‘Alma Mater means Nourishing Mother’: Booker T. Washington & R.W. Taylor

“Dear Taylor: This letter may be somewhat of a surprise to you, but I hope you can see your way clear to accede to our request. After deliberating for a good deal of time over the matter, we have determined to put some one of our graduates in the field in the North to collect money for the school; interest and instruct the people about our work, and we have settled on the conclusion that we can get no better person to represent us than yourself.” – Booker T. Washington, June 9th 1893

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“Dear Friend: your letter of recent date was the greatest surprise imaginable. I have thoroughly considered the offer made to me and have decided to off-set my ideas of going to school next term, so as to comply with your request. As you know Alma-Mater means nourishing Mother. From an intellectual stand-point I consider Tuskegee my mother-so I am perfectly willing to act in the capacity of a child.” – R.W.Taylor June 14th 1893

Aside from a University’s current students, there is no more important constituent group besides its students who graduate: ALUMNI. And this exchange between correspondence between Booker T. Washington, founding principal and president, and Robert Wesley Taylor at Tuskegee Institute (University) illustrates the strong ties, unity and affinity between the institution, the alumni and president. The President “deliberated for a good deal of time” when considering who among “the Sons and Daughters of Booker and Mother Tuskegee” would best represent the institution. Among the many shining arrows in their quiver, Robert Wesley Taylor was preeminent among the family’s best and brightest.

Although familial relations dictate equal filial love among siblings, when parents have a need it is not unusual for the strongest, most industrious, most diligent, most generous and most capable son or daughter to respond. This describes the character of Mr. Taylor. Hearkening to the true spirit of Alma Mater, he regarded the then Tuskegee Institute as his “intellectual nourishing mother.”

For Mother Tuskegee had nourished his nascent personal, intellectual, social and spiritual appetite with the milk of George Washington Carver among countless numbers of eminent professors, scholars and staff members. Mr. Taylor did not stop at child-like professions of love for his mother, or intrusive pressing into matters beyond his scope or constant complaint without corresponding work. He exhibited the attitude of a full-grown son who responded with a ready reply when he was “called” upon by his Alma Mater.

And “while children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children,” a child does well when he or she has left home to help restore the nourishing ability of his or her mother so that mother is able to continue nurturing many, many more sons and daughters for many more years to come.