contributed most to the permanent prosperity of the South, I should
unhesitatingly answer, Christian charity--that charity which has
exhibited itself not only in the giving of gifts, not only in the
lavish expenditure of immense sums for the elevation of the degraded
masses; but by its prayers, by its sentiments promptly and fearlessly
expressed against wrong, by its patient endurance, and by its
individual sacrifices made in a field which could promise but little
more to the laborer than the reward of conscience for having served
at a critical period his country and his kind. It is just nineteen
years since the surrender at Appomattox, nineteen short years. But
what events have crowded into that brief period! What stupendous
changes have been wrought within that time in American society,
especially in Southern society!--changes as radical in their nature
as they will be far-reaching in their consequences. It is true that
these changes have not always been accompanied by peace and quiet and
good feeling. This was hardly to be expected. There have been
bloodshed and murders. There have been individual sufferings.
Thousands have perished by violence and privation. But what, after
all, are the sufferings of the thousands compared with the freedom of
the millions, and all the possibilities which that freedom grants?
And whatever may have been the sufferings, it is safe, I think, to
say that they would have been multiplied many times, had it not been
for the tireless energies of the Christian churches.
The victories of peace are more glorious than those of war, it is
said. I believe it; for they are generally more difficult to achieve.
It is easier by far to kill a man than to change his opinions. It is
easier by far to overrun a country than to root out of the hearts of
its inhabitants their long cherished hatreds and prejudices. This
requires time. This requires patience. This requires sacrifice. This
requires forbearance and love. Hence it has ever been the lot of
Christianity to follow in the track of armies, and reconquer that
which was said to be conquered. Caesar with invincible legions may
carry Roman eagles into the very heart of Britain; but the proper
subjugation of that island dates from the time when Pope Gregory the
First sent St. Augustine and forty monks to preach the gospel to
those fierce, wild, uncouth barbarians. And so, when the victorious
army of the North was passing in review before President Johnson in
the streets of Washington, another army vastly inferior in numbers,
imbued with a different spirit, and armed with no other weapons than
the Bible and the spelling book, was marching under the eye of God
down into this very field from which Grant and Sherman had but
recently withdrawn. Silently came they into the field. There was no
heralding of their approach, no display. Hopefully came they into the
field, notwithstanding they knew that to the majority of the people
their presence would be obnoxious. They came with faith in God and
love for man. They came impelled by Christian duty and patriotism to
wage a new war against the more deadly enemies of the
republic--ignorance and vice.
It is not necessary; nor is it desirable to dwell here on the state
of the South at that time. It could but present a picture dark and
confused at the best. It is not necessary to remind you here of the
bitter opposition which existed then to negro education, an
opposition which only too often manifested itself in acts of violence
and brutality. Nor need I remind you here of the hatred and contempt
that was heaped upon the so called "nigger teacher." This is history,
known and read of all men. Pleasanter by far will it be, and
certainly appropriate on this good Thanksgiving Day, to revert for a
few moments to the splendid achievements, under God, of these
faithful, Christian workers.
Their work, as we have said, was begun in confusion; but out of chaos
they have brought order, out of darkness light. Previous to the
emancipation not more than 30,000 colored persons in all these United
States could read and write. To-day, according to the statement of
Commissioner Orr, of this State, a statement verified by statistics,
fully 1,000,000 colored children are in the schools. I say, previous
to the emancipation, not more than 30,000 colored persons could read
and write. To-day, according to the last report of the society under
whose auspices I have been laboring for many years, that society
alone has given instruction to 80,000 persons, and these in turn to
tens of thousands more. This number could, of course, be greatly
swelled by the figures which could be shown by the
Congregationalists, Baptists and Presbyterians, who for these many
years have been laboring with equal patience, zeal and love, for the
advancement of mankind.
There are some, however, who think that there has not been enough
accomplished in these years, for the time, the money and the energy
spent. Well, perhaps there has not. But suppose these various
societies had accomplished, up to this time, nothing more than the
teaching of these thousands simply how to read and write, who could
estimate the value of the achievement? Who could measure the scope of
its influence and tell where that influence will end! When you have
once taught a man to read you have placed in his hands the key with
which he may--if he be industrious--unlock all the stores of
knowledge in his own language. When you have once taught a man to
read you have opened up to him unlimited possibilities, and laid the
foundations for a broad and liberal culture. When you have once
taught a man to read you have introduced him into the best society of
all the ages; you have made him the companion of Shakespeare, Milton
and Bunyan; of Bacon and of Burke; of Tennyson, Longfellow, Bryant
and Emerson; and you have quite unfitted him for slavery. When years
ago a kind mistress, in the State of Maryland, undertook to teach a
little slave boy to read, little did she think that she was awakening
aspirations never again to be quenched; little did she dream that she
was unchaining extraordinary powers, and kindling the first fires of
eloquence in the soul of a Douglass. The alphabet was made for
freemen. It is the weapon most dreaded by tyrants. When Martin Luther
would break most effectually and for all time the papal yoke from the
neck of Germany, he translated the Bible and set the people to
reading. I am thankful to-day for the pen of Lincoln and for the
sword of Grant; but more thankful by far for the patient "school
ma'am" who taught the negro his letters, and set a million of us to
reading.
* * * * *
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. III.--WHAT THE A. M. A. IS DOING.
BY SUPT. ALBERT SALISBURY.
In two previous articles (Oct. and Nov., 1884) I have set forth the
general aspects of Industrial Education and its relations to a
missionary work like that of the American Missionary Association. I
wish now to set forth, briefly, the practical possibilities and the
present undertakings of the Association in this line.
Among all the industrial schools of this continent, Hampton Institute
stands easily first in the amount of invested capital, or plant, and
in the variety and extent of its operations. It is, moreover, unique;
there is nothing else like it, and perhaps never will be, either in
its scope or in the genius which marks its administration. To give
any adequate account of the work in actual operation there would
occupy all the space at my command.
The A. M. A. can not attempt to duplicate Hampton Institute; it has
neither the means nor the man for such an undertaking.
I therefore pass to the consideration of what it is possible for us
to do on our wider field in the present and near future. The
industrial training which can be given by the A. M. A. schools is
necessarily limited, both by financial and other considerations, not
only in extent but also in variety. The ways in which we can wisely
make effort seem to be as follows: 1. _Agriculture_, which is to be,
after all, the occupation of the great majority of the people for
whom we are laboring. In this, we may well give somewhat of
theoretical instruction through lectures and even text-books; but
more important than this, and not incompatible with it, is that
effective teaching which comes by working out the practical object
lesson of a thoroughly well tilled farm, as is done at Hampton, and
to a less degree, as yet, at Tougaloo and Talladega. In this a
two-fold purpose is served. Employment is given to needy students,
and practical education is at the same time given, with but partial
interruption of the progress of intellectual training.
But the idea of running school farms simply for the first-named end,
the giving of employment to students, was long ago abandoned. Student
labor is too costly, simply as service. It must be made thoroughly
educational in order to be justified. Fortunately, the style of
farming which is most truly educational is also most nearly
remunerative. Good tools, good live stock, and good tillage are the
indispensable factors in this sort of object lesson.
2. _Wood-working_, of which the principal branch is
carpentry--turning and carving occupying a minor place. This has an
advantage over agriculture, and also over the other trades, in the
greater ease with which it may be made a matter of class instruction.
Much can be accomplished in teaching the use and care of tools
without entering at all upon processes of manufacture. Thus, classes
numbering as high as twenty or twenty-five were taught during the
past year at Atlanta University. Classes are also under instruction
at Talladega College, Tougaloo University, and Lewis Institute
(Macon). Repairs and additions to the various buildings of the
several institutions furnish opportunity for practical application of
the instruction given at the benches of the class-room; and in the
course of time some lines of manufacture may also be found
practicable, varying in kind with the locality. Along with
wood-working, instruction in glazing would seem to be feasible, and
even in that most useful art, soldering.
3. _Blacksmithing._--There are many good blacksmiths among the older
colored men; and there is no reason, except lack of opportunity for
learning, why there should not be more among the rising generation.
In school shops it is possible to teach this trade successfully to
classes. One teacher can instruct from six to ten pupils at as many
forges, but the expense is greater than in teaching the use of
wood-working tools. There is an inevitable consumption of coal and of
metal--a serious loss unless some market can be found for simple
articles of handiwork. Instruction in this branch is quite limited,
though something is being done at Tougaloo, and more at the Santee
Indian school.
Wheelwrighting is fast becoming an obsolete art in the North. The
great factories have pushed the hand-made wagon out of the market. In
the South, however, there is still much need of capable wheelwrights
for the extensive repairs necessitated by the horrible roads--or
rather lack of roads.
4. _Tinning._--This is also limited in its possibilities. A market is
necessary for the disposal of products. Even a few pupils under a
competent instructor can turn off an inconvenient amount of tin-ware,
if storage proves to be its fate rather than sale; and schools are
always at a disadvantage in the market. A fair beginning has been
made in this branch at Tougaloo University.
5. _Printing._--If I were to name yet another branch of handiwork
which it is possible to carry on as an educational accessory, it
would be "the art preservative." The experience of A. M. A.
institutions in sundry attempts hitherto is not at all of an
encouraging sort; but this is very likely because they were not
managed as educational agencies, under careful and skillful
supervision. A start under the new method is being made at Fisk
University, with many points in favor of its success.
The reader is perhaps surprised that I have not named _shoe-making_
as one of the practicable branches, since it has so often been
incorporated into the industrial organization of various reformatory
institutions; but it no longer seems a feasible undertaking for an
industrial school of the modern type. The shoe-maker's occupation is
gone, except as he becomes a part of the mechanism of a great
factory, not making _shoes_, but confining himself to the simplest
elements of a shoe, cutting uppers or scraping soles. Moreover, there
is such competition and such depression in the shoe business as make
this trade too unprofitable for prosecution in connection with school
work.
6. _Drawing._--So far, I have been considering only manual training
for boys. But there is one branch of a true industrial training which
knows no sex. It is suitable and, when rightly considered, essential
for boys and girls alike. While visiting the St. Louis Manual
Training School two years ago, I said to Prof. Woodward, "What can we
of the missionary schools, with our financial limitations, do best in
this line of manual training?" He answered, "There is one thing that
you can do in any school: it costs little, needs no special
appliances or plant, and is the fundamental part of any industrial
training, _drawing_." And he was right so far as the utility of the
study is concerned. Drawing, not as a matter of picture-making, but
as a means of systematic training for eye and hand, a training to
accuracy and method, and as a vital help toward foremanship in any
trade, ought everywhere to be held as a necessary element of
industrial education. Some beginning in industrial drawing has been
made in all our institutions. But, in a work like ours, the lack of
special preparation on the part of most teachers, their insufficient
appreciation of and faith in the study, and the lack of close direct
supervision, are serious hindrances to complete success.
The range of industrial work for girls is less wide than that for
boys, and lies chiefly in the zone of home making and keeping.
1. _Sewing_ is the first subject of instruction. The generation of
women who came out of slavery knew nothing, and still know nothing,
of needle-work. And so in all our schools, even the day schools,
classes in plain sewing have long found a place; though of late the
work has been taken up more systematically, all the girls of certain
grades being held to the sewing classes as strictly as to reading or
writing. After plain sewing comes the cutting and making of garments,
the various forms of seductive "fancy work" being almost wholly
ignored.
In our exhibit at the Madison meeting of the National Educational
Association last summer were numbers of aprons, dresses, shirts,
etc., made by pupils, often of the primary grades; and one of the
most noticed specimens was a neatly darned stocking. Even darning
must be taught to these girls in school; there is no instructor at
home.
2. _Cooking_ is much more widely understood by the colored mothers.
Indeed, there is a sort of illusory tradition abroad that the negroes
are a race of cooks; though, according to my observation, nothing
could be farther from the truth. And cooking is only one part of
_domestic economy_. Of this art as a whole, the colored women are
densely ignorant. They know nothing of orderly housekeeping, of
marketing, or of economy in any true sense of the word.
In several of our schools--notably Le Moyne Institute at
Memphis--instruction in domestic economy, including cooking, is now
well systematized as a part of the course of study for girls. At
Atlanta University, a class of young women each year is inducted into
a full and careful knowledge of good housekeeping by what is called
the cottage plan, the girls doing their own housekeeping through the
year under the training of a cultivated house-mother.
Nor should it be forgotten that in every boarding school of the A. M.
A. the regular ongoing of the domestic work of the institution,
nearly all of which except the cooking and washing is done by the
students, furnishes no insignificant or ineffectual training in the
art of housekeeping.
8. _Nursing_ and the general care of the sick is also a branch in
which instruction and training are sadly needed by the colored women.
Few things are more pitiful than the condition of the sick among any
half-civilized people, with their caprices, their superstitions and
their irregularities. In this direction, Fisk University takes a
prominent place among our institutions, employing a professionally
trained woman who gives her whole time to the hygiene of the school
and the training of the students in health-preserving and
health-restoring.
It would have been easy to double the length of this article by going
more into details with respect to the industrial features in process
of incorporation into the work of all our leading institutions, and
their industrial influence, the "unconscious tuition" of industry
which they have come more and more to exert. Suffice it to add,
without hyperbole, that it is easy to _track_ these missionary
schools, to trace their influence by their results upon the home life
and domestic ambitions of the young people who have gone out from
them to the work of the world. And this influence is yet in its
beginnings.
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
* * * * *
THE OUTLOOK.
REV. W. C. POND.
With the beginning of a new fiscal year there came to me a deep sense
of dissatisfaction with the present status of our work--a sadness
which almost touched the borders of discouragement at the decrease in
attendance on our schools, and the lack of eager outreaching and
aggressive endeavor on the part of us all--Superintendent, Teachers
and Chinese helpers,--all alike. The methods, which had been so
strikingly efficient in years past, seemed to be failing us now. We
were settled down into them, as ruts; and, no matter how slow or hard
or fruitless our movements along the old line, it seemed impossible
to see what else to do, or how we could strike out into new paths, or
plan any material change in the ordering of our campaign.
Sometimes the question would arise; Is our work done? Has the
Restriction Act, which for the present diminishes so greatly the
incoming of fresh recruits for our schools, rung the knell of our
missionary success? But to this question only one answer was
possible. Even if, looking out from a stand-point of consummate
Calvinism, we should venture to decide that the Lord's elect among
the Chinese in California had all been gathered in, there were,
nevertheless, these little flocks of Christ's own sheep and lambs
already gathered that must not be left without a shepherd's care.
Surely there is a duty that we owe to these, and to leave them
untended in this wilderness would be to count ourselves in among the
goats on the left hand of the Judge.
But no Calvinism of any sort--and certainly not of our sort--gives us
any basis for such an unchristian decision. We cannot shelter behind
it, and think to retire with honor when we have as yet only
skirmished on the edges of the field. For the Chinese heathenism of
California remains to-day, so far as we can see, substantially a
solid mass, without any fissure, though not without a scar. Many
chips have been struck off from it, and for these we bless God; but
the rock-like hardness of the Chinese heart remains substantially
unbroken. Say that all our missions have reached, in the aggregate,
5,000 of these souls--there remain 65,000 virtually untouched.
Suppose that we could count 1,000 born of God in all the missions
(and this would be a large estimate) there remain 69,000 that are
still aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the
covenants of promise, without God and without hope in the world. To
penetrate, somehow, this Chinese wall of prejudice, conceit and
superstition, and pierce, with the sword of the spirit, the hearts
intrenched behind it--to reach, somehow, the myriads not reached, and
to bring them forth from the darkness that they love into the saving
light that now they hate--this was the problem. You can look at it. I
_have_ looked at it--till the sense of helplessness and uselessness
threw me down upon my knees with my heart next door to despair. But
there the still small voice was heard again, the voice of an
_infinite_ Saviour saying, "Be not afraid, only believe." "If ye have
faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say even to _this_
mountain, Remove hence, and it _shall remove_."
But with fresh courage, born of faith, came a conviction that some
change of method,--not as abandoning by any means our schools, but as
introducing new methods, breaking in upon an old and worn routine,
was indispensable. What it should be I could not tell. One could
conceive of several plans of operation, which would be beyond our
reach for lack of means, but to find the work and then the workers,
and still keep inside the line of safe expenditure--this called for a
wisdom which could come to _me_, at any rate, only from above. We
have been seeking this guidance. I say, "we," for I believe that
teachers and helpers have prayed with me for it. We expect it to
come. We venture to hope that we see it coming.
One token is the opening of new fields, especially at San Diego and
Tulare--experiments yet, but hopeful ones. Another token is that in
one, at least, of our helpers evangelistic power seems to appear. Not
without anxiety did I see him brought within the fascination of the
"Holiness Band" and the "Salvation Army," and my fears were not
groundless, as some minor symptoms in his spiritual life clearly
disclosed. But I believe that his Master and ours knew what was going
on and will bring him forth out of it all, unscathed and better
fitted for high service than he has ever been hitherto. At present
he is in Oroville. After being there less than a week he wrote, "God
has given me three souls--one of them at the meeting last night." And
later, Rev. Joseph Adams, pastor of our church there, wrote as
follows: "There is a very blessed work going on among the Chinese
here. After conference with Wong Ock I invited him to bring to my
house all the boys he thought were Christians. I fixed an evening
about ten days ago, and invited my church clerk and Dr. Read to be
present. Wong Ock came with eight boys. We were occupied with them
until nearly midnight. It was one of the most blessed meetings I have
had in this county. I examined them, through Wong Ock, as
interpreter, in relation to their conversion, how it was brought
about, and what was their present experience. Two professed to find
peace with God during the meeting. Their child-like faith and ready
acceptance of the statements and promises of the gospel were simply
delightful. Considering their former training, and the small
advantages of Christian knowledge, it was truly wonderful. My
brethren agreed with me, that beyond all dispute they exhibited a
glorious work of the spirit of God."
[Illustration: Class of Chinese girls]
A third token of approaching answers to our prayer I see in the
coming among us of Rev. D. D. Jones, who has been connected with our
South China Mission, under Rev. C. R. Hager of Hong Kong. The French
war has so disturbed the people among whom he was laboring, and, for
the present, so closed the doors to missionary service, that he has
seized the opportunity for a visit to us. He is well fitted for
street preaching, and seems to have the evangelistic spirit. By way
of experiment I have asked him to labor with us in this city for a
month or two--hoping, if the Lord accepts our endeavor, to have him
visit Sacramento, Marysville and other points. The beginnings of his
work are encouraging, and we venture to hope that fruit already
appears. We ask the readers of the _Missionary_ to add their requests
to ours, that these tokens may be what the cloud was, big as a man's
hand--precursor of glad out-pourings such as those in which Elijah
left the mount of conflict and of prayer.
* * * * *
CHILDREN'S PAGE.
* * * * *
LETTER FROM AN INDIAN BOY.
The letter given below was written by a Sioux Indian boy, whose
entire education has been gained in the three years he has now been
at Hampton Institute. It was written in acknowledgment of a Christmas
gift of ten dollars for the purchase of books for himself, sent by a
Sabbath-school class of boys in New York city.
HAMPTON, Va. Dec. 18th, 1884.