Part 3 (1/2)
”The proposed change ireat a concession to the widely prevalent opinion that the negro is, and in the nature of the case must be, better fitted for ue also that the new departure tends to foster materialistic notions of the value of education, the main object of which should be the ennoblement of the worker rather than the production of ain, the surprising success in so thethe opinions of many of the most influential people in the South as to the capacity of the negro, and to do anything which would ade schools less extensive, or less thorough, will push hiround”
Still further, we are exhorted to remember that ”leaders qualified to hold their own in the sharp coreatest, need of the coloured race in this country
Over wide areas , bitter sectarians, and the most determined opponents of every kind of improvement So, too, the lack of lawyers, editors and physicians of sufficiently broad and thorough training to be able to defend their weaker brethren against designers or incapable advisers is a very discouraging feature of the situation The negroes do not, as a rule, seek the leadershi+p or counsel of coion or of business, hence the greater need of well-qualified men of their own race”
It need hardly be e the cause of industrial education, as a means best calculated to raise the coloured race, are quite as earnest in their desire for negroes to advance to higher culture when exceptional capacity shows itself In the nature of things, however, this higher culture can be extended only to a co to those who are unable to push their way so far, and yet are ai scholars, Mr Powell adds:--
”If they had the industrial education now given in soht support the decent homes of their ohich would be a much-needed exa worthy to be called horo If these higher schools should furnish this industrial training, as so to do, nine-tenths, or, in many cases, nineteen-twentieths, of the pupils who never finish even the gra for the rest of their lives like hus instead of like beasts”
The fact is, that the industrial training is not only beco what the coloured people ely tothem in a situation in which they can pay their oay instead of receiving outside aid Then, while the negroes have splendid capacities for service, there is surely no other people who so greatly need to be nity of labour As Mr Powell further says:--
”It was one of the greatest evils of slavery thatThis was especially mischievous in its effects on the poor whites The South is only slowly co can be qualified for good society In many of the industrial schools already established, students are beginning to take pride in their command of tools, in their well-planned and executed e, the enlarged and varied products, and the is of the farms attached to these schools The ability to plan or build a church, a schoolhouse, or a dwelling, or to carry on a farives a ht in all struggling communities A teacher, minister or physician could hardly have, aside from his mental and moral qualities, a more effective passport to the confidence and respect of coloured people”
It ell both for hiuidance and education, that Booker Washi+ngton harboured the notions he did concerning the worth of labour Anyone who had visited the institution he was building up at Tuskegee, during the first and second year of its struggling existence, would have seen that if the work eventually succeeded order would have to be brought out of chaos
This was es connected with the daily life of the students on the estate; but beyond that the hereditary prejudices of the students and their family connections had to be overcome There seems to have been a deeply rooted opinion that, if school learning did not lift a man up above the necessity to labour, it was hardly worth having Parents and students alike tenaciously held this notion, so that, besides looking after his growing institute, Booker Washi+ngton had to travel about the State of Alabama to show that such prejudices were no less false than enerally be regarded as his own prejudices, but, coive it practical expression
When buildings had to be put up on the estate, he took care that none save the students the the the clay, to make and burn the bricks that were needed; and it was only after three dis to form a kiln on scientific principles that this enterprise, which de labour, was croith success As was to be expected, so such experience; but those who persevered and conquered with their leader at last found thethened, rather than injured, by the difficulties which they had been enabled to conquer At the present tiee are competent to turn out 100,000 bricks of superior quality a round are their oork The latest addition in this departift of Mr Andrew Carnegie, which, in the _Southern Letter_ of Dece rushed to coie 4000, and when finished there was already a large collection of books waiting to be placed on its shelves
In proportion as the students increased in the early days of the Tuskegee Institute, there cas and eneral outlay It was decided to put up aat a cost of 2000, and in order to raise ood deal of travelling as a collector He found the rich quite willing to respond in a handsome hen his needs becae gifts, the ifts of commonplace people have from the first been its mainstay Practically he was introduced to the people of the Northern States by General Ar tour On this and other occasions so adventures were met with, and all tended to show that hard work, perseverance and freedoround, while in a providential way all things seeton had the gift of being able to iy and enthusiasenerally came round to see in what direction their best interests lay A wholesohout the institution, and thus, while being qualified to become instructors of their fellows of the coloured race, the students learned to love and to respect their leader
CHAPTER VIII
SOME ACTUAL RESULTS--POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS
In the ordinary sense, neither General Arton would have been put down as a statesman; but, of course, each had his own individual sentiments as a citizen of the Republic Thus each ell aware that both the North and the South had to deal with a population problem of an exceptionally difficult kind The North had an unceasing tide of foreign iro population, which appeared to be coeneration General Are-hearted a friend of the coloured race as could have been found, and he appears to have protested against ”either coddling the blacks or ha the whites”
on the part of the North In an article in _The International Monthly_ on the Southern question, Mr Edward P Clark tells us that General Arned and administered in the interest of the blacks, and Federal Education Laws, appropriating ro could never become an ordinary citizen until he should cease to be the 'ward of the nation'” Booker Washi+ngton appears to hold views on this ree_:--
”General Arro that he was discouraged and even prevented fro He condemned unfair ht and should be left to local public sentiislation, like the recent proposition in Georgia to disfranchise the black roes in his own State of Alaba the chief end of life The keynote of the advice given by both of these leaders to the negro always has been to overnhbour to recognise his right to such share when that ti athe only ord of the Northern Republican politician for the negro 'Be a e to hitons”
Mr Clark adds this cheerful note:--
”It is easy enough to e and injustice upon the Southern blacks, so long and glooarding the future The most hopeful feature of the situation is the fact that those friends and charo who have studied the question rown s would work out right
General Arrows more hopeful every year Outsiders may well feel that there is no occasion for despair when the voice of cheer is heard from the very heart of the Black Belt”
We learn froham, in _The Outlook_ of New York (April 12, 1902), that Booker Washi+ngton is a trustee of the Calhoun Coloured School in Lowndes County, a part of the Black Belt in Alabareatly outnumber the whites The school may possibly take its name from the family of John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850), a well-remembered statesman of the Republic, as Vice-President 1825-1832; an unco defender of slavery, and propounder of the political doctrine of Nullification--the rejection of any State of any Act which was judged to be unconstitutional The students in the Calhoun School receive just such an industrial education as would be given at Haee; but to us the institution is the more noteworthy because it has become identified with a kind of land- consequences, so far as the coloured race is concerned Practically, the school is an illustration of the way in which those who have been trained at Haee, in turn becohaland--one fro a school-bell ten years ago on the old Shelby plantation in Lowndes County, siet into the Black Belt, to identify thehbours, to know the people at first hand, and then to meet the hu the people to help the the largest proportion of blacks to whites The average ratio for the seventeen counties in Alabama's cotton-belt is less than three to one In Lowndes County in 1892 the ratio was seven to one--28,000 to 4000 This norance and poverty--a county likely to be Africanised if it could not be Americanised”
The school at Calhoun had 300 students, and its land extended over 100 acres As there were such great opportunities, if the right means were taken to secure thes for their students in the county instead of their being obliged to seek uncertain employment in the distance Why not buy land and divide it into sroes could purchase for their own? That would be to show practical sympathy with the native senti that wouldn't die; your wine to live”
That idea gained favour; it was strictly in accordance with the negro's econoramme; and thus, when a plantation of nearly 1100 acres was purchased and was divided into over twenty farms, the enterprise ell in hand In time other estates were purchased; the movement, which is favoured by the whites and ex-planters, is so extremely popular with the blacks that ”one o towards his farht be expected, all this has not been carried out without there being soement, but, on the whole, the ham adds:--
”On the econo a plantation at wholesale price, and breaking up the plantation into sroup ofrent for a terriculture or intensive far, also sharp, individual responsibility of buyer, plus fahbourhood The plantation, with its 'quarters' and renters and croppers, who 'stay' to make and pick crops, but have no home--the plantation, the old, before-the-war, econohbourhood of farht set on the hill”