necessary arts of life, and some knowledge of the sciences, while offering to them the bread and the water of life, through the establishment of christian educational institutions.
A recent debate in the House of Congress at Washington developed a unanimous sentiment, that a good cook is more cultured than a pianist, and that girls should not be allowed piano lessons until they learn how to cook good biscuits. We have read of girls "whose heads were stuffed with useless knowledge, but not one in twenty knew the things that would be serviceable to her through life. They could not sew or cook."
At Oak Hill it is different. Every girl at ten begins to take her monthly turn in learning to cook, mend and sew. She is taught the art and the rules of these useful employments the same as those of reading, writing and arithmetic in the school room.
The business of housekeeping is thus early introduced to the mind of the child, to awaken its thoughtfulness and develop efficiency in the future work of managing a home. This connects the teaching of the school with the life of the home. It makes the instruction a real and practical help instead of being merely theoretical. It affords pleasant and profitable employment to the pupils during spare moments that would otherwise be lost in idle loafing or play.
The business of housekeeping is attracting the attention of schools of learning and of legislatures more and more every year. Some states, like Indiana, are making large investments to promote training in domestic science in the schools of the state. The great results achieved in recent years by health regulations, in checking and suppressing contagious diseases, have greatly increased the scope of this instruction. It now includes in the higher schools, the new applications of the principles of nutrition, the chemistry of cleaning and the laws of hygiene, or health.
At Highland Park College, Des Moines, Iowa, having an enrollment of 2,500 young people in the capital city of one of our most highly favored states in the valley of the Mississippi, ninety-five per cent of them never go beyond the seventh and eighth grades and only two per cent go to higher institutions of learning. This eminently successful institution attracts young people from all parts of our land and this last year from twelve foreign countries. 500 young men, one fifth of its enrollment are in shops. This institution is the embodiment of the genius and a splendid monument to the memory of its founder, Dr. O. F. Longwell, who for twenty-four years served as its president, having previously secured a remarkable development of the Western Normal college at Shenandoah.
The industrial scheme of Booker T. Washington at Tuskeegee is an intelligent negro's idea of what the illiterate negro needs to help himself. It is undoubtedly the best scheme to enable him to attain self support.
Started as a private enterprise its patronage soon over-taxed its equipment of buildings and attracted public aid from the legislature of Alabama, and later large gifts from many wealthy people in our larger northern cities, some of whom endeavor to visit it once a year to note its annual progress and needs.
The remarkable success of this industrial institution and the immeasurable amount of good it has already done, during the lifetime of its founder, in bettering the temporal welfare of thousands of colored people in the south, have tended to make it the most prominent illustration of practical and successful industrial education among the colored people of this or any other land.
Sam Daly of Tuscaloosa, an illiterate janitor of the University of Alabama, previous to 1903, and died at Atlanta, while attending the Presbyterian General Assembly in May 1913, is a splendid illustration of what one may do for the good of his race.
At the time of his death he left to be cared for by others a 500 acre farm of his own, fourteen miles from town on which he was voluntarily caring for 270 convicted and vice steeped colored boys from the cities of that state.
He established an industrial school for boys on his own farm, to save convicted and bad boys from prison; received them from the police judges and conveyed them to the farm. They had become a nuisance and burden to the public, but he housed, fed and clothed this large family without receiving a dollar of public funds of Jefferson county; and from the church, only forty dollars, for a sleeping room for them and the salary of a teacher. The rest of their support was obtained from their daily toil on the farm.
At last the number of boys and the cost of keeping them became so great, he was compelled for their sakes to put a mortgage of eighteen hundred dollars on his farm. This impelled him to go to the Assembly (South) to make an appeal for funds. Unfortunately he suddenly became ill and died before he was able to make his appeal. His last words were: "Take care—take good care ob mah little niggahs!"
He had saved, by industrial occupation and farming, for good citizenship in Alabama, three hundred boys convicted of crimes and misdemeanors. It was a sad disappointment to him that he was unable to present to the Assembly an appeal on behalf of those still under his care.
Sam Daly was a good janitor, but when he began to make good men of useless and bad boys, his value to the state of Alabama was increased many fold. This brief record of his generous, energetic and heroic work is made that it may serve as an inspiration to devise other similar ways of being useful and helpful.
The improvements undertaken and completed by means of the student help began with the removal of old rubbish, the accumulation of years, and the impenetrable briar thickets near the buildings.
During the latter part of the first spring term in 1905 the boys applied two good coats of lead and oil in cream and white to the Boys' Hall. The work was well done although it was the first work of the kind any of them had ever attempted. The appearance of the building was greatly improved, and every boy was delighted to find how quickly the painter's art could be learned.
The black picket and crooked worm fences around the buildings were then removed and replaced with good board and wire fences. The extent of good and substantial fences, erected during this period, aggregate about 100 rods of board and picket fences around the campus, garden and stock yards; 12 large farm gates, all hung between tall posts with overhead tie; and 780 rods of web and barb wire fence; all set with good Bodark or Locust posts, top down and reinforced with a strong oak stub in every panel, making a valuable permanent improvement.
In March 1906 a young orchard was planted consisting of 50 trees, that include a number of the best varieties of apples and peaches suited for that section. These were supplemented with a similar lot in 1913.
The purchase of lands, begun in 1908, as soon as the restrictions were removed, was continued until 1912 when the aggregate included fifteen different purchases, making 270 acres and costing $2050.00.
Twenty-five acres were cleared of previously ringed and dead trees and thirty more were enclosed and cleared of underbrush and useless trees.
The surface drainage work begun in 1905 and completed in 1912, included outlets to all the little ponds near the buildings, the deepening of the artificial pond north of the buildings, a deep drain with branches, through the meadow and another one through a large slough at the northwest corner of the farm.
The first building erected was a log house 24x32 feet with a good cistern in 1906, and for the number of its conveniences it is an excellent model. A cut and description of it will be found in the latter part of this volume.
A new shed was also built that year, on the east side of the commons, for the convenient, daily care of the growing herd in the pastures.
In 1907 a belfry and farm bell were put on the comb of the roof of the first girls' hall. An axle was obtained and a wooden wheel and frame were made for the large old bell, and it was then mounted in the tower of the chapel.
The new highway along the railroad to Valliant was cleared of trees and the materials converted into posts and fuel. Two substantial oak bridges, five and ten feet long respectively, were constructed over the streams on this road to make it passable for the loaded Oak Hill team during term time.
A string of hay sheds, 64x16 feet, was constructed on the south side of the feed lot and two portable racks for feeding hay and fodder economically and conveniently from the sheds.
In 1908 the enrollment having reached 115, the seating capacity of the academy was increased by lifting all the seats and adding an additional row of thirteen double seats to their number. The academy was then painted two coats inside and outside and the woodwork of the old desks was brightened and tinted to correspond with the new ones. These improvements made it look more beautiful and attractive than ever before.
The porches on the south and west sides of the girls hall were repaired by the insertion of new joists where needed and the laying of new floors.
In 1909, the Boys' Hall having been lost a few days after the opening of the term, November 8, 1908, a temporary boys' hall 55x24 feet was hastily constructed, its dedication taking place Feb. 28, 1909, after an address by Rev. Wiley Homer of Grant. This meeting was held on a beautiful Sabbath afternoon and the speakers and singers occupied the wide platform on the west end of the building. This building was erected entirely by the student boys. The materials in it cost $410 and it had apartments for an office, one teacher and twenty-five boys.
It was intended as a place for the workmen while erecting a new hall for the boys, the material in it then to be used in lining the new building.
The blistered condition of the front of the girls' hall and academy from the intense heat of the fire were then relieved by a thorough scraping, sandpapering and repainting.
Owing to the limited accommodations for the boys in this building, and for the large number of pupils in the primary department in the academy, an extension of twelve feet, with an upper room for special students, was added that fall to the academy. While this improvement was under construction, other boys built a new wood shed, obtained in the timber and prepared the supplies of fuel, and built 170 rods of new fence. A considerable quantity of sand was also hauled for the foundation of the new hall for the boys.
In 1910, the erection of Elliott Hall became a necessity after the disastrous fire which occurred on March 13th. This building is 80x32 feet, with an extension 6x32 feet, in front, and a two story addition 18x16 feet, for kitchen store and bath rooms, at the northwest corner over a large brick-walled cistern.
This building absorbed the attention of all for more than a year, although it was opened for occupancy on November 14th. It was a great undertaking with the few workmen obtainable. The clearing away of the rubbish, the excavation for the cellar 28x75 feet and the construction of the foundation wall, and the same for the large cistern took a good deal more time than was expected, and all of it was heavy and hard work for every one that participated in it. It was the 15th of June when the cement wall around the main part of the foundation was completed by the superintendent, who placed the rock, cement and reinforcing materials in the walls with his own hands as a precaution against defects.
The construction of the frame work was entrusted to Samuel A. Folsom, who, acting as foreman of the carpenters, succeeded in getting the building ready for occupancy at the end of five months, or November 14th. So great, however, was the amount of unfinished work in the halls and rooms upstairs and of cement lining needed for the excavation walls in the cellar that a considerable number of students were employed principally at this work during that and the following term.
Every part of the work on this building was very faithfully performed. It is a creditable monument to the memory of every one that wrought upon it. It is symmetrical and, though plain, is handsome in appearance and very convenient in its uses; as an administration building, girls dormitory and boarding house. The lumber was furnished and delivered by J. R. Bowles of Swink; David Folsom made the window and door frames; Solomon Buchanan served as foreman of the painters, and he and George Stewart built the walls of the cistern and the first story of the chimneys. Edward Hollingsworth, in addition to important work on other parts of the building, served as foreman of the construction of the stairways, belfry and porches. It represents an expenditure of $6,500 in cash and student labor. This does not include the services of the superintendent, who had previously prepared the plans for the building and personally superintended its construction.
During 1911 and 1912 while some were putting the finishing touches on Elliott Hall, the last being the insertion of the fixtures in the two bath rooms and the construction of a closed room in the cellar for canned fruit and vegetables, the other boys removed the old oak stumps from the north field, drained a slough covering four acres of land, cleaned twenty acres of land for cultivation and built 160 rods of good fence around it. They also built a pretty and very convenient semi-monitor hen house, with open front and two out-yards.
During the month of March, when the ground was moist and favorable, a squad of the larger boys would sometimes be equipped and employed in pulling stumps. This was a new employment for all of them, but they soon learned to make a cheering success of it.
The working outfit consisted of two levers, a very large and a smaller one, a log chain, sixty feet of inch rope, and for each of the workmen a shovel and an axe. The method of procedure was to assign them in teams of two each, to remove the earth from around a lot of stumps to the width and depth of about eighteen inches. The larger lever, having the middle fold of rope attached to its smaller end, was placed in a vertical position at the lower side of the stump and firmly fastened to its crown with a log chain, the latter passing over its top from the opposite side. The small lever was placed in position at the side opposite the larger one, for the use of the foreman. When all the boys, in two lines facing each other, had hold of the ends of the rope and the signal was given, "Ready for a pull," something was sure to happen; usually the uprooting of the stump, but sometimes the breaking of the log chain, which was sure to result in making a good natured pile of the boys. The team did the pulling the first half day, but the boys did it afterwards, because they were more available and enjoyed it.
The concrete wall under Elliott Hall, built by the superintendent and student boys in the spring of 1910, was the first work of that kind in this section of the country. The sand was found and obtained without cost along a stream in the neighboring timber. The filler consisted of rock and broken brick from the chimneys of the three buildings that had been previously consumed by fire, and they were incorporated in the wall by hand. The iron used for reinforcing the concrete was all obtained from the scrap pile of the burned buildings. The processes, or methods of procedure, were new to all the workmen. As the work advanced it called forth expressions of distrust, rather than confidence and commendation. The mixing of materials had to be strictly forbidden save in the presence of the superintendent, whose hands afterwards placed them in position on the wall.
After the lapse of four years this wall is solid as a rock in every respect. It has now the reputation of being not only the first, but also to this date one of the most perfect and substantial concrete walls in that section.
An expert carpenter has observed, "It takes the average apprentice about one year to discover, that he does not know how to drive a nail with the skill of an expert;" one who drives it through hard woods without bending and brittle, without splitting. This skill is however always more quickly acquired, when a rule like the following is given the apprentice at the beginning of his training. "Gripping the hammer near the end of the handle and setting the nail slightly slanting from the edges toward the solid center, strike the top of it fairly with the center of the hammer, starting and finishing it with gentle taps."
Whenever a new tool or implement was put in the hand of a student, the rules governing its use were fully explained, and a constant effort was made to have the student do all work by rule; whether it was on the farm, in the kitchen, laundry or shop, as well as in the class room. The essential parts of the text books, that were reviewed most frequently, were the definitions and rules. A good position is the first essential in reading, writing, speaking, sawing, planing or plowing; and the second is to grasp and use aright the tool or implement, whether it be the pen, pencil, brush, axe, hammer or saw. The good effect of patiently taking the time to make every one familiar with the rules governing the tools and work, became noticeable very soon on the part of the older students, both in the better quality of the work and the larger amount of it performed. Progress in studies and success in the shop or field depends largely on the ability to follow the rule, and the decision never to violate it.