CHAPTER III.
PIONEER EDUCATOR ARRIVES.
Into the midst of these terrible times which made weak the souls and hearts of the strongest of men, came Miss Martha Schofield, the first of the pioneers to push into the distracted South to labor, to suffer, and if need be, to die for the millions of ignorant, irresponsible Negroes. Their education, along industrial lines, she made her life-work—crowning it on the 77th day of her birth, February 1, 1916, by passing from earth to heaven. But she left to show that she did something on earth a school and campus comprising an area of two entire blocks in the beautiful City of Aiken, S. C., on which she had erected eight buildings.
The school farm, adequate for all farm demonstration work, consists of about 400 acres. The funds by which all this valuable property was acquired was raised by Miss Schofield herself, through the fluent use of her trenchant pen, which she knew how to wield as few women have ever learned to do. Everything contracted for in the interest of the school was paid for in cash as Miss Schofield, in all her fifty years of administration, never contracted the outlay of money without first having provided the means with which to meet claims. She enjoyed the good-will and friendship of men and women of wealth and influence throughout the country, especially of the old Abolitionists, who supported her institution generously as long as they lived and possessed the means with which to do so.
The Schofield School at Aiken has sent out into the world many young men and women who have gone back among their own people accomplished teachers, ministers, physicians, farmers and artisans, leading the colored race of the South to the highest appreciation of what Martha Schofield’s motto for life was—“Thoroughness,” thoroughness not only in books and the industrial arts, but in thought and action as well. No doubt the success which attended the efforts of the graduates of this School is due, in the main, to the strict regard for efficiency with which this great woman inspired every student coming under her influence.
When we contemplate the wide-spread influence which the life and work of Martha Schofield has exerted on the education of the people of the South, the white as well as the colored, words become inadequate to pay proper tribute to her; to justly express the appreciation felt by those having knowledge of her achievements.
There is not a colored school in the entire South that has not acknowledged the wisdom of this Divinely endowed leader and instructor by establishing an industrial department. Recognizing the imperative importance of this sort of instruction almost all the schools and colleges for whites emphasize it by giving it first place in their curriculums. Clemson, for white men and Rock Hill Normal and Industrial Institute for young white women were established long after Miss Schofield brought home to the people of the South the crying necessity of preparing our boys and girls of all races for the actual duties met with in every day home life. The vision which she herself had of a thorough preparation for the humbler tasks lighted the intellectual skies of the whole South after years of success by her in the education of the weaker race. This fact is made more prominent by the action of many of the States in incorporating industrial courses in the common schools.
Much credit must be given to the practical success of Miss Schofield’s school work for the marvelous strides made by the education of the Negro at such celebrated institutions as Hampton, Va., with an enrollment annually of over 1,500 students and an endowment of over $1,000,000.00; and at Tuskegee, with about an equal number of students and as great or greater endowment fund. Then there are other great institutions devoted entirely to the education of the colored race, making quite a feature of the industrial department, such as Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga., Fisk University, Nashville, Term., Haines Institute, Augusta, Ga., Spellman University, Atlanta, Ga., Claflin and the Agricultural Colored State College at Orangeburg, S. C. Also Benedict at Columbia and Voorhees Institute at Denmark, all of which have grown into existence and attained the top-most rung of the ladder of fame since the coming to the South of Martha Schofield in 1865.
Near the Schofield School is the Bettis Academy in Edgefield County, South Carolina, formed and modeled after the fashion of the Aiken School. Alford Nicholson, the principal, is a product of the latter and is working out with great similarity the ideas and theories of his Alma Mater. The good being accomplished here in a small way is one of the great triumphs of the life-work of Miss Schofield, it being her greatest aim in life not to create and endow great institutions of learning with money and high sounding names, but to plant in the heart and soul of every child coming under her influence those principles of efficiency that would enable them to get out into the world and actually do something to lift up the fallen. She acted always as if the taking of the name of the Lord in vain consisted entirely of praying for the Kingdom of God to come but doing absolutely nothing to bring those prayers to pass. “Deeds, deeds, my children,” she was fond of saying, “are what count, not mere words.”
The absence of faith in God, she asserted, was seen in all those who did not turn their hand to accomplish the results for which they prayed. No one can successfully accuse her of hypocracy in the least. She practiced what she taught and taught others that anything less than that was hypocracy and infidelism.
Miss Martha Schofield was born near Newton, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on the first day of February in the year 1839 of well-to-do parents, who professed and lived true the principles of religion as enunciated by the Society of Friends, or the Quakers, as they are commonly called. This stern sect of religious puritans date their arrival in America along with the earliest immigrants, and in proportion to numbers can lay as heavy claim to being responsible for the civilization of the present day as any other denomination inhabiting the New World. The same cause, religious persecution, leading other denominations to seek a home on American shores, where they could worship God in their own way, inspired the Friends to come to this country. William Penn, a very wealthy and highly educated man, famous the civilized world over for his kindness of heart and generous benevolences, was a member of the Society and one of its chief supporters in England and America. He founded the City of Philadelphia, which means brotherly love. The foundation stone of the whole structure of the Quaker religion is carved out of the rock of brotherly love, and it was this love that placed Ben Abon Ahem on the highest seat in the house of the Hall of Saints when the wandering Angel of the earth went to Heaven to pick out the Archangel within the pearly gates.
The love which Martha Schofield bore for all mankind, white and black, Jew and Greek, male and female, friend and foe, was evidently inspired by a religious conviction that held her thrall.
Not since Christ has there been a man or woman of whom it can be truly said he or she could not possibly, wilfully sin, but it is believed confidently by all who knew Miss Schofield best that she would not under any circumstances knowingly commit sin. It was as natural for her to be virtuous and righteous as it is natural for the vicious to be bad, unkind, selfish and immoral.
While Miss Schofield was kind and generous to prodigality she was also as brave as a lion and quick as a tiger to fight if the occasion demanded it. While she always took counsel and weighed matters carefully she never failed to contend for what she believed to be right. Her nature seemed blended with the holiness of a sacred spirituality, imparted to it no doubt by her religious training, and an invincibleness in matters affecting social relations that bordered the stubbornness of Satan. Influenced, possibly, to greatness in the latter attribute by the teachings of the Abolitionist Party, to which she belonged in heart, mind and soul?
As one of her most valued friends and one of the most brilliant of the many noteworthy people said of her at the funeral, the author wishes to repeat here: “Martha Schofield is not dead; she lives and will continue to live in the memory of her students scattered all over South Carolina and other States. She lives in their memory and in the memory of their children’s children, for there are few colored homes in which her name and deeds are not recounted in the family circle. I count some of her best work, the efforts she made to elevate and purify the home. She spent much time and endured many hardships traveling through the country speaking and teaching the value of homes and the necessity of clean homes, both physically and morally. She never tired of stressing these things and there are many good Negro homes in South Carolina and all over the Southland that are evidences that her efforts have not been in vain. Martha Schofield was helpful not alone to the Negroes but also to the whites, for good Negroes make good whites and good whites make good Negroes.”
