Women of distinction/Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII.
HISTORY OF FISK UNIVERSITY FOR
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
Fisk University, the fame of which is world-wide, owes its origin and foundation to the generous and Christian efforts of the American Missionary Association under whose fostering care it still remains.
At the close of the war this noble Association felt itself especially called and providentially prepared to diffuse knowledge among the lately emancipated negroes of the South who had already showed such a surprising thirst for it. For this purpose various small schools were established in different sections of the South. In September, 1865, the Association commissioned Rev. E. P. Smith as District Secretary at Cincinnati, and Rev. E. M. Cravath as Field Agent, with instructions to undertake the opening of Christian schools for the freedmen of Kentucky, Tennessee and portions of Georgia and Alabama. The two men reached Nashville October 3d and found General Clinton B. Fisk in command of Tennessee and Kentucky, as Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, with Professor John Ogden on his staff as Superintendent of Education.
Messrs. Smith and Cravath decided that Nashville was the natural and strategic center for the extensive educational movement which they had been sent to inaugurate in Tennessee and adjoining States. In searching for the location their attention was called to the United States Hospital, west of the Chattanooga depot, which was about to be sold as no longer needed for the use of the army. xfter due consultation the ground on which the building stood was purchased for $16,000. General Fisk secured the transfer of the hospital buildings from the Department of War to the Freedmen's Bureau and placed them at the disposal of the societies for school purposes.
January 6, 1866, the Fisk School was opened with appropriate public exercises and was placed under the joint charge of Professor John Ogden, of the Western Freedmen's Aid Commission, and Rev. E. M. Cravath, of the American Missionary Association.
Three years later the former society transferred its interest to the American Missionary Association. The school was named in honor of General Clinton B. Fisk, who had both personally and officially aided in every practicable way in its establishment.
As there were then no public schools in Nashville for colored children the number in attendance upon Fisk University the first year was over twelve hundred. Fisk University was incorporated under the laws of Tennessee, August 22, 1867, with a board of nine trustees, and opened for advanced pupils, the city of Nashville having started school for colored children.
The first normal class of twelve was organized in November of the same year. Early in the year 1868 $7,000 was received from the government, and repairs were made in the buildings so as to accomuiodate boarding students.
In 1869 the government buildings, then in use for the school, having been transferred to the Association, permanent foundations were placed under them. A dormitory building was also erected and a Gothic chapel. In 1870, Professor Ogden, who was especially interested in normal work, resigned, and Professor Spence took charge as principal, with the idea of developing college preparatory and college work. The new idea made better accommodations imperative, as the old government buildings were fast going to decay.
A resolute band of singers, afterwards known throughout the civilized world as the "Jubilee Singers," under the guidance of Professor George L. White, started out October 6, 1871, on their marvelous career, with little money and no experience. Space does not permit me to relate the struo:o-les of this little band. But after many months of hardships the clouds began to lighten, and as a result of their labors, after seven years' singing in the United States, Great Britain, Holland, Switzerland and Germany, they realized a net income to the University of $150,000, besides many valuable gifts of apparatus, paintings, etc. With this money Jubilee Hall was built. January i, 1876, the University was transferred to this building, which is situated on the former site of Fort Gilliam, one of the most commanding and beautiful locations about Nashville.
Soon after the erection of this hall Rev. E. M. Cravath, who was elected as president of the school in 1875, came personally to manage the work. His labors, seconded by those of the college faculty, five in number, resulted in the rapid development of the higher educational courses. In 1875 the first college class was graduated, and also the first normal class, and regularly from that time students have graduated from the college and normal departments.
Livingstone Missionary Hall is the other large building connected with Fisk University. The plan for the erection of this hall took shape in 1876 with the Jubilee Singers, who were then in England, and the first contribution to the fund, outside of the Jubilee Company, was given by Mrs. Agnes Livingstone Bruce, of Edinburgh, daughter of the great African explorer.
The honor of completing the work and securing the erection of the building is due to Mrs. Stone, of Maiden, Massachusetts, who gave $60,000 through her agent, Rev. W. H. Wilcox, D. D. This beautiful building was dedicated October 30, 1882.
The building for the gymnasium and mechanical department had its origin in a gift of $4,000 by Colonel Howard, for years a distinguished citizen of Nashville.
I am pleased to note that the Theological Seminary, so long talked of, hoped for and prayed for, has at last been erected, at a cost of $25,000. This building contains three large lecture-rooms, a library and reading-room, and thirty-seven dormitory rooms. Two professors, newly elected, are at present conducting the work. Others will be added as the growth of the Seminary demands.
The legacy of $28,000 left by General Fisk is to be used in erecting a memorial chapel during the present year.
Thus from the old government buildings has arisen Fisk University, one of the leading universities in the country for educating the colored youth of America. Fisk sustains to the colored youth of this country the same relation as the leading white colleges to the white youth of this country. Even in the Dark Continent some of her number are sowing the seeds of truth and Christianity, which shall spring up after many days.
Fisk University seeks to instill within her pupils a desire for higher education, thereby enabling them to cope with the scholars and the thinkers of the age. In this she has not been disappointed, for over one hundred and ninety-one graduates are making honorable records and winning great favors as educators, ministers, physicians, lawyers and business men.
The estimated value of the property of Fisk University is $300,000, with an additional amount of $21,000 endowment.
Probably more than 7,000 young people have registered, from time to time, as students.