These figures illustrate vividly the function of the college-bred Negro.
He is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who sets the ideals of
the community where he lives, directs its thoughts and heads its social
movements. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social
leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall
back upon, no long established customs, no strong family ties, no well
defined social classes. All these things must be slowly and painfully
evolved. The preacher was, even before the war, the group leader of the
Negroes, and the church their greatest social institution. Naturally this
preacher was ignorant and often immoral, and the problem of replacing the
older type by better educated men has been a difficult one. Both by direct
work and by direct influence on other preachers, and on congregations, the
college-bred preacher has an opportunity for reformatory work and moral
inspiration, the value of which cannot be overestimated.
It has, however, been in the furnishing of teachers that the Negro college
has found its peculiar function. Few persons realize how vast a work, how
mighty a revolution has been thus accomplished. To furnish five millions
and more of ignorant people with teachers of their own race and blood, in
one generation, was not only a very difficult undertaking, but a very
important one, in that, it placed before the eyes of almost every Negro
child an attainable ideal. It brought the masses of the blacks in contact
with modern civilization, made black men the leaders of their communities
and trainers of the new generation. In this work college-bred Negroes were
first teachers, and then teachers of teachers. And here it is that the
broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value. Knowledge of
life and its wider meaning, has been the point of the Negro's deepest
ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been
simply for bread winning, but also for human culture, has been of
inestimable value in the training of these men.
In earlier years the two occupations of preacher and teacher were
practically the only ones open to the black college graduate. Of later
years a larger diversity of life among his people, has opened new avenues
of employment. Nor have these college men been paupers and spendthrifts;
557 college-bred Negroes owned in 1899, $1,342,862.50 worth of real
estate, (assessed value) or $2,411 per family. The real value of the total
accumulations of the whole group is perhaps about $10,000,000, or $5,000 a
piece. Pitiful, is it not, beside the fortunes of oil kings and steel
trusts, but after all is the fortune of the millionaire the only stamp of
true and successful living? Alas! it is, with many, and there's the rub.
The problem of training the Negro is to-day immensely complicated by the
fact that the whole question of the efficiency and appropriateness of our
present systems of education, for any kind of child, is a matter of active
debate, in which final settlement seems still afar off. Consequently it
often happens that persons arguing for or against certain systems of
education for Negroes, have these controversies in mind and miss the real
question at issue. The main question, so far as the Southern Negro is
concerned, is: What under the present circumstance, must a system of
education do in order to raise the Negro as quickly as possible in the
scale of civilization? The answer to this question seems to me clear: It
must strengthen the Negro's character, increase his knowledge and teach
him to earn a living. Now it goes without saying, that it is hard to do
all these things simultaneously or suddenly, and that at the same time it
will not do to give all the attention to one and neglect the others; we
could give black boys trades, but that alone will not civilize a race of
ex-slaves; we might simply increase their knowledge of the world, but this
would not necessarily make them wish to use this knowledge honestly; we
might seek to strengthen character and purpose, but to what end if this
people have nothing to eat or to wear? A system of education is not one
thing, nor does it have a single definite object, nor is it a mere matter
of schools. Education is that whole system of human training within and
without the school house walls, which molds and develops men. If then we
start out to train an ignorant and unskilled people with a heritage of bad
habits, our system of training must set before itself two great aims--the
one dealing with knowledge and character, the other part seeking to give
the child the technical knowledge necessary for him to earn a living under
the present circumstances. These objects are accomplished in part by the
opening of the common schools on the one, and of the industrial schools on
the other. But only in part, for there must also be trained those who are
to teach these schools--men and women of knowledge and culture and
technical skill who understand modern civilization, and have the training
and aptitude to impart it to the children under them. There must be
teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to attempt to establish any sort
of a system of common and industrial school training, without _first_
(and I say _first_ advisedly) without _first_ providing for the higher
training of the very best teachers, is simply throwing your money to the
winds. School houses do not teach themselves--piles of brick and mortar
and machinery do not send out _men_. It is the trained, living human soul,
cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the
real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they
be black or white, Greek, Russian or American. Nothing, in these latter
days, has so dampened the faith of thinking Negroes in recent educational
movements, as the fact that such movements have been accompanied by
ridicule and denouncement and decrying of those very institutions of
higher training which made the Negro public school possible, and make
Negro industrial schools thinkable. It was Fisk, Atlanta, Howard and
Straight, those colleges born of the faith and sacrifice of the
abolitionists, that placed in the black schools of the South the 30,000
teachers and more, which some, who depreciate the work of these higher
schools, are using to teach their own new experiments. If Hampton,
Tuskegee and the hundred other industrial schools prove in the future to
be as successful as they deserve to be, then their success in training
black artisans for the South, will be due primarily to the white colleges
of the North and the black colleges of the South, which trained the
teachers who to-day conduct these institutions. There was a time when the
American people believed pretty devoutly that a log of wood with a boy at
one end and Mark Hopkins at the other, represented the highest ideal of
human training. But in these eager days it would seem that we have changed
all that and think it necessary to add a couple of saw-mills and a hammer
to this outfit, and, at a pinch, to dispense with the services of Mark
Hopkins.
I would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of
teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem
to depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial
schools must play in the accomplishment of these ends, but I _do_ say, and
insist upon it, that it is industrialism drunk with its vision of success,
to imagine that its own work can be accomplished without providing for the
training of broadly cultured men and women to teach its own teachers, and
to teach the teachers of the public schools.
But I have already said that human education is not simply a matter of
schools; it is much more a matter of family and group life--the training
of one's home, of one's daily companions, of one's social class. Now the
black boy of the South moves in a black world--a world with its own
leaders, its own thoughts, its own ideals. In this world he gets by far
the larger part of his life training, and through the eyes of this dark
world he peers into the veiled world beyond. Who guides and determines the
education which he receives in his world? His teachers here are the
group-leaders of the Negro people--the physicians and clergymen, the
trained fathers and mothers, the influential and forceful men about him of
all kinds; here it is, if at all, that the culture of the surrounding
world trickles through and is handed on by the graduates of the higher
schools. Can such culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we
afford to ignore it? Do you think that if the leaders of thought among
Negroes are not trained and educated thinkers, that they will have no
leaders? On the contrary a hundred half-trained demagogues will still hold
the places they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous
busy-bodies will multiply. You have no choice; either you must help
furnish this race from within its own ranks with thoughtful men of trained
leadership, or you must suffer the evil consequences of a headless
misguided rabble.
I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black
boys, and for white boys, too. I believe that next to the founding of
Negro colleges the most valuable addition to Negro education since the
war, has been industrial training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist
that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is
to make carpenters men; there are two means of making the carpenter a man,
each equally important: the first is to give the group and community in
which he works, liberally trained teachers and leaders to teach him and
his family what life means; the second is to give him sufficient
intelligence and technical skill to make him an efficient workman; the
first object demands the Negro college and college-bred men--not a
quantity of such colleges, but a few of excellent quality; not too many
college-bred men, but enough to leaven the lump, to inspire the masses, to
raise the Talented Tenth to leadership; the second object demands a good
system of common schools, well-taught, conveniently located and properly
equipped.
The Sixth Atlanta Conference truly said in 1901:
"We call the attention of the Nation to the fact that less than one
million of the three million Negro children of school age, are at present
regularly attending school, and these attend a session which lasts only a
few months.
"We are to-day deliberately rearing millions of our citizens in ignorance,
and at the same time limiting the rights of citizenship by educational
qualifications. This is unjust. Half the black youth of the land have no
opportunities open to them for learning to read, write and cipher. In the
discussion as to the proper training of Negro children after they leave
the public schools, we have forgotten that they are not yet decently
provided with public schools.
"Propositions are beginning to be made in the South to reduce the already
meagre school facilities of Negroes. We congratulate the South on
resisting, as much as it has, this pressure, and on the many millions it
has spent on Negro education. But it is only fair to point out that Negro
taxes and the Negroes' share of the income from indirect taxes and
endowments have fully repaid this expenditure, so that the Negro public
school system has not in all probability cost the white taxpayers a single
cent since the war.
"This is not fair. Negro schools should be a public burden, since they are
a public benefit. The Negro has a right to demand good common school
training at the hands of the States and the Nation since by their fault he
is not in position to pay for this himself."
What is the chief need for the building up of the Negro public school in
the South? The Negro race in the South needs teachers to-day above all
else. This is the concurrent testimony of all who know the situation. For
the supply of this great demand two things are needed--institutions of
higher education and money for school houses and salaries. It is usually
assumed that a hundred or more institutions for Negro training are to-day
turning out so many teachers and college-bred men that the race is
threatened with an over-supply. This is sheer nonsense. There are to-day
less than 3,000 living Negro college graduates in the United States, and
less than 1,000 Negroes in college. Moreover, in the 164 schools for
Negroes, 95 per cent. of their students are doing elementary and secondary
work, work which should be done in the public schools. Over half the
remaining 2,157 students are taking high school studies. The mass of
so-called "normal" schools for the Negro, are simply doing elementary
common school work, or, at most, high school work, with a little
instruction in methods. The Negro colleges and the post-graduate courses
at other institutions are the only agencies for the broader and more
careful training of teachers. The work of these institutions is hampered
for lack of funds. It is getting increasingly difficult to get funds for
training teachers in the best modern methods, and yet all over the South,
from State Superintendents, county officials, city boards and school
principals comes the wail, "We need TEACHERS!" and teachers must be
trained. As the fairest minded of all white Southerners, Atticus G.
Haygood, once said: "The defects of colored teachers are so great as to
create an urgent necessity for training better ones. Their excellencies
and their successes are sufficient to justify the best hopes of success in
the effort, and to vindicate the judgment of those who make large
investments of money and service, to give to colored students opportunity
for thoroughly preparing themselves for the work of teaching children of
their people."
The truth of this has been strikingly shown in the marked improvement of
white teachers in the South. Twenty years ago the rank and file of white
public school teachers were not as good as the Negro teachers. But they,
by scholarships and good salaries, have been encouraged to thorough normal
and collegiate preparation, while the Negro teachers have been discouraged
by starvation wages and the idea that any training will do for a black
teacher. If carpenters are needed it is well and good to train men as
carpenters. But to train men as carpenters, and then set them to teaching
is wasteful and criminal; and to train men as teachers and then refuse
them living wages, unless they become carpenters, is rank nonsense.
The United States Commissioner of Education says in his report for 1900:
"For comparison between the white and colored enrollment in secondary and
higher education, I have added together the enrollment in high schools and
secondary schools, with the attendance on colleges and universities, not
being sure of the actual grade of work done in the colleges and
universities. The work done in the secondary schools is reported in such
detail in this office, that there can be no doubt of its grade."
He then makes the following comparisons of persons in every million
enrolled in secondary and higher education:
_Whole Country._ _Negroes._
1880 4,362 1,289
1900 10,743 2,061
And he concludes: "While the number in colored high schools and colleges
had increased somewhat faster than the population, it had not kept pace
with the average of the whole country, for it had fallen from 30 per cent.
to 24 per cent. of the average quota. Of all colored pupils, one (1) in
one hundred was engaged in secondary and higher work, and that ratio has
continued substantially for the past twenty years. If the ratio of colored
population in secondary and higher education is to be equal to the average
for the whole country, it must be increased to five times its present
average." And if this be true of the secondary and higher education, it is
safe to say that the Negro has not one-tenth his quota in college studies.
How baseless, therefore, is the charge of too much training! We need Negro
teachers for the Negro common schools, and we need first-class normal
schools and colleges to train them. This is the work of higher Negro
education and it must be done.
Further than this, after being provided with group leaders of
civilization, and a foundation of intelligence in the public schools, the
carpenter, in order to be a man, needs technical skill. This calls for
trade schools. Now trade schools are not nearly such simple things as
people once thought. The original idea was that the "Industrial" school
was to furnish education, practically free, to those willing to work for
it; it was to "do" things--i.e.: become a center of productive industry,
it was to be partially, if not wholly, self-supporting, and it was to
teach trades. Admirable as were some of the ideas underlying this scheme,
the whole thing simply would not work in practice; it was found that if
you were to use time and material to teach trades thoroughly, you could
not at the same time keep the industries on a commercial basis and make
them pay. Many schools started out to do this on a large scale and went
into virtual bankruptcy. Moreover, it was found also that it was possible
to teach a boy a trade mechanically, without giving him the full
educative benefit of the process, and, vice versa, that there was a
distinctive educative value in teaching a boy to use his hands and eyes in
carrying out certain physical processes, even though he did not actually
learn a trade. It has happened, therefore, in the last decade, that a
noticeable change has come over the industrial schools. In the first place
the idea of commercially remunerative industry in a school is being pushed
rapidly to the back-ground. There are still schools with shops and farms
that bring an income, and schools that use student labor partially for the
erection of their buildings and the furnishing of equipment. It is coming
to be seen, however, in the education of the Negro, as clearly as it has
been seen in the education of the youths the world over, that it is the
_boy_ and not the material product, that is the true object of education.
Consequently the object of the industrial school came to be the thorough
training of boys regardless of the cost of the training, so long as it was
thoroughly well done.
Even at this point, however, the difficulties were not surmounted. In the
first place modern industry has taken great strides since the war, and the
teaching of trades is no longer a simple matter. Machinery and long
processes of work have greatly changed the work of the carpenter, the
ironworker and the shoemaker. A really efficient workman must be to-day an
intelligent man who has had good technical training in addition to
thorough common school, and perhaps even higher training. To meet this
situation the industrial schools began a further development; they
established distinct Trade Schools for the thorough training of better
class artisans, and at the same time they sought to preserve for the
purposes of general education, such of the simpler processes of elementary
trade learning as were best suited therefor. In this differentiation of
the Trade School and manual training, the best of the industrial schools
simply followed the plain trend of the present educational epoch. A
prominent educator tells us that, in Sweden, "In the beginning the
economic conception was generally adopted, and everywhere manual training
was looked upon as a means of preparing the children of the common people
to earn their living. But gradually it came to be recognized that manual
training has a more elevated purpose, and one, indeed, more useful in the
deeper meaning of the term. It came to be considered as an educative
process for the complete moral, physical and intellectual development of
the child."
Thus, again, in the manning of trade schools and manual training schools
we are thrown back upon the higher training as its source and chief
support. There was a time when any aged and wornout carpenter could teach
in a trade school. But not so to-day. Indeed the demand for college-bred
men by a school like Tuskegee, ought to make Mr. Booker T. Washington the
firmest friend of higher training. Here he has as helpers the son of a
Negro senator, trained in Greek and the humanities, and graduated at
Harvard; the son of a Negro congressman and lawyer, trained in Latin and
mathematics, and graduated at Oberlin; he has as his wife, a woman who
read Virgil and Homer in the same class room with me; he has as college
chaplain, a classical graduate of Atlanta University; as teacher of
science, a graduate of Fisk; as teacher of history, a graduate of
Smith,--indeed some thirty of his chief teachers are college graduates,
and instead of studying French grammars in the midst of weeds, or buying
pianos for dirty cabins, they are at Mr. Washington's right hand helping
him in a noble work. And yet one of the effects of Mr. Washington's
propaganda has been to throw doubt upon the expediency of such training
for Negroes, as these persons have had.
* * * * *
Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race
transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you
like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do
not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the
levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by
the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply
teach work--it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race
must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their
people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must train men
for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by
its exceptional men.
_The Disfranchisement of the Negro_