The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.8, page 554, Mar. 1906, U. of Illinois Press

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The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers perhaps 65 or 70 years old, who has been teaching for 40 or 50 years. He is now connected with the Virginia Union University at Richmond, but is really unable to do effective work and ought to retire. Can you tell me what ought to be done? Yours truly, Booker T. Washington TLpS Con. 3 BTW Papers DLC. ~ Henry Smith Pritchett (~8~7-~939), an astronomer, was director of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (~ 7-~goo) and president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (~90~906). In 1906 he became president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, serving until 1930. 2 George Mellen Prentiss King, a teacher at Virginia Union University and former president of Wayland Seminary, which BTW had attended about 1877, wrote to BTW on Feb. :7, 1906, asking if he were eligible Or a Carnegie pension, as he had taught since 1867 and was seventy-three years old. BTW undertook to help him, and at first the signs were favorable. Pritchett found King ineligible, however, because he was a Baptist connected with a Baptist institution. King protested that he was never sectarian in his teachings or in his interest in black education. He tried again in 1908 with the encouragement of BTW and Charles At. Eliot, and in an interview with Pritchett asked to be made an exception to the ban on sectarian teachers. Pritchett was noncommital, however, and the Carnegie Foundation board rejected the request. Undaunted or desperate, King applied a third time. Early in ,9~3 BTW wrote King in a ''wholly confidential'' letter that, while the Carnegie Foundation could not break its rule, Carnegie's secretary, James Bertram, had over the years become personally interested in King's case, and at Bertram's suggestion BTW wrote Carnegie asking him to add King's name to his private pension list. Carnegie was now so old, however, that BTW's letter had to wait for many days in his office before it was placed before him. ''The suspense has been rather trying to my worn nerves,', King commented. Finally, on Jan. 3~, 19~3, came word that Carnegie had settled a pension of $70 a month on King. (King to BTW, Feb. z7, Mar. 3~, 1906, Con. 325; BTW to King, Feb. 22, 1908, Con. 375; King to BTW, July 7, 1908, Con. 375; King to 13TW, Jan. I, Jan. 28, Feb. I, 19~3, Con. 480; BTW to King, Jan. 2, 19~3, Con. 480, BTW Papers, DLC.) To Everett William IJorclt ''Tuskegee, AIa.] Larch 2 I, 1906 My dear Sir: I am glad that you have written as you have in regard to the Porto Rican students. I have taken up the matter with Major Ramsey who is in charge of the young men, and Miss lane E. Clark who is in charge of the girls, and Miss Clark has already written you. Enclosed I send you Major Ramsey's report. 554