Part 26 (2/2)

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_, p 117]

[Footnote 4: Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p 309; and Coffin, _Re these facts concerning the manual labor system of education, the student of education sees that it was not generally successful

This ht say that colored people were not desired in the higher pursuits of labor and that their preparation for such vocations never received the support of the rank and file of the Negroes of the North They saw then, as they often do now, the see themselves for occupations which they apparently had no chance to follow Moreover, bright freedmen were not at first attracted to roes who triumphed over slavery and es hoped to enter the higher walks of life Only a few of the race had the foresight of the advocates of industrial training The htened class desired that they be no longer considered as ”persons occupying a hest development of man”[1]

Furthermore, bitterly as soly sympathized with the oppressed, they were loath to support a policy which they believed was fatal to their econos of the Third Annual Convention_, etc, p 25]

[Footnote 2: _The Fifth Report of the Alass, _The Life and Times of_, p 248]

The chief reason for the failure of the new educational policy was that the ers of the manual labor schools made the mistakes often committed by promoters of industrial education of our day At first they proceeded on the presumption that one could obtain a classical education while learning a trade and at the same time earn sufficient to support hiers of industrial schools have not yet learned that students cannot produce articles for market The best we can expect froood apprentice

Another handicap was that at that time conditions were seldom sufficiently favorable to enable the eh from students' work to compensate for the maintenance of the youth at a manual labor school Besides, such a school could not be far-reaching in its results because it could not be so conducted as to accoe in its aiht have been e urban communities, but the aim of their advocates was to establish thericultural training could be had, and where students would not be corrupted by the vices of the city

It was equally unfortunate that the teachers ere chosen to carry out this educational policy lacked the preparation adequate to their task They had any a as to theof this new education They failed to unite the qualifications for both the industrial and academic instruction It was the fault that we find to-day in our industrial schools Those ere responsible for the literary training knew little of and cared still less for the work in mechanic arts, and those ere employed to teach trades seldom had sufficient education to impart what they knew The students, too, in their efforts to pursue these uncorrelated courses seldo roes were equipped for higher service in the manual labor schools

Statistics of 1850 and 1860 show that there was an increase in the number of colored mechanics, especially in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Columbus, the Western Reserve, and Canada[1] But this was probably due to the decreasing prejudice of the local whitefro[2]

[Footnote 1: Clarke, _Present Condition of the Free People of Color of the United States_, 1859, pp 9, 10, 11, 13, and 29]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_, pp 9, 10, and 23]

Schools of this kind tended gradually to abandon the idea of co such provisions es were founded as s are few and insignificant Oberlin, which was once operated on this basis, still retains the seal of ”Learning and Labor,” with a college building in the foreground and a field of grain in the distance A number of our institutions have recitations now in the forenoon that students may devote the afternoon to labor In some schools Monday instead of Saturday is the open day of the week because this ash-day for the es Even after the Civil War so vacation in the winter instead of the summer because the latter was the time for manual labor The people of our day know little about this unsuccessful system

It is evident, therefore, that the leaders who had up to that time dictated the policy of the social betterment of the colored people had failed to find the key to the situation This task fell to the lot of Frederick Douglass, iser in his generation than most of his contereatest leverage for the elevation of the colored people Douglass was given an opportunity to bring his ideas before the public on the occasion of a visit to Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe She was then preparing to go to England in response to an invitation from her admirers, ere anxious to see this faive her a testie sulass's views as to how it could be most profitably spent for the advancement of the free people of color She was especially interested in those who had becouest that several had suggested the establishment of an educational institution pure and simple, but that she had not been able to concur with the that it would be better to open an industrial school Douglass was opposed both to the establishested, and to that of an ordinary industrial school where pupils shouldan education in books” He desiredcall the vocational school, ”a series of workshops where colored men could learn some of the handicrafts, learn to work in iron, wood, and leather, while incidentally acquiring a plain English education”[1]

[Footnote 1: Douglass, _The Life and Tilass's leadershi+p the er to be subsidiary to conventional education

Just the reverse was true Moreover, it was not to be entrusted to individuals operating on a ser scope The airoes so articulate with their needs as to i that despite the successful endeavors of her education that the race was still kept in penury, Douglass believed that by reconstructing their educational policy the friends of the race could teach the colored people to help theht, was the cause of all evil to the blacks, ”for poverty kept theraded” The deliverance from these evils, he contended, could be effected not by such a fancied or artificial elevation as the mere diffusion of information by institutions beyond the iroes, as he saw it, resulted directly fro the opportunity to learn trades, and frolass deplored the fact that evenaway from the colored people Under the caption of ”Learn Trades or Starve,” he tried to drive home the truth that if the free people of color did not soon heed his advice, foreigners then ie numbers would elbow them froins with the lesson and ends with the lesson that colored men must find new employments, new modes of usefulness to society, or that theywants to which their condition is bringing thelass, _The Life and Tiher education and looked forward to that stage in the developes could contribute to their progress He kneever, that it was foolish to think that persons accustole leap from their low condition reach that of professional ent upon laying a foundation in things radations of agriculture and the her institutions then open to the colored people would be adequate to the task of providing for them all the professional her education so far as the schools and colleges in the free States were concerned would increase quite in proportion to the future needs of the race

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_, p 249]

Douglass deplored the fact that education and eenius like Russworm, Garnett, Ward, or Crummell appeared, the so-called friends of the race reached the conclusion that he could better serve his race elsewhere Seeing thehtof Negroes merely to aid the colonization sche on the situation at home unless its promoters could transplant the majority of the free people of color The aim then should be not to transplant the race but to adopt a policy such as he had proposed to elevate it in the United States[1]

[Footnote 1: Douglass, _The Life and Tiht, would disprove the so-called roes He believed that the blacks should show by action that they were equal to the whites rather than depend on the defense of friends who based their arguments not on facts but on certain adenius of the Negroes he hoped that in the establishment of this institution they would have an opportunity for development In it he saw a benefit not only to the free colored people of the North, but also to the slaves The strongest argument used by the slaveholder in defense of his precious institution was the low condition of the free people of color of the North Re them and you will hasten the liberation of the slaves The best refutation of the proslavery argu, thrifty, and intelligent free black population”[1] An ele care of vocational teachers

[Footnote 1: Douglass, _The Life and Tilass this proposition did not descend to the plane of estion Audiences which he addressed fro for the colored people facilities of practical education[1] The columns of his paper rendered the cause noble service He entered upon the advocacy of it with all the zeal of an educational refor to sho this policy would please all concerned Anxious fathers whose minds had been exercised by the inquiry as to what to do with their sons would welcoht trades It would be in line with the ”eroes'

trans-Atlantic friends” Aitate the mind on slavery or to destroy the Union ”It could not be tortured into a cause for hard words by the Aood of all classes would see in the effort ”an excellent motive, a benevolent object, te free people of color heeded this ates asselass secured a warm endorsement of his plan in eloquent speeches and resolutions passed by the convention

[Footnote 1: _African Repository_, vol xxix, p 136]

[Footnote 2: Douglass, _Life and Tireat enterprise, like all others, was soon to encounter opposition Mrs Stoas attacked as soliciting money abroad for her own private use So bitter were these proslavery diatribes that Henry Ward Beecher and Frederick Douglass had soners had no grounds for this vicious accusation Further up the matter with Mrs Stowe after her return to the United States, Douglass was disappointed to learn that she had abandoned her plan to found a vocational institution