 Penn School had its beginning in the dark day woody slave ships discharged their cargoes of primitive Africans. Oatleg to cross the Atlantic, long after the outlawing of the three. And it was here on these islands, occupied during the early years of the war by the Union forces, that emancipation first reached the southern cotton lands, and beginnings were made in the gross freeholders on their own small plots. A great human responsibility developed from the freeing of the simple, carefree, dependent people, rest from their native life and marooned in ignorance under slavery. Freed? They had to be taught how to live as free men. Penn School has demonstrated the power of the school as a social dynamo in its all year rhythm, its island wide reach, its ministration to all round wants and aspirations of the simple folk. Its release of the organic strength of the community. It is making good citizens, intelligent, self-supporting families. For at Penn School, education is literally preparation for life. Practical life in which hunger of the mind, soul and body are very real considerations. These are the people of the sea islands, deeply religious, happy, industrious, good citizens, who look upon Penn School as having brought to them the first true emancipation of the Negro race. Here are the three people. Rosa B. Cooley, Grace Bigelow House and their associate, the school superintendent, James P. King, who today are doing most to carry forward the work of Penn School as the hub of domestic, business and community life on the islands. An adventure in practical education which is being felt throughout the state of South Carolina, the nation and the whole world. That also is playing a great part in pointing the way to the sound solution of the growing interracial problem. Yes, three generations ago, this was a typical evening scene on one of the more lonely beaches in the sea islands. Souls torn from their native land, separated from their families, herded into vile, smelling, bootlegging slave ships for the long voyage to America. Disease bred in the filth of their impossibly crowded quarrels, often thinning their ranks to less than half the number before seeing land again. Then chained together like wild beasts, beaten and driven by heartless overseers, they staggered on to dry land again, bondage, to work long hours in the foots of great sea island cotton plantations that made these islands famous. Women as well as men worked the long hours in the field. But these were stalwart people. This woman, for instance, who wears a cord around her hips to give her strength. In such squalid hovels, whole families lived in one room, dipped into a common pot with their oyster-shell spoons at mealtime, bore more children into hopeless bondage, abject poverty and ignorance. But through all this, the Negro's spirit was not broken. The moon, a visual symbol of an almighty God. At the end of a long day, release of the spirit in fervent prayer. An offering of water from the rising tide back to the tide. Praying as her mother taught her, pouring out water to the full moon. What an opportunity to sway her deep devotion to the living God, from native superstition to enlightened religion. Yes, few people have risen so far in three generations because few peoples, contrary to the belief of the times, have possessed the inherent ability to lift themselves from unlettered superstition to responsive and discriminating play of intelligence with such modest encouragement. But let Miss Cooley, who with her associate, Miss House, has given her life to the work of Penn School, tell you the story as they have lived it over the years. Old children, did you know that Penn School is having its 80th birthday this year? Yes, Mom. Our teacher told us. Have you been here that long, too, Miss Cooley? Good gracious, no, Helen. But Miss House and I have been here for 37 years. Oh, yes, there have been some big changes since then. Before the new school house was built, there was one little rambling building. The roof peaked like a sieve, and the whole thing was ready to fall down almost any day. And do you know the teachers had to sit with an open umbrella over their heads when it rained, and the children sat on top of the desks to keep their feet dry? Oh, well, I remember my first ride down the oyster-shell road from Frogmore. I remember the horse's name was Pleasant. Uncle Sam was sitting there, weaving his shrimp nets, as he has for so many years. And two little boys were watching him. One of them looked very much like you, Moses. As we came up, the smallest boys said, I know exactly. I know I've been doing man's work and first gun shoot. I was born a slave. I've never gotten flogged till I come standard no more. Then I run off into the bush. Then the soldier come and Marshall Lincoln make me free. I see he patrol on the island after that, too. I see the big wind come, and the tidal wave and knock over the houses and drown the people. I remember when the fever come, and the snow parks, and the people fall down dead in the fields. Then come the drought and don't kill all the crops. I see four so hungry and weak they can walk. And they were so low, nothing but more poor for them. And then the poor evil come and eat up all the car crops. What we just trust, and not let Jesus take care of his children, and work hard and a bad time go away, and his own shine, you know. We ain't got much doubt and sense, but be hard and full of love. And everybody is free. From the beginning, Penn School has been a school for all the people, grown-ups and children alike. For in the words of the great friend and educator of the Negro people, Dr. Purcell, here truly are taught things of the hand, the mind, and the heart. This bronze plaque displayed on the front wall of the community house at Penn School in memory of Dr. Purcell's inspiration and help to the school in one of the most critical periods of its existence is symbolic of the aspirations of the whole Negro race. Things of the mind and hand. The first of these is the soil. It was natural for a people who looked upon the new book learning as a release from the drudgery of field slaves to regard the teaching of modern farming methods with little enthusiasm. In fact, the whole program of vocational training of these people might have failed had not the teachers carried the school to the farms, both through student activities which involved planting their own school acre set aside by their father for their use and through the visiting of the farm by the school teachers to spread better understanding of the aims and benefits of their endeavors. Today it is a regular site to see a large group of teachers going out to the farms to carry on this work. Here we see Phillips Seabrook, a former Penn School boy who is now teacher of agriculture employed jointly by the state of South Carolina and Penn School stopping off at a farm to show one of his students how to measure his school acre. The teacher and student discuss with the boy's father the ground he is to be allowed for his own school acre. 70 paces and a stake goes in. Then 70 paces more as each corner of the acre is marked off. Arithmetic of the classroom given a very practical meaning in the field and it doesn't stop with measurement of the acre. The fair rental for the land is figured. The cost of the seeds, fertilizer and time of workmen and animal and the net returns of the crop make a computation well worthwhile. The influence of this home acre has been great in the life of island farmers not only through the education of a new generation in modern farming methods crop rotation, replenishment of the soil and so forth but the direct comparison of the productivity of the student's acre and that of his father's land has done much to win over the adults to more progressive farming practice. Of course the home acre is the practice acre and does not always turn out 100% successfully. It reflects the amount of learning each student has absorbed on the school farm the testing of the soil, of the seed, planting methods, fertilization the study of the crops that are soil builders and those that are the soil robbers. Nevertheless the keen competition encouraged by the corn club which is made up of all agricultural students with home acres usually shows gratifying results. Better farm animals too are helping in the revolution of the farming system at St. Helena. The scrub stock that for years had been allowed to deteriorate further and further until cows were half the size and gave only a fraction of the milk expected of well bred stock was one of the most serious deterrents to profitable farming on the islands. Razorback hogs ate their heads off and put on little meat. Poorly bred and graded chickens produced hardly enough to warrant their keep. When our school farm was carved out of land that had not seen across the tasks of overseers had kept these boys' grandfathers on those same acres a Penn School trustee sent a pure bred bull down to the school and we began to build up a small herd of cattle our purpose not only to demonstrate to our agricultural students what could be expected of good cattle but this herd was to be the nucleus of an island wide herd of improved stock. Here we see the marked contrast between the typical scrub cow of the islands and the well bred replacements that are now being introduced onto more and more St. Helena farms each year. As the school farm herd increased modern silos, milking sheds and barns were erected. Mostly through the skill and labors of the boys' carpentry and masonry classes under the supervision of Hampton graduates the school's vocational instructors. The oyster shell concrete work going forward to song and laughter as the boys often use their own ox carts to carry sand and oyster shells from nearby rivers and the oyster canneries. The carpentry work reigned with favorite spirituals punctuated by staccato hammer blows. Building for the future is the spirit of school and people of the islands. Building better citizens, better families, better farms, better stock, a better life. And this building for a better life begins early in life with him school. Meet Henny Penny. She teaches the mysteries of the chicken and the egg to five and six year olds. Thus is the child's farming begun. They feed Henny Penny grain and green stuff and water. They count the eggs she lays. They learn how to keep her healthy and well. They watch her set upon her eggs and hatch her chicks for a new generation of Henny pennies. And most of all at their early age they catch the full significance of her name. Henny Penny is an important source of food and income for the island people. Then tiny heads weary with the weight of learning succumb to the sand man at nap time. Each has a map to spread upon the floor. They sit upon their maps and sing their favorite lullaby until one by one they rest their little heads in breakfast slumber. Century keeping on the islands is as often a woman's as a man's occupation. Hence the young girl's vocational class studies the methods as well as the economics of chicken raising. Carries forward the early education that built honest respect for Henny Penny and all her tribe. At the school farm poultry is a subject of major importance for the young farm students. Not only the proper feeding, treatment for common diseases, proper housing and so forth are stressed, but the teacher shows the student how to cull the flock by measuring the growing chicken to ascertain which will be prolific layers. In back of the better home of which we will speak a little later is the garden of the older girl vocational students. Here again the house garden is the woman's province to raise vegetables not only for the table but for preserving for the household's wintertime needs. Preparing vegetables for canning is under the direction of the school's home economics instructor who also instructs in the cooking and serving of meals in the better home. Literally tens of thousands of jars of foodstuffs have been put up on the islands since this home economics course has been in existence. All directly creditable to the efforts and instruction of Penn School women. Women who have been the hub of much of the advancement on the islands. Women who stand as the spiritual anchor for their mates. Women who work in the fields and thank God for the right to be free. To work their own acres. To reap the harvest. Not only of food but of self-respect. Independence. Peace of mind, soul and body. Give us this day our daily bread. Things of the mind and hand. A decadence in all hand work on the islands had been an unforeseen byproduct of emancipation. Trained skills of the slaves were lost. The freed man, as we have seen, longed for the book to take the place of all labor. And in the course of half a century it had come to pass that practically all the farm repair work was carried to nearby Buttefoot or to Savannah. When soon after my arrival I heard a white friend say of the island boys that he had never seen such a total lack of mechanical skill. But nearly all who attempted to unscrew a nut naturally turned it to the right. I wondered why they shouldn't. Considering that they had never had an opportunity at school or at home to loosen nuts or struggle with any mechanical appliances. If the farm were to come to school surely the farm tools and home necessities should have a place in the school curriculum. And so the school shops became another branch of our vocational training. Our cope industrial building was the first large structure built by the islanders themselves built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of Penn School. From all corners of the island came the wagons, plows and other farm tools to be mended at the new cope shops, often the boy who mended the tool taking it home at night. Down the oyster shell road anew went close a connection between school, farm and home. Not only did the blacksmith shops mend the tools the carpenter shop took its important place in the scheme of life the young carpenter sharing in the building of many of the better homes for the islands. All the work in these shops has been teaching the real things in life. Tools have joined the pens and pencils of the classroom. The young farmers have moved up from the primitive hoe to the mowing machine the thresher and the tractor and the school shops have kept pace with the proper maintenance of these machines. They are learning welding, they are learning how electricity should be handled through practical experience in electrical maintenance work at the school. They are learning how to run a water system, the incubators and how to crush the sugarcane and make cane syrup. The young cobblers and harness makers have been repairing shoes to keep hundreds of children in school. They have seen the transformation from crude leather straps mended with strings to the best grade of harness. A pole string is also an activity in the co-industrial building. It must be kept clearly in mind that Penn School is not merely an agricultural school or a trade school. All of the less novel but equally essential academic subjects are taught and form the backbone of the child's education. The farm and the shops play their part in equipping the boys and girls for life in the country with ideas of leadership in homemaking, farming, and those who go off island are better prepared to meet the realities of life if they have been meeting them all through their school course. When the great hurricane and tidal wave visited the sea island several years ago and caused so much loss and suffering among the people the Red Cross and the government stepped in to help them onto their feet again. One of the activities being carried on at that time was the making of mattresses from materials supplied by the government and fabricated by native artists. The craft inaugurated in this manner has been continued. More than 1200 of these mattresses have been made to date at Penn School from fresh sweet snowy cotton beaten into downy fluffiness by willing and experienced hands. The girl sewing class is a major importance in island life. For here these girls not only are taught the fundamentals of sewing, so essential to any home, but they are shown how to make useful things from what otherwise would be wasted materials, salvaging, dyeing, and remaking old dress materials into new garments, the making of rag rugs and draperies from dyed flower sacks, and so on. It is the economy of the islands that everything must serve some use for purpose for with so little money income on the one hand and a people with an instilled earnest desire for better living on the other only by great ingenuity can both ends be made to meet. One of the first classes to be started on industrial work was a class of boys who had learned to weave the island baskets. This bit of industrial work is not only a holdover from the old days, but has an African origin. We had found Alfred Graham, one of the plantation craftsmen, who had held on to his gift using brushes that grow in the tidal rivers and sewing them with strips of palmetto. He had learned to make baskets from his African uncle and in turn passed the skill on to his grand-nephew. From the first work baskets, the shop has taught the children of today to make scrap baskets, clothes hamses which are sometimes beautiful enough for a museum, and wood baskets such as we found used on the farms. In addition, many types of smaller baskets, hot pads, coasters, and other articles are now among the regularly made items. The boys carry through the whole operation from the gathering of the reeds and excursion all look forward to to the final weaving of the baskets. The grand-nephew who now teaches the craft has been through the same temptations his boys will have to meet. Within a year of his graduation at Penn School, he had drifted to a nearby city where the lights and cash and good times proved to be more enduring than the country's school. His mother had other plans for George. She followed him off Ireland and her determination resulted in the boys developing into a graduate teacher at Penn School with all the feeling for the beautiful craft and all the pride of his old African ancestors in its standard being maintained. Typical of the effects of the campaign for better homes on the islands are such homes as orchard cottage, which, like many of the school buildings, have been the products of the boys' carpentry classes and graduate Ireland students. It all started when a letter came from Washington asking us to join in the national movement for home improvement and a new thrill was given to the very common tasks of women on our islands. The outline sent gave us all the suggestions and these young Negro men and women who had heard their own grandparents tell of that not too far away time when individual family life on the islands was unknown. Furnished and exhibited a cottage which, in the first year's national campaign, won third prize in competition with 961 other communities. In the furnishing of this better home was learned by economic necessity how something could be made from nothing. Boudoir chairs from barrels, dressing tables from old packing cases, rag rugs from old stockings and other material scraps, cribs and cradles from crates, draperies from dyed and appliqued flower sacks. The next year there are efforts won second prize. Since then we have gone on year after year and always has come the letter from Washington, two from the president himself bringing some news of honorable mention or some award and this has served to deepen interest but the winning was the lesser of the goods brought by the campaigns whose influence has put a stamp on hundreds of island homes. And not all of the benefits of home projects were of material nature. The dinner and recreation hours for the young people under the elevating influence of superior surroundings taught almost unconsciously those lessons and amenities needed in every home. Public health on the islands has improved steadily with the enlightenment of the people. And from Dr. Bailey, a Penn School student and later a Howard graduate dared to inaugurate the practice of medicine on the islands. He came not only as a physician but as a missionary to inspire new confidence in modern medicine among his people. To teach health as well as to minister to the sick. A measure of the success of his work is found in a survey made under Dr. Thomas J. Wooster Jr. of the research department of the University of North Carolina which showed our infant mortality rate on the island to be 48 per 1,000 lower than the average the same year in the 23 largest American cities. And speaking of public health one of the activities which has done most to offset the former detrimental superstition of the islands that of the fear of night air which previous to screening brought the malaria mosquito has educated the people that air is a paramount necessity to help. An interesting science class experiment shows what lack of oxygen will do to a flame like into a human life itself. In the miniature house plugged windows and other ventilation means smother the flame of candles put them out like human lives. The effect of this lesson has been great on island inhabitants. But all the activities of the school are not serious. Young boys and girls who have the native African urge to dance express themselves in folk dances that have been developed over the years into historic displays of the inherent rhythmic art of these people such as this dance which celebrates the harvest of the cotton crop. The great desire for learning evidenced in the very beginning when newly freed slave men, women and children flocked into the school singing the old plantation spiritual I would like to read, like to read, like to read that sweet story of old is characteristic of the devotion the island people have always had for Penn school. In the early days the children often came to school weary before the school tasks could begin the boys and girls having walked from one to nine miles to get there or having rowed up the tidal rivers our school has met that problem too but providing buses called chariots which are sent to certain rallying points to shorten the two long journeys. Penn school being primarily a day school these buses take the place of dormitories in a measure and children continue to be a sort of rural newspaper as they carry the news from school to home every evening. Penn school has another first to talk about the first Negro girl scout troop south of Baltimore here in true scout fashion is taught character and morale sugarcoated with plenty of plain ordinary fun six years ago we built the new school house the grown-ups wanted to come to school too mothers and grandmothers made up the first adult groups they called themselves the community class this weekly connection with the school has made them a link with the whole island they do not come just to get for themselves either for as they sing the island spirituals they so busily on quilts which will find the way to some home where there is great need in their words someone is worse off than we and while we're talking about the older people in our praise house has found the simplest form of the Christian religion I have ever seen on every one of the old plantations you will come across a tiny building furnished with rude backless benches and a leaders stand in front in slave days these praise houses served as places for religious meetings every Tuesday Thursday and Saturday nights these praise houses conveniently located on the old plantations were used when it was not easy to travel over country roads in the dark and the churches were used only for the midday Sunday services let us look in for a moment on their service Dear master Jesus we all unspeakable come make us a call to share a day we are not unbut poor, easy, easy open women and people ain't think much about me we ain't trust ass in a damn great high people for come to we church but though you is the one great master great too much than master Lincoln you ain't shamed to care for we African people come to we dear master Jesus shouts are occasionally held in the praise houses they grow less frequent as the years pass evidently these were linked with the old African days changed in America to fit into the new religious life they adopted so promptly they start as the praise house meeting is breaking up with the singing of the old spiritual oh my sister or oh my brother as the case may be as they circle around welcoming their neighbors the watchful leader sees to it that no one crosses to foot for that savers too much of the worldly dance our singing, our working and our worship go together it is easier to chop wood to the rhythm of an old spiritual it is easier to scrub and wash as you sing and it is easier to feel close to God when we open our throats and rousing anthems the marked contrast between the old praise house services and the present day church worship on the islands is really not such a contrast when you consider that book represent the inherent sincerity and spontaneity of the Negro nature both are succeeding stages in their development from native unlettered superstition toward enlightened religion all through which cannot be subdued the characteristic rhythmic expression of music and living over this backdrop of a simple, genuine people going their various ways to useful moral and mind-elevating endeavors on this out-of-the-way island off South Carolina can be seen the beginnings of a great educational and racial revolution a movement that is all too late in coming that must stem the growing tide in many localities throughout the world it is noteworthy that Penn School has come to the notice and study of educators and governments of almost every oppressed, backward or underprivileged people of the globe the state of South Carolina recognized the merits of the methods for vocational and rural training practiced at Penn School long ago and a permanent installation, Arnett House, has been made at Penn School for the use of South Carolina state cost students so that they may study Penn School methods of carrying the schools to the farms and the homes the General Education Board of New York and other educational foundations are interested in Penn School as a standard bearer in Negro education a map hangs in our house which shows most of Europe, Asia and Africa and into this map are stuck different colored pins that dot the many, many places from which notable people have come to observe Penn School methods and to carry their lesson back to their own country and no one knows as well as the people of the islands themselves what Penn School has meant to them to their fathers and their fathers' fathers who have traveled the long and often hopeless road to new horizons for themselves and the whole Negro race We thank thee for the gift of thy darling son, Jesus through whose suffering, death and resurrection we have been redeemed from the power of sin We thank thee for our principles and instructors who are giving their lives for the education of our children We thank thee for this school which is the light It is the bridge over the Red Sea into the promised land for our people It is the Moses and it is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night O Lord, bless the friends of the school whose spiritual and material health has made it possible to carry on this great work for more than 80 years those sympathetic men, women and all walks of life who understand what Penn School means to us under the whole Negro race O Lord, we pray that their health will continue and the number of our friends increase for there is much yet to be done Our progress has been slow Could we not merely learn lessons? We are learning a new life a better life a more useful life learning things of the spirit as well as of the mind and hands These lessons we have received