TABLE 5.-Number of normal students and graduates in 1895–9.

TABLE 6.-Colored professional students and graduates in 1895–96.

the industries in the South, as he already is in the North. Even in slavery he was taught carpentering, blacksmithing, and kindred mechanical trades. If he abandon this field, he will close the avenues of employment to himself and drift into a condition of uselessness. It will be a bad thing for the race if it allows itself to be driven out of every industry upon which its living depends, and is satisfied with book learning alone, in which it is naturally at a great disadvantage in competition with the whites, if for no other reason because the latter has had the advantage of centuries of schooling. It will be giving up the field where, because of his strength, the negro can compete most successfully for a field where he is at the greatest disadvantage.

"Professor Washington notes sadly the tendency of the negroes to neglect the very industry by which nine-tenths of them make their living—farming. To the advocates of the higher education,' it is hardly worth while to teach the negro how to farm intelligently and profitably, although thousands of white youths are learning scientific agriculture; and it is actually pointed to with pride instead of sorrow that twenty negroes who receive a better education follow theology and law for one who follows agriculture, the profession with which his race has been connected for all time.

"We are glad to see that nearly all the colored men interviewed by us, and particularly those of Southern birth, agree with Professor Washington that what their race needs most is industrial education, rather than simple book learning. "They are right, and it is an auspicious sign to see them recognizing the potency of industry, and seeing the right road for the elevation of their race. The philanthropy of the North has given millions of dollars to the education of the colored The spirit of justice of the Southern people has given ten times as much. The negroes constitute so large a proportion of the population of the South that their prosperity and morality, even their health, affect the entire body politic. It is in negro sections of our cities where the first rules of sanitation are defied that are bred the diseases which sweep through the white residential districts and carry off thousands-victims of negro ignorance and neglect; and the moral atmosphere of these negro Ghettos more or less permeates the whole community.

race.

"A few months ago the American Economic Association issued among its publications, The Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, by Frederick L. Hoffman, F.S. S., statistician of the Prudential Insurance Company of America. It is the best book yet issued on the subject, the fruit of years of close study of the subject and absolutely free of bias; yet the conclusion Mr. Hoffman reached was: "Instead of making the race more independent, modern educational and philanthropic efforts have succeeded in making it even more dependent on the white race at the present time than it was previous to education. It remains to be seen how far a knowledge of the facts about its own diminishing vitality, low state of morality, and economic efficiency will stimulate the race in adopting a higher standard. Unless a change takes place, a scheme that will strike at the fundamental errors that underlie the conduct of the higher race toward the lower, the gradual extinction (of the negro) is only a question of time.'

"Unless the negro race can make a proper place for itself, unless it can find work to do for which it is fitted, it will meet, Mr. Hoffman predicts, the same fate as every other colored race coming into conflict with the Anglo-Saxon-extinction. The preachers and the lawyers and the colored editors will not prevent this, but those who render the negroes industrially independent, find them work to do, improve their material condition, and with that improvement bring about higher spirit of self-confidence and morality.

"The child must be taught to stand before it tries running. The negro is in his infancy as a free man. He should have solid foundations of education first, and open the industries to his race, instead of depending too much on the higher classical education. There has been a disposition of late by many to declare that education is doing the negro more harm than good. The Senate Labor Committee found a number of witnesses to testify to that effect. The Chattanooga Tradesman, after a searching inquiry of the employers of colored labor, learned from them that education generally detracted from a negro's efficiency. We know to the contrary from the experience of every race that this can not be so, and is no more true of the negro than of the white man. It is not education that is causing any lack of efficiency, but the kind of education. It should, for the present at least, be mainly industrial, intended to advance the condition of the negro, to assure him work, and to improve his material status. Whether it will be well afterwards to establish higher universities for the colored race, we may leave to time to determine. We should give him a chance now to improve and raise himself. To give him a classical education in his present condition is like giving a stone to him who asks for bread.

TABLE 7.-Industrial training of colored students in 1895-96.

Total

West Virginia

305 685 990
569 899 1,468
67 119 186

54

115

15

162

85 9

3

0 17

30442

63 63 25 32

0

11

5085

761

76

183 808 213

39

State.

4, 476, 7, 865, 12, 341 1, 098 1, 821 254 165 257 126 327 223 165 565 6, 3022, 4551,677

TABLE 8.-Financial summary of the 178 colored schools.

"The Times-Democrat gives below interviews with the bishops of the African Methodist Church, now in this city, with the presidents of the several colored colleges in New Orleans, the president of the Tuskegee (Ala.) Normal and Industrial Institute, and with a number of the more prominent representative colored men of New Orleans interested in the matter of education. The Times-Democrat has sought in these interviews to shed some light on the matter of the education of the negro-a subject that is attracting great attention just now, and is being earnestly and extensively discussed pro and con.

"The questions propounded to the presidents of the several colored colleges were as follows:

"1. How many pupils do you graduate each year?

"2. What are these young men and women fitted for when they leave your institutions?

"3. Have you any knowledge of what becomes of them after leaving your care? "4. Can you make any estimate as to what percentage of them secure useful and lucrative occupations?

5. What is your candid opinion, after years of experience, as to the advisability of the higher education of the negro, i. e., a classical education, as opposed to an industrial or mechanical education?

The last question, it will be seen, is the most important, and is the one upon which light is most sought. A very large sum of money is being expended each year on the education of the negro, and large educational funds are being created for their benefit. It is, therefore, important to know what is being accomplished in the way of his education, and what system is yielding the best fruit. Are those colleges which confine themselves mainly to a classical education doing the most good, or those mainly employed in turning the colored youth to industrial pursuits? A full and complete answer to this question will probably largely influence future donations. It is to secure such an answer that the Times-Democrat has interviewed those who, from their position as the heads of leading colored colleges or from their association with or knowledge of the negro, are best able to speak authoritatively on this matter.

"BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

"TUSKEGEE, ALA., January 21.

"To the Editor of the Times-Democrat: "The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute graduates from forty to fiftyfive young men and women each year from its industrial and literature departments. When these men and women graduate they are fitted to become teachers in the public schools or to work at various trades or industries, such as carpentry, wheelwrighting, blacksmithing, foundry work, machinists, tinsmiths, harness making, shoemaking, printing, farming, dairying, horticulture, stock raising, house painting, brick making, brick masonry, plastering, mattress making, tailoring, sewing, millinery work, laundering, general housekeeping, cooking, and nursing.

"We have a definite plan of keeping closely up with the work accomplished by our graduates after they leave us. In fact, one teacher devotes a large portion of his time to the work of visiting our graduates and in keeping up in various ways with the work done by them. It is safe in saying at least 90 per cent of those who graduate from this institution secure useful and lucrative positions. In fact, most of them are usually engaged before they graduate. Especially is this true of those who graduate from our various industrial departments. So great is the demand from all parts of the South for our graduates who understand the various industrial pursuits, especially agriculture, dairying, carpentry, etc., that we can not begin to supply this demand. Only this week we received applications from two prominent white men, one in Florida and another in Alabama, for men to take charge of large modern dairy establishments.

“I have never been opposed to what is called the higher education of the negro, but after years of experience I am convinced that, whether the negro receives much or little education, whether it be called high or low, we have reached the point in our development where a larger proportion of those who are educated should, while they are receiving their education or after they have received it, be taught to connect their education with some industrial pursuit. To the masses of the negroes in our present condition intellectual training means little except as the negro can use that education along industrial lines in securing for himself an independent position in the industrial world. There should be a more vital and practical connection between the negro's educated brain and his opportunity for

ED 96-66*

earning an independent living. I do not mean to say that all educated colored men should have industrial training, for we need colored men in the professions. By reason of our failure to give more attention to industrial development we are running the risk of losing the most valuable thing which we got out of slavery. American slavery, as bad as it was, made the Southern white men do business with the negro for two hundred and fifty years. If a white man wanted a house built or a suit of clothes made during slavery, he consulted a negro about the building of that house or the making of those clothes. Thus the two races for two hundred and fifty years were brought into business contact, which left the negro at the close of the war in possession of all the skilled labor, as well as other lines of industry in the South.

"The question which is now pressing upon us more and more each year is, 'Can we hold on to this skilled labor in the face of a large number of men and women of other races from Europe and from the North and West who are continually coming into the South?' These foreigners are not only educated in their brains, but are skilled in their hands. In other words, they have brains coupled with skilled hands, and as a result we are forced more and more every day to compete with these foreigners.

"Heretofore we have left this competition almost wholly to the ignorant men and women who learned their trades during slavery. I claim that a large proportion of the colored men and women who are educated in the colleges should take up industrial pursuits, should start brick yards, steam laundries, become contractors, become trained nurses, intelligent farmers, so that we will not be driven out of every industry on which our life depends. Mere book education not coupled with industrial training too often takes the young man from the farm and makes him yield to the temptation of trying to earn a living in a city by the use of his wits.

"Notwithstanding the fact that nine-tenths of the colored people in the Gulf States earn their living by agriculture in some form, if we leave out what has been done by Hampton and Tuskegee we have done almost nothing in educating the people in the very industry in which they must earn their living. I claim that we should so educate the young colored man that he will not leave the farin, but will return to the farm after he has secured his education, and show his father and mother how, by the use of improved machinery, and by properly enriching the land, they can raise 50 bushels of corn on an acre of land where only 15 bushels were growing before. When a negro owns and cultivates the best farm and is the largest taxpayer in his county, his white neighbors will not object very long to his voting, and having that vote honestly counted.

"BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

"EDWARD CUSHING MITCHELL.

"President Edward Cushing Mitchell, A. M., D. D., of Leland University, entertains very pronounced views regarding the importance of a higher education for the colored race. In this connection he pointed out that no people had ever taken rank among the civilized nations of the earth without colleges which were the fountains of learning and of a higher civilization. The colleges had always preceded the common-school systems, which were really the outgrowth of the colleges. This country had suddenly found within its borders a new nation, a people having a population of about 8,000,000 admitted to citizenship. The question was as to whether this vast population should be subjected to the same influences which had made a great nation of the American people or left to grope in the darkness of semisavagery. To say that the negro did not need the same educational advantages which had raised the white American to his present moral and intellectual status was to assume a moral and intellectual superiority for the African race. "In answer to a question as to the desirability of industrial education for the negro in lieu of the higher collegiate course. Dr. Mitchell referred the questioner to the following extract from one of his public utterances as an explicit expression of his views on the subject:

"What shall we say now about the relation of industrial training to our prob lem? Industrial training is good and useful to some persons, if they can afford time to take it. But in its application to the negro, several facts should be clearly understood.

"1. It appears not to be generally known in the North that in the South all trades and occupations are open to the negro, and always have been. Before the war slaves were taught mechanic arts, because they thereby became more profitable to their masters. And now every village has its negro mechanics. who are patronized both by white and colored employers, and any who wish to learn trades can do so.