Colored Girls and Boys’ Inspiring United States History

In Business Schools — The Pen and the Typewriter

Years back pen and pencil were always cross
    For every one used them as though a horse:
They were pushed and pulled without respite,
    And made to draw heavy lines just right.

Not a figure was cut without their aid
    Nor a letter was built without their shade;
And well did they have good cause to fret
    And wish for some other the work to get.

One day a man from Remington came
    With a funny thing that bore his name;
Then Smith-Underwood did saunter in
    To ease the work of the weeping pen.

Now pen and pencil are mad as a bee
    And say they would even a mule rather be
Than lie on a desk as dull as a log
    Or stay on the floor like a poodle dog.

—Harrison.

As Colored people have branched out into more numerous and new business enterprises, they have found that in order to place their ventures on foundations that are sure and firm they must learn certain book knowledge as well as getting actual working experiences in modern businesses. They have also noticed through observations or experiences that no matter how well a business may be founded and grounded it will not continue to succeed unless its detailed operations are carried on by specially trained and capable workers. Since they, with but few exceptions, have not been allowed to attend, simply on account of their Race, white business schools and colleges to receive such preparations, Colored people have in many of the large cities in America established their own business schools and colleges. From among the many such schools the following named are the few that have come under the writer’s notice during his limited research efforts:

The progressive city of Jacksonville, Fla., has the honor of housing probably the largest and most modernly equipped private school of this nature not only in America but in the world among Colored people. The founder and president of this institution is Prof. R. W. Walker. Through his patient and untiring efforts, unusual business and teaching abilities, he has built up an enrollment of over one thousand local and correspondent students in his college that is established in its own fifty thousand dollar building which is open day and night the year round for class room work. Aside from its school rooms Walker’s National Business College has a dormitory for the boarding and lodging of its out-of-town students.

The Derrick Business School has within the past five years made such rapid growth and progress under the sound establishment, expert teaching and sane management of Miss M. J. Derrick that it is now centrally located in its own building in one of the most exclusive business sections of Philadelphia, Pa. Miss Derrick has the distinction of being the only Colored person who owns and manages a business college that teaches the famous “Boyd’s 30-Day System.” This school also has its own dormitories for the accommodation of its students living out of the city and state.

More than ten years ago The Stenographers’ Institute was founded in Philadelphia, Pa., by Prof. E. T. Duncan. Since that time he has built up a commercial school of such efficiency that his reputation has brought to him not only local students but young men and women living in several other cities and states. The enrollment of his school has become so large that in the near future he will be compelled to seek new and larger quarters.

The New York Academy presided over by Prof. R. W. Justice, and Braithwaite Shorthand School managed by Prof. I. N. Braithwaite are two business schools in New York City operated by Colored men who are doing much for the elevation of their race by turning out competent commercial graduates.

In Chicago, Ill., Prof. M. J. Treadwell’s Commercial Institute and The Central School of Commerce, of which Prof. W. D. Alimono an expert bookkeeper and accountant is president, are two Colored business schools that rank in the first class.

Prof. Chas. A. Brown’s Bruno School of Business, Brooklyn, N. Y., is also an institution of modern methods and is doing its part in preparing for future careers stenographers, typewriters, bookkeepers and other students in various commercial subjects.