Mr. Benson began his independent life with his unpaid farm of 160 acres. Now he owns 3,000 acres of land paid for and without encumbrance, with the virtual ownership of a fine stream, at some points 500 feet wide, which for five miles runs through his extensive plantations. On this stream he has a brick yard, a saw mill, a grist mill and a cotton gin and compressing mill combined in one and operated by the water of this stream. The farm is worked on shares chiefly, the owner furnishing the land and the stock, the laborers dividing the products half and half.
Kowaliga Creekthrough Mr. Benson's Plantations.
The leases are taken by a dozen responsible and experienced farmers, who sub-contract with the laborers under their immediate supervision. Of the 3,000 acres, one-half is devoted to corn, cotton, cane, etc.; 500 are used for pasturage and 1,000 furnish ample supply of pine, oak and hickory timber for the greedy teeth of his saw mill and the willing embrace of his planing mill. He has cows, cattle, mules, horses, barns and farm implements to meet all necessities. His teams go regularly to Montgomery markets and return with stores for the forty families who live upon his lands and work them, and for the community who purchase of him what things they have. Besides his possessions in land, Mr. Benson has been able to loan to his white neighbors some $6,000, which are secured by mortgages upon their farms. They are running behind and he is running ahead. While I was the guest of this man, opposite me at the table dined a white man who was engaged on the carpentry of the new house. He was a native Southerner but he showed no evidence of social injury, and if he did his carpentry work as thoroughly as he did that of the table he certainly earned his wages.
Mr. Benson has managed with his uncommon ability to pick up education enough to achieve and handle successfully and shrewdly these large interests; not only to know their details but also to realize their significance and somewhat of the larger world beyond his own dominions. The success of this self-made colored man may be somewhat exceptional in degree, but it is not at all phenomenal. The story with the variations of personality and place could be told a hundred times over among the colored people who began thirty years ago without a foot of land or a dollar of money.
Among the colored people in this rural community this man is one. For the most part life has gone on for the others without much advancement. They have not been left without a certain kind of school for their children taught for three months out of twelve chiefly by students who are themselves getting an education in institutions sustained by Northern benevolence; but the teaching has been without continuity and insufficient to make much impress on character. This far-seeing colored man realized this, and his own influence in life might have been greater if chances had come to him in his earlier days. He has, therefore, given his son a liberal education at college and has daughters now in the same path.
When the young man returned from his studies with Christian love in his heart to assist his father in business he took in the situation that there must be a school here commensurate with the needs, where the colored boys and girls might receive the blessings of an education large and thorough enough and of such a positive Christian quality as should change the life of the community. In some aspects it sadly needs radical change.
He called to his side one of his mates at Fisk Universitya graduate of the college departmentunder the conviction that for such work as this there was a call for a thorough as well as a technical education; that there must be breadth of mental knowledge and mental vision as well as skill of hand. The young college man with his diploma in his pocket heard the call, as scores of samples from our institutions in our great system of schools are hearing theirs every year; and when once there these two young men began what is to be the Kowaliga Academic and Industrial School. They each had taken industrial training enough with their studies to know what they were about. They sought good counsel from others and thus the main school building was begun. Mr. Benson, the father, furnished a sufficient allotment of land for the site, the timber and the lumber which his mills sawed and planed, and which his teams carted. The Samples supervised and the young people and old wrought with their own hands. Generous friends from the North lent their names to the undertaking and from and through them contributions came in amounts sufficient to encourage but not large enough to complete. From these were named an advisory board of friends who with an equal number of colored people in the neighborhood were called trustees.
These are the conditions in which I introduce our Samples. It was at this stage of the proceedings when these children of the American Missionary Association called to us for the second and third time, "Come over and help us." We came, we saw, and they conquered. How could we do other than honor their faith and patience with our "watch and care," and with a little faith on our part that help enough would come to us to make their own helpfulness successful. Here in the darkness these light bearers will give light and save life and they will do this better because light has been given to them and they themselves have been saved.
Prof. T. S. Inborden.
Principal Joseph K. Brick Normal, Agricultural and Industrial School at Enfield, N. C.A. M. A.born a slave. Struggled up through poverty, educated himself by teaching vacations and working his way. Was graduated from Fisk University. A Sample.
I have given this story of Samples because it is our latest. Our picture would be out of perspective, however, should it lead any to the conclusion that this typical illustration of conditions and work is other than a sample in itself. Let it be known that this is what is going on in the work of the American Missionary Association constantly year by year, every year, as it reduplicates itself in every State of the South.
Above ten thousand of these Samples are examples. They have taken the torches lighted at our fires and have borne the light of their knowledge on to others in darkness. They are doing it this year. They will do it next year. There are entire counties in the South in which our schools have supplied nine-tenths of all the colored teachers. These teachers, graduates of Normal Schools and higher institutions, are good samples, making full proof of their enlarged powers in the Christian upbuilding of their own race. The man who thinks leads.
Samples, also, in strong ministers of Christ, good and true, who are in "our line," planting little churches and developing little churches into larger ones, bringing dependent churches forward into self-support, and leading the colored people out and away from old-time superstition and evil ways into the pure life of intelligent faith.
Prof. James L. Murray.
Born a slave. Educated by his own endeavors. Taught his way through College. Was graduated at Fisk University. Principal of the Albany Normal School, A. M. A. A Sample.
In the more conspicuous places of life we find our Samples. Some of their "examples" are already on the shelves of science in our libraries, and are hanging in honor in the galleries of art. Not a few of our graduates fill Professors' chairs. Many are already teachers of teachers. They believe that the Negro has intellect as well as hands. They believe in the development of manhood and womanhood along all lines, and do not believe that an elementary education for an elementary people is enough to save a race. They have been taught in our schools that our thought of education is that the knowledge which is of most worth "is that which stands in closet relation to the highest forms of the activity of the spirit created in the image of Him who holds nature and man and life alike in the hollow of His hand." Our idea of the educational process is that it is vital and not merely technical; that it is indeed but another name for the unfolding and growth of the human spirit. It has not, therefore, been along a single line of material helpfulness, and its ends are not reached with mere technical skill.