of the hospital. Yet the institution with its limited facilities is obliged to turn away patients who ought to be received, to refuse to do work which ought to be done, and to train a smaller number of nurses than ought to be trained. The fond vision of the workers is that of an adequate new, modern hospital of three hundred and seventy-five beds, where semi-tropical diseases may be studied and treated scientifically, where the number of nurses in training can be greatly increased, and where the Negro physicians and surgeons of the region may have a chance to minister to their very needy fellows under the best of conditions. CHAPTER IV BUILDING A UNIVERSITY Clark University and Cookman Institute IN the year 1869 the Rev. J. W. Lee opened in Clark Chapel, Atlanta, Georgia, a small primary school for Negro children. Eleven years later (1880) Bishop Gilbert Haven looked out from a hilltop a mile south of the city of Atlanta over a pine forest of several hundred acres which had been purchased as a location for this same school and said: "I guess now folks will believe that we have come to stay. They haven't believed it before." PRESIDENT HARRY A. KING The courage and vision of Bishop Haven made possible the securing of this beautiful and valuable property which Clark University has so long occupied. There was much opposition to the project, and the Bishop appeared to be the only one who really believed in it. The location was more than a mile from the corporation limits; there was no pavement, and no regular means of communication with the city; an old bus was necessary to meet trains when students were arriving, and provisions had to be drawn from town by mule cart; there was no adequate water supply. When the rains came the red Georgia mud made the roads almost impassable, and the drinking water took on the color of the mud to such an extent that the food was more or less regularly tinged with red. Whatever the complexion of the students and faculty members outside, they were always sure to be red inside. Doubters insisted that no one would ever come out to such a place to attend school, but the Bishop was unmoved. As he looked out from the commanding vantage point toward the city he declared unhesitatingly, "It will not be necessary to carry the school to the pupils; they will come to it." And come they did from the very first. To-day the coming is not a difficult process, for Atlanta has extended her limits to the very doors of the university, and electric cars pass the entrance. Modern conveniences have taken the place of the discomforts of early days, and the university occupies one of the most desirable locations to be found about Atlanta. THE SCHOOL PROPERTY One part of Bishop Haven's plan did not fully materialize. He had thought that the large acreage would make it possible for poor students to support themselves while they were getting their education, but matters did not work out exactly that way. A very productive farm is maintained by the univer sity, however, and milk, eggs, pork, potatoes, grain, and vegetables are provided in abundance for the use of the boarding hall. Originally the school owned six hundred acres, but this has been reduced to less than four hundred. It is hoped that as this property becomes more valuable it can be sold for building lots, and the proceeds made available as an endowment fund for the university. Already $30,000 worth of land has been sold and the proceeds turned into endowment for the school. A portion of the property lies within the city limits, although the campus itself is just outside of the line. BISHOP WARREN'S CONTRIBUTION The vision of Bishop Gilbert Haven was responsible for the location of the school, and the genius of Bishop Henry W. Warren determined the type of its development. He believed in the future of industrial education, and he desired to see it promoted at Clark. He erected a building for instruction and training in blacksmithing, and he followed this with a similar building for carpentry and wood working purposes. Working in cooperation with President E. O. Thayer he provided a Home for girls where training in various household arts and in home-making might be carried on. The building was given to the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church on condition that it provide the furnishings for the new building, and secure a superintendent. This be came therefore the first "model Home" of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. For a time the John F. Slater Fund cooperated in the industrial work at Clark, appropriating at one time as much as five thousand dollars a year for the purpose. The work was developed to such a point that the best carriages, hearses, express wagons, and similar vehicles made in Atlanta were said to have been made in the shops on Clark University campus. Gradually conditions changed, appropriations were withdrawn, the difficulties of carrying on industrial work increased, and the conviction steadily developed that the particular mission of Clark University did not lie along the line of industrial training, but rather in the more commonly accepted field of the college and the university. To-day less emphasis is put upon industrial training at Clark, although the training for the girls started by Bishop Warren is now carried on in Thayer Home under the very efficient direction of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. RECENT DEVELOPMENT Among former presidents of Clark University should be mentioned Dr. Charles M. Melden, who served as the executive of the school for six years and did much to build up its Normal Department. He is now president of New Orleans College. For six years now, under the efficient leadership of President Harry Andrews King, and supported by the wise counsels and optimistic and enthusiastic |