Out of the Mud

Meharry Medical College of Nashville is rated A by the American Medical Association, and proud of it. It is the only U. S. school of medicine, dentistry and nursing which is exclusively for Negroes. One day, before the Civil War, one of the Meharry brothers was carting grist from the mill to his midwestern farm, when his wagon bogged down in the mud. A Negro living nearby went to his rescue, but night fell on an unbudged wagon. So Meharry accepted the Negro's offer of shelter in his hut. Next morning they freed the wagon. Said the pious farmer to his helper: "I have no money to repay your great kindness. But I hope some day to be able to do something for you and your people." There were five Meharry brothers: Alexander, Hugh, Samuel, Jesse and David -- all prosperous farmers or preachers, all pious Methodists, all filled with Abolitionist zeal.

After the Civil War the brothers pooled their resources, gave some $30,000 to the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to train Negro physicians. The Society handed over the money to Central Tennessee College (Negro), which turned out its first basement-taught class of five Negro doctors in 1877. Their teacher was lean, lanky George Whipple Hubbard, who came from New Hampshire with the Union Army and a carpetbagful of good Methodist intentions. He was soon joined by a onetime Confederate Army surgeon, J. W. Sneed. Nashville ostracized both white men for years.

Hubbard headed the school for almost 45 years, until his white beard grew down to his knees. When he "resigned" at 80 in 1921, Meharry Medical College was low in prestige and standards, even lower in endowment ($50,000). Meharry's next president, John James Mullowney, also a white man, rejuvenated the college, raised its academic standards (thereby reducing enrollment) and won its shining "A" from the A. M. A. in 1923. The college reached maturity in 1931, when its present modern classrooms and laboratories were opened.

The present plant, costing $2,200,000, was the gift of the Rockefeller General Education Board, Rosenwald Fund, George Eastman, Edward S. Harkness, citizens of Nashville, alumni and faculty.

Today Meharry has 277 undergraduates (including 40 women). Students come mostly from Tennessee and Texas, occasionally from Trinidad, Jamaica, Liberia.

Over half of the Negro medical students being trained in Class A medical schools in the U. S. are Meharry students, and 2,771 of its graduates are practicing medicine, dentistry and nursing in 37 States. Meharry turns out many a good small-town general practitioner. Typical is the young graduate who in 1932 arrived in Fayetteville, Tenn. with bottles of paregoric and liniment, a roll of gauze, pair of scissors, $1 cash, a diploma. In a short time he established a small hospital, equipped his office with X-ray and fluoroscope, provided a diagnostic service never before available to Negroes in the county.

Last week Meharry College was worried. The Rockefeller General Education Board, now dissolving as its funds are being spent, will no longer make its annual gift of $160,000, which has been Meharry's major source of income. But famed educator Dr. Abraham Flexner announced that, if Meharry raises $2,300,000, the Board will add $3,700,000 to its present $800,000 endowment. Sponsors of Meharry's fund-raising campaign include Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt. Meharry's President Edward Lewis Turner would like to meet five more Meharry brothers, this time to help the college out of financial mud.

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