rev. w. j. nelson, b.a., m.a., th.m., th.d., ph.d.

i was the oldest of a large family of children. my father had no income, save what he made on a small farm, and a little corn, flour, meat and other produce with a dollar now and then, which he received for full time pastoring two or three churches. the district schools where we lived were poorly equipped and managed, and ran only a few months each year. until i was thirteen years old i got the best these schools could give. but with a growing family without a corresponding growth in my father’s income, at thirteen, to aid in the support of the family, i was forced to give up my schooling and do mill work when i was not working on the farm.

all i had learned up to that time was reading, writing and a little arithmetic. since the nature of my work did not require that i keep up my writing and arithmetic, i soon forgot both. but the thirst to know about things and people caused me to read all my spare time. my father himself was a college-trained man. he worked hard on the farm or elsewhere all the week and preached every sunday, never faltering in spirit. but sometimes he would 97 fail in strength of body. though he never complained, i could often see that hurt look on his face. this was caused by the financial depression which followed cleveland’s administration, the covetousness of the people he served and other circumstances, which were depriving him of giving his children the educational advantages enjoyed by the children of those whom he served.

all this time i was longing for an education, and saw the disadvantage to which the lack of it was placing me. my father would each year promise me that the next year i could go to school. but when the time came i would have to stay and work and let the younger children go or let a note on a new schoolhouse, a new church house or howard college, at birmingham, ala., be paid. the fortitude of my father, that look on his face, the rainbow promise that some day i should even go to howard college, and the thought that i was helping him care for the others and keep my sisters and younger brothers in school, made it easier for me. but many times i bathed my pillow with tears till the tired body forced sleep, all because i could not go to school like my boy companions.

thus i toiled on until i was nearly eighteen years old. my body was already stooping with toil, my hands hard and horny. i had forgotten how to write. i knew not how to figure, except a little “in my head.” but still i read. this only increased my thirst for an education. at last the promised 98 rainbow now appeared just ahead. next year i was going back to school. and i was to stay there till i had finished at howard college. but again my father failed me because others failed him. i did not get to go. this was my severest disappointment, and but for a move my father made it would have been almost unbearable.

this time he resolved to sell his little home and go west to try life all over again. we moved to texas into a frontier section where there were not even at that time the small school advantages back in alabama. it took all the little home brought to get us out west. we had to start again from the very bottom. the second year my father bought a piece of undeveloped land. for five years i stayed with him, helping him to make sure a home for him, mother and the children. his health was fast breaking by this time. for the first three years there was no opportunity for schooling. i was by that time twenty-one years old, too old for free tuition, and i had no money.

the winter of the fourth year i had one month of a breathing spell which brought to me an opportunity. my father told me of six acres of very fine land he wished opened and if i could get it cleared i might have all it made. meantime the trustees of a little district school two miles away needed some wood for the school and offered to take it as tuition. so here was my chance. during the day i went to school, furnishing wood for tuition. after school 99 hours and at night, by the light from burning brush, i cleared the land. it made three bales of cotton, the proceeds of which i saved for my future education. the next year i hired to my father for ten dollars a month and my board. this money i also added to my schooling fund. the following winter i got another month schooling at the little district school, again furnishing wood in payment for tuition. i again hired to my father for twelve dollars and fifty cents a month, saving every cent i could.

things were now getting easier at home. our new home was paid for. the land was very fertile. my father’s health was much better. many settlers were coming in. a good district school was being developed. most of my brothers and sisters were getting the free schooling. some of my older sisters were being sent away to school. i was now nearly twenty-three. i had taken advantage of what i had. the little school where i had gone for a month each of the two preceding winters was not a graded school. this had made it a little less embarrassing for me. for fear the teacher would hold me back, i had carried a copy-book in my pocket without his knowledge, that i might the sooner learn to make the letters of the alphabet. i had learned how to use figures up to common fractions and how to spell a few simple words. with the exception of these two months’ schooling it had now been about ten years since i left the schoolroom, ten years of the best part of my life for acquiring 100 an education—from thirteen to twenty-three. but after this added waiting and hoping of a little over five more years, my rainbow again appeared as from a sudden burst of sunlight on a receding cloud.

my chance had at last come and i was going to use it. it came in this fashion: it was one march day just after the noon hour i had started to the field, when there came to me a letter from the principal of a boarding school which had both a graded and high school department. he wanted someone to live with him and do his chores for board while attending the school. the crop was started, and, of course, to leave at this time would disconcert my father and his plans for the year. but there were only a little over two more school months in that session. and if i would go then i could have the place as long as i wished it. if not, someone else might take it and my chance would be gone. my father saw the opportunity for me and acquiesced.

with the money i had saved and this opportunity to work for my board, i now left home and began my schooling in earnest. i entered this school in the low sixth grade. however, having a strong body and willing mind, i carried eight studies while the others carried only four. in the two remaining months of that session and the two following years i completed the high school course. i graduated with honors, was valedictorian, and received the faculty medal for the highest grades made in school my senior year. the week following the close of 101 school i passed an examination for a county teacher’s certificate.

but to do all this i had to work. for my board in that home, i had all the wood to cut, water to draw, fires to make, garden and yard to keep, horses and cow to care for, fences, etc., to repair and many other odds and ends to do. in order to prepare my school work i did not retire till ten and arose again at three or four, getting only from five to six hours’ sleep out of the twenty-four.

there is one little incident connected with my stay in this school that might be worth mentioning, as it shows how i met one of the greatest difficulties which a young man just entering school at my age has to meet. as i have said, i entered this school at the age of twenty-three in the low sixth grade. those in my classes were children about twelve and thirteen years old. you can imagine how i felt, a big awkward young man twenty-three years old in classes composed mostly of little children from ten to twelve years younger. but my embarrassment was intensified when one day a little twelve-year-old girl made fun of the way i was trying to work an example in common fractions. i felt hurt; i closed my book and quietly walked to my seat. a cousin of mine was teaching the class. she caught the look on my face and saw that it was not that of rebellion, but that i was only hurt, embarrassed, and was trying to conquer. i shall never forget the kind look she gave me, as she said, “will, you are excused, 102 if you wish to go.” her remark was not only a rebuke to that member of the class, but it helped me to conquer. i took my books and went to my room resolved to show this little girl that, “he laughs best who laughs last.” and i did. when i started she was almost a grade in advance of me. but i finished one year ahead of her with honors while she hardly got through a year later.

i had been working heretofore during the summer vacation months that i might be able to return to school each winter. but as i was to teach the coming winter, i spent the summer studying at the north texas state normal, denton, texas. to do this, i now for the first time borrowed money, fifty dollars, from a friend of mine, a banker, who had once struggled for his education. he had been watching me and gladly came to my help and voluntarily offered all the money i needed. with this fifty dollars i was able to take the summer normal course. at the close of it i passed an examination for a state teacher’s certificate which entitled me to teach in any of the public schools in the state.

on returning home i was given the home school where four years before i had learned to figure and write, paying for my tuition with wood. the salary was forty dollars per month and the length of session was now six months. this seemed like a big salary to one who had never before received more than twelve dollars and fifty cents per month. but it was not the salary, it was the opportunity that i 103 now saw further to pursue my studies and to instill something of the same spirit and enthusiasm in others, that now meant so much to me.

i had once hoped for no more than the mere knowledge of how to read and write and figure, which this little district school had in former days given me. but with that knowledge had come a broader vision and the ability and opportunity to pursue that vision—that of getting a high school education. and now i had reached that goal, had gone to the state normal and held from the state a recognition of the right and ability to pursue this still greater vision of giving knowledge and inspiration to others, how could i ever wish or hope for more?

but it chanced that that very summer my rainbow again moved out just ahead of me. i attended a district baptist association. dr. s. p. brooks, president of baylor university, was there and made a speech on education. here i heard how he had once been a section hand on a railroad. and now he was the president of a university, and with a great heart was telling me and others how we needed that college and how it really needed us as instruments through which to bless the world. oh! that was almost another world’s message to me. my vision again broadened. the rainbow of my boyhood days again appeared.

i did not get to talk to this man. i was half-way afraid of him or revered him. but i did not need 104 to talk to him. i had heard him and he had inspired me. i returned to my home with new hopes and soon formed new plans. i would work hard till the opening of my school to pay off the fifty dollars i had borrowed. then i would save all that i made teaching that session that i might go to college the next. yes, i wanted to be faithful to my former vision and purpose to teach that school. but at the same time i would make it a stepping stone to something higher.

but i was prevented from doing this. just about two weeks before my school was to open, a preacher from a near town came to me and asked me if i wanted to go to baylor university. i readily told him i did. “would you go?” he asked. i replied, “i would if i could.” but that seemed impossible. i had no money. my father could not help me. and, besides, i was under obligation to teach that school. he offered to help overcome all these difficulties if i would only go. i afterward saw that his main purpose was to see if i wanted to go, and would if i could.

he himself had worked his way through mississippi college and the seminary. without my knowledge, he and his church had watched my struggle for an education. ofttimes in former days i had sold him and other members of that church, not knowing who they were at the time, many cords of wood and watermelons to help pay my way in school. i had now stopped and was going to teach. 105 they were afraid this would mean the end of my own school days. thus he came in behalf of his church to ask me to go on at once to college. if i would do so they would furnish me ten dollars per month. i saw the trustees of the school i had contracted to teach. they were unselfish and sympathetic toward me. glad that i had this opportunity, they released me on condition that i help secure a teacher in my place. this was easily and satisfactorily done. i renewed the note at the bank, and with the money i had made since my return from the normal and the first ten dollars from that church i made preparation, and bought my ticket for waco, texas, to enter baylor university. after i had bought my ticket i had but fifteen dollars. i felt that if i could only get there i could work for my board, and with the promised ten dollars a month i could pay all my other expenses.

when i reached college there was but one person in all that city, student body and faculty, that i had ever before seen—dr. brooks. and he had never before met me. i could not get there till the night before matriculation began. then i could find no opening or home where i could work for my board. they had all been taken. dr. brooks saw my anxiety and disappointment. he encouraged me to hope and hang on. and i did.

i made arrangements with a students’ club for a month’s board, matriculated as subfreshman and got down to work. i saw that dr. brooks was very 106 busy. therefore i never went to him with my troubles. but he would sometimes overtake me on the campus or call for me to come to his office and would encourage me. once while on a trip somebody sent by him fifteen dollars to help me hold on. i do not now know where it came from. i was able also to get five dollars per month from a students’ aid fund. i have often felt that without this it would have been impossible for me to stay. for at the end of the first month there was still no place open for me to work. and so it was from time to time for the first year. when i would hear of and go to see a place someone was just ahead of me. then once or twice the church would fail to send me the ten dollars. how i ever stayed out that first year i can hardly realize. it seems like a nightmare at times as i look back on it.

i had no money to renew my worn-out clothes. and in those days i became an artist with a needle. i could put as nice a patch on the elbow of my coat sleeve and elsewhere as any woman. and when the feet of my socks would no longer hold darning, i would cut them off and sew two legs together, sew up one end, and wear them that way. and at the wash tub, there was not in all the south a black mammy that could beat me. i bought me a set of smoothing irons and with the exception of my collars and occasionally a shirt i ironed all my clothes. i also pressed my coat and trousers. and by pressing now and then for others i would bring a twenty-five 107 cent piece to my depleted purse. but there were homesickness and heart aches. there was no going home christmas and other vacations. and more than once my hope was almost gone. and ofttimes when my room-mate had gone to sleep i would slip away into the darkness to the old baptist tabernacle, that once stood where the first baptist church now stands, and pray till far into the night for god to help me hold on and to open up some way. i well remember one morning after a night of wrestling, my room-mate approached me and asked if i needed any money, saying that his parents had sent him more than was necessary for his immediate needs. i told him my condition. he gladly lent me enough to pay up my board for another month.

this ended my first year. the delayed check from the church enabled me to return home, where i spent the summer at hard work. i had had a taste of college life. i had also tried my mettle, and was now determined to finish. the church again promised to continue its help.

therefore, i came back that fall, but with a more hopeful outlook. soon after my return i found a good home three miles out from the college where i could work for my board, and also some clerical work. i notified the church that i could get along without their help, thanking them for what they had done for me and asking that they help someone else as they had me. this they did. the nature of the 108 work i did in this home was very much like that i did while in high school. i continued to work here for three years.

after staying in this home a year and at the close of my freshman year, the pastor of the east waco church, where i worshiped and taught an adult bible class, had to give up his work because of ill health. though i had never been ordained, but had tried to preach a few times, the church asked that i supply the pulpit till they could get a pastor. i agreed to do so. they paid me ten dollars per sunday for my service, which lasted for six months. but i continued working for my board, fearing to give up the place lest somebody else would have it when i got through with the church. besides, by doing this, and with that forty dollars per month for six months, i was able to pay the fifty dollars i owed the bank, provide myself with some necessary things, continue my college work during the summer term and have enough to return for my sophomore year.

however, all this work was not done without some embarrassment, especially at first. this family for whom i worked were in good circumstances financially and were members of that church. ofttimes on sunday morning after i had done their chores, dressed in my blue “carhartt” overalls, i would hitch their horse to the carriage for them to go to church. then i would put on my best clothes and go and get in the pulpit and preach to them. 109 but these proved to be some of the best friends i ever had.

thus, by means of plenty of hard work, it was made easier for me to stay in college. when i ceased my service for the east waco church i was called to serve a small suburban church for one-half time for ten dollars per month. after a while they increased this to fifteen. in my junior year i was called to another church, sixty miles out from waco, for the other two sundays at twenty-five dollars per month. at the close of my junior year i gave up working for my board, devoting all my energies to my college and church work. also at the close of my junior year i was awarded the first holder of the m. h. wolfe scholarship of two hundred and fifty dollars to be used during my senior year. during this year i had smooth sailing.

at the close of my senior year i was awarded the e. l. marston scholarship of two hundred and fifty dollars to brown university, providence, r. i. i again spent my summer working hard and then borrowed two hundred dollars that i might supplement this scholarship and go to brown for my a.m. work. i had become so accustomed to working during both school and vacation that i might stay in school, i continued to do so while in brown and on through my seminary year. after taking my a.m., i returned to brown for a second year of postgraduate work. this last year i made an average of ninety-five dollars per month while also carrying on my university studies. 110

the next year i went to the southern baptist theological seminary, louisville, ky. the first year i was there i finished the th.m. degree, and pastored a half-time church outside of louisville. i returned to the seminary a second year, completed the class work and stood the examination for the postgraduate th.d. course. i expect later to submit my thesis for that degree.

through it all i got a full share of college and seminary life and spirit. the knowledge, inspiration and visions of life were but a part of what i got. there were also close friendships and insight into human nature. i also had my part of college fun and got my share of class and student honors. it was not necessary to be, as some may think, a mere grind.

thus i have told you the story of how i got my education. i was twenty-three when i left home to begin in the sixth grade. i was thirty-three the day before i received my th.m. degree from the seminary. and one year later i left the schoolroom with a younger spirit, a broader vision, better equipped to continue my place in the service of humanity and god.

during it all i borrowed only two hundred and fifty dollars. at the end i had paid this back and paid for fifty acres of land. my father never helped me a cent. he was not able at first. but he did appreciate my struggle, and late in my college course came to me and said that he was in better 111 circumstances and if i ever got to where i could not go myself to let him know. i never got to that place. he asked for the pleasure of making me a present of my first college diploma. i gladly gave him this pleasure. the departure of that hurt and disappointed look on his face, in knowing that i was somehow getting what he wanted me to have, has repaid me a thousand times for all the struggles i have had to make unsupported by him.

you may think that my being a minister and the salary from preaching made it easier for me than it would be for others. but this is not necessarily true. for if you will note, the work that i did was the work that anyone can do and it was up to and through my high school, subfreshman and freshman years in college that i had such a hard struggle. and it was after this time that i ever received a cent for preaching. moreover, for two years of my time at baylor i had to pay my tuition, one year by working in the library, the other with a scholarship. and at brown university no free tuition is given; preachers and all pay alike.

there is a college education for every man. and all that is needed for the acquiring of such is an uncompromising desire and purpose and strength of body and mind.

rock hill, s. c.