Training Heart, Head, and Hands
Most schools of the early 1900s emphasized a heavy dose of readin’, ’ritin’, and ’rithmetic. The schoolmasters at the Alabama Boys’ Industrial School found that a fourth “R” of rehabilitation was also necessary as the boys’ academic perspective and performance needed some serious attention.
Superintendent C. D. Griffin discovered the enormity of his task soon after beginning work at the institution. With some of the students, the teachers were literally starting from scratch. “Their advance in their studies is remarkable,” he wrote in the second biennial report. “Some boys who were not able to make their letters or spell a word when received at the school can in six months write a creditable letter. Some of them soon become experts in figures. The boys show a rapid mental alertness as soon as the effects of tobacco, cigarettes and other bad habits are eradicated.”1
Students pose for a picture during study hall.
No one doubts the deplorable conditions with which Griffin had to contend. The boys were ill-prepared for academic life, and the resources he was given were totally lacking. Any progress the boys might have made given the situation at hand was admirable. Nevertheless, David Weakley found much to do when he was hired in 1905.
“There was no graded school system; the boys just picked out books they thought they would enjoy,” he recalled in his private papers. “Our school was equipped with about forty good desks. Otherwise, there was nothing to inspire the boys for a desire for learning. After tests, both written and oral, we found the boys ranged in grades from first through tenth. A few of the boys had never attended school. During the first few months, we all were engaged in teaching periods, and sometimes, because we were so busy during the day, we would hold night classes.” 2
Statistics for 1906 give some indication of the scope of the problem by detailing the situations from which the students had come. In that year, based on 111 total students, seventy-four had run away from home; ninety-three had been truant at one time or another, sixty-one were neither in school or working at the time of entry. Only thirteen students were regularly attending school at the time of admission.3
As the Weakleys became organized, the academic program began to take shape. Mrs. Weakley, who held a degree in education and languages from Peabody College, took charge of the task until a principal and teachers could be hired.
“The boys, as a whole, were eager to learn, and I don’t think we ever had a finer bunch of boys than the ones who were at the school when we came,” he remembered. “There were, of course, a few who were mentally retarded and were not capable of advancing very far, but we did give them our special attention, and some of them did learn to read and write.
“We felt we were making real progress. The boys in high school were average or above, and their advancement was amazing. Some rated superior. They had been starving at the gates of plenty, and they seemed to recognize this was their golden opportunity.” 4
In the first of Weakley’s annual reports, this progress and his future plans were made clear. “The active school hours are divided into four periods of about two hours each. Half of the pupils attend school in the forenoon and the remainder in the afternoon; this arrangement enables us to run both the shops and the school the entire day.
“It is our aim to make the school department second to none in the State, regardless of location or position,” he wrote. 5
In the 1905 report, the academic unit provided a listing of the subjects taught, along with the textbook or materials used. The first, second, and third grades consisted of reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. Geography was added to the fourth-grade curriculum, and English history was added to the mix in grades five and six. Grade seven picked up the pace with civil government, algebra and Latin, while grade eight included physics. Some of those 93 truants were probably shaking their heads and wondering what hit them.6
One challenge that the school continually had to wrestle was the educational level of the boys when they arrived on campus. A report in 1931 clearly described the scope of the problem. According to the report, “there was not a pupil in the first grade of normal age. The youngest boy 9 and the oldest 16. Second grade boys’ ages vary from 9 to 17. Junior third pupils’ ages range from 11 to 17.” Out of approximately 524 students enrolled that year, only 45 were functioning at an age-appropriate grade.7
That does not mean that the students sent to ABIS were lacking in ability. One report made quite clear the reason for this disconnect between grades and ages. “We find a fairly good interest manifested by the pupils of this institution. Of course, there are some who do not seem to take much interest in books, but the most of our boys are bright, industrious, and intelligent, and take advantage of every opportunity offered them.”8 The following year, Weakley went even further in his assessment as he proclaimed, “The children in the school have as a rule made excellent records in their books, the greatest number of them being promoted during our annual examinations. Some have made two grades in one year.”9
So, the boys needed a caring, competent staff of teachers to help them succeed. One asset the school always had was teachers who seemed to understand the true worth of education and who were eager to instill these values in the boys they instructed. Weakley was always quick to give his faculty the credit they deserved, such as this comment in a yearly report: “Too much praise cannot be given the teachers for the noble manner in which they have labored in the school room and in their other duties in order that they might aid humanity.”10
In the academic report for 1905, two teachers, Mr. Green and Miss Stamps, wrote of the aspirations they had for their students, and in doing so reveal the character of which Weakley spoke:
Our aim is to train our pupils to think—to think logically and correctly, for we know that: ‘Man’s real worth lies in his mind not in his purse.’ We try to impress upon them the fact that there is a difference between existing and living. Our course of study is arranged to give the pupil a practical education that will enable him to meet and solve the problems of life, make a useful member of society and a good citizen.
We realize that it is necessary to train the heart, head and hand together. The boy or man with strong intellect and having a strong healthy body but without the moral force necessary to control his feelings and impulses may not only prove himself worthless, but a hindrance and disadvantage to those with whom he comes in contact. Then we should develop all the faculties proportionately.11
Longtime principal J. H. Carr echoed those thoughts in his 1908 report:
Since education is not merely a cold intellectual development but a cultivating of the will, a training of the heart, and building up of durable character, since every human being is a child of God created to do a definite work in the world, we believe that he has a right to a chance in life and ought to be rightly trained to accomplish the work for which God made him. Hence, do we realize the responsibility to instruct the pupil rightly, and to arouse an enthusiasm in his studies and an ambition in him to become a citizen of whom his county would be proud. 12
In Weakley’s latter years, he proudly told listeners of the fine men the school had produced. Among its graduates were numbered PhDs, physicians, attorneys, military officers, and engineers. There were also musicians, artists, lawmen, and thousands of craftsmen.13
Weakley knew that these results were the product of a unique faculty. “Throughout the years, it has been the good fortune of the school to keep in their employ many teachers and instructors whose sole purpose was to contribute something really worthwhile to the sum total of human good and human happiness. Naturally, they have been underpaid, but this does not seem to bother them. They have earned the respect and love of their pupils and the approval of their own conscience.”14
One of Weakley’s favorite stories seems to bring it all together nicely. He frequently told of a Navy officer who returned to his alma mater as a hero of the Pacific theater to tell the ABIS students of his experiences. As he addressed a group of 250 students on the shady lawn, he spotted a white-haired lady slowly making her way down the sidewalk.“There’s my old teacher,” he exclaimed. With the boys watching, he ran from the stage and threw his arms around the elderly lady. As the two embraced and the sun glinted off his medals, no further explanation was required on what the young officer thought about his education at the Alabama Boys’ Industrial School.15