Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/517



Lackawanna Railroad. She is the only negro girl who has carried off such honors in Hoboken, and the only one to be graduated from the grammar school to the high school.

In all but one of her studies the girl was rated at 100. In geography she made 96. The five branches in which she reached the maximum were history, civics, spellings, arithmetic and grammar.

Eighteen questions were posted at the geography examinations, and the pupils had the privilege of selecting ten to answer. The teacher who conducted the examination says that Estelle picked out the ten hardest. The girl is rather small for her age, but can stand a lot of work.

While she was standing the final examination Estelle was so absorbed that she did not go home to lunch, but spent all the time, from nine o'clock until three, working on the questions.

(2185)

NEGRO "MAMMY" REMEMBERED

The praises of the faithful black nurses of the South have long been sung, but it has remained for Texas to be the first State to formally recognize their worth. The citizens of Galveston have inaugurated a movement to erect and dedicate a monument to the old negro "mammy" of the South. It is planned to build a marble monument of appropriate design to cost $500,000, nearly half of which is already pledged. Resolutions concerning the plan pay this tribute: "Rapidly passing from the stage of events in the South are the few remaining representatives of one of the grandest characters which the history of the world records. Indeed, so high above all chronicles of pure, unselfish and unfaltering devotion, noble self-sacrificing and splendid heroism do they stand that they may be almost denominated a race in themselves." This is all much to the credit of Galveston and Texas. But would it not be better to erect, not a monument of marble, but an equally enduring memorial in the form of some splendid philanthropic institution for the uplift of the black race? Or a great hospital to care for suffering blacks? The tribute would then be both beautiful and useful.—Christian Work.

(2186)

NEGRO PROGRESS

The Rev. Charles Edward Stowe, the son of Harriet Beecher Stowe, returning from a trip through the South, where he had been studying the industrial conditions, said:

"Do you realize that the cotton crop is 1,000,000 bales a year bigger than it was in the old slave days, and that as far back as 1884 the negroes owned 1,000,000 acres of land in Georgia? I saw a big negro shuffle into an Atlanta bank and say: 'Boss, ah wondah of ah has dat fahm of mine paid foh yet?' The banker looked up the darky's account and found that he had not only paid for his land by his remittances, but that he had $700 to his credit."

(2187)

Since the time the shackles were struck off the slaves, the negroes of the United States have had to their credit two Senators and seventeen Congressmen, besides scores of representatives in the diplomatic service and in official life, municipal, State and national. Negroes have won championships as pedestrians, bicycle-riders, and prize-fighters. As evidence of the intellectual endeavor and capacity of the race there are to-day (1908) 1,200,000 black children in the public schools, 30,000 in the higher institutions of learning, and 200 in northern and European colleges and universities. Over 2,000 have been graduated from colleges, and the professions show 30,000 school-teachers and professors, 2,000 lawyers, 1,500 doctors, dentists and pharmacists, and over 23,000 ministers of the gospel. In addition to all this, the negroes have taken out 500 patents, have published 400 books, composed numerous songs, and now own and edit 12 magazines and 300 newspapers. In a material way the negroes have also made noticeable progress. Besides many industrial establishments, they own and manage 26 banks, own 2-1/2 per cent. of the total valuation of the farm property, produce six per cent. of the total farm products of the United States, and own $900,000,000 worth of real and personal property.—, "The Aftermath of Slavery."

(2188)

Booker T. Washington, writing on "Negro Homes" in The Century, says:

The first negro home that I remember was a log cabin about fourteen by sixteen feet square. It had a small, narrow door, which hung on rusty, wornout hinges. The windows were mere openings in the wall, protected by a rickety shutter, which sometimes was closed in winter, but which usually hung de