send him to college, and as he grew older and better able to
appreciate the value of education, the desire grew very
strong within him to fit himself for a larger field of
usefulness. In due time he entered Oberlin College, and
after spending eighteen months in the preparatory department
he entered the college proper, and graduated with the class
of 1870.
Immediately after his graduation, Prof. Storum came to the
city of Washington to teach in Wayland Seminary, one of the
schools fostered by the Baptist Home Mission Society. He
taught at Wayland thirteen years. Here, as in every walk in
life, he exerted a most wholesome influence over the young
men and women attending the seminary, whose graduates are
found in all parts of this country. They delight to speak of
the inspiration and high incentive they received from Prof.
Storum while under his instruction.
After leaving Wayland, Prof. Storum taught in the public
schools of Washington one year, whence he was called to the
city of Petersburg, Virginia, to organize the Virginia
Normal and Collegiate Institute, provided for by the
Legislature of the "Old Dominion." He remained here three
years and endeared himself to the pupils of the new school
and to the citizens of Petersburg, irrespective of race,
political bias or denominational creeds. He then returned to
Washington and from that time until the present he has been
teaching in the public high school.
Prof. Storum has ever been interested in and connected with
the various enterprises whose aim has been the improvement
and elevation of the Colored people. For five years he was
secretary of the Capital Savings Bank of Washington and a
member of the Board of Directors of the Industrial Building
and Savings Company. For three consecutive years Prof.
Storum was president of the Bethel Literary and Historical
Society, the most prominent association of its kind in the
country. Through his influence and by his energy the library
and reading room were established and are now the most
interesting and prominent features of the society.
In addition to his many and exacting duties, Prof. Storum
has written and lectured on a great variety of subjects,
religious, political, educational and financial.
He was happily married in 1872 to Mrs. Carrie Garrett
Browne, a teacher in the public schools of Washington. There
are three surviving children. Their domestic life has had
its sunshine and its shadow. The darkest cloud that has
overhung their household was the death of their oldest son,
who died eight years ago at the age of eighteen, and who had
given promise of being an unusually brilliant and useful
man.
The excuse for presenting this article is the oft repeated declaration
that there should be one kind of education for the more favored class
and another kind of education for the less favored class of our
citizens. This declaration was never mooted until these latter years.
The following incident will serve to illustrate the position taken by
the advocates of this subject: A young man of more than ordinary
ability, having a fine mind, and exceedingly apt and ambitious to
learn, came to one of the schools in the South supported by Northern
friends. He had had some advantages and had proved his capabilities to
learn. He was giving great satisfaction to his teachers. He was
prepared to take up one of the advanced studies, and did so and wrote
to his friend telling him of the studies he was pursuing and the
progress he was making. His friend, a would-be philanthropist, replied
that he would not assist him if he pursued such studies. "You only
need to learn to read, write, and cipher a little to teach your
people." Yet this same man thought it necessary to take the common
school course, a college course, and a professional course to teach
his people. What class of people will have confidence in or give their
support to a teacher, preacher, lawyer, or physician who knows only
the A, B, C's of his profession? It is an historical as well as a
scientific fact that no people have ever risen to influence and power
without a strong intellectual and moral class permeating and leavening
the entire mass. From the very beginning of our educational system the
idea that the system and method of education should be different for
the different classes of our people never entered the mind or thoughts
of our educators nor any part of the body politic.
In the Southern part of our land the ruling class denied educational
facilities to the colored people, and quite generally throughout the
South it was made a penal offence to teach a colored man, woman, or
child to read. The reason for this was well understood. Education
produces intelligence and unfolds to one his powers and capabilities,
and an intelligent people cannot be enslaved.
After the close of the war of the rebellion, schools were opened for
the colored people. The newly-emancipated were not entirely oblivious
to some of the advantages and benefits that follow from education, for
they were constantly in touch with the master-class, so that when the
opportunity was offered the colored people flocked to the schools in
numbers far beyond the accommodations given. The colored people showed
such avidity for learning and made such surprising progress that it
seemed almost miraculous. Dr. Mayo says: "No people in human history
have made such progress as the colored people of the United States." I
can see no reason why the colored people should be differently
educated from mankind generally; nor can I understand why persons
should urge a different education unless they are hostile to and
bitterly opposed to the progress of the colored people.
The aim or purpose of education is, always has been, and will ever be,
preparation for complete living, that is, to be useful in one's day
and generation and to live happily. "To secure this requires the
acquisition of knowledge found in two fields of human endeavor. First,
man and his experience and achievements and external nature; second,
training to intelligent and productive activity in the use of this
knowledge and the proper enjoyment of it."
What the education of the youth of a nation shall be depends upon the
aim, purpose, and character of the government.
The history of the education of a people is the history of its
civilization. Its civilization is not to be found in its material
success, nor in its achievements in arms; but its civilization is
manifest in its intellectual, moral, and esthetic development. It
follows, then, that the education of a nation is to be found in the
characteristics of its civilization; this includes religion, politics,
justice, art, and mode of thought. The history of education fully
attests this fact.
The government of Egypt was monarchical in form. The ruling classes
were educated; the lower classes were not; yet while they were the
beasts of burden and forced to toil under the most exacting
taskmasters they were of a mild and kind disposition, the result of
their religious training.
The government of the Jews was Theocratic; their civilization was
distinctively religious; their education was along religious lines.
Their poets sing of the love, the power, the majesty, and the
everlasting dominion of "I AM THAT I AM." Through the Jews indeed are
all the nations of the earth blessed, in that they have preserved and
transmitted through the ages the religion of their King and His
Anointed.
Greece had two distinct ideas of government. The Dorian, as
exemplified by the laws of Sparta, whose fundamental principle was
that the individual existed for the state and must obey the behests of
the state. The Ionian, as we find it in the constitution of Athens,
whose basic principle was that the state existed for the individual
and the individual was a freeman. The educational system of Sparta was
entirely military, in keeping with the aim and purpose of the state.
The boys at the tender age of seven years were taken from their homes
and placed in state schools to be taught the art of war, and how to
endure all of its hardships and privations. The educational system at
Athens reflected the aim and purpose of the Athenian State; it was
humanistic. The intellectual, ethical, and physical powers of the
child were developed. In that little peninsula of Southern Europe
there were two distinct civilizations having very little in common and
always antagonistic. Sparta developed human machines, men of great
physical force, but contributed nothing to the civilization of the
world, nothing for the betterment of mankind. Liberty, patriotism,
love of home and kindred, are the characteristics of the Athenian
civilization. The contributions of Athens for the civilization of the
world and the elevation of mankind are beyond human conception. The
mind of man cannot conceive of the innumerable blessings that have
flowed from Athenian civilization, the great reservoir of thought and
perfected art. The profoundest thoughts of philosophy, the most
electrifying words of statesmen and orators; the grand, sublime and
patriotic strains of the muses, the illimitable beauty and symmetry of
her art have been bequeathed to the world by Athens, "THE EYE OF
GREECE." But above and beyond these is the principle of personal
liberty and popular government that has come down to us from the
Athenian Commonwealth. The aim and purpose of the Athenian Republic in
its educational system was to train the children to become useful
citizens, capable of aiding in the management of the state. Aristotle
says: "Education should be regulated by the state for the ends of the
state; * * * as the end purposed to the State, as the whole, is one,
it is clear that the education of all the citizens must be one and
the same and the superintendence of it a public affair rather than in
private hands."
The aim and purpose of the Roman government was to bequeath to
humanity moral energy and jurisprudence, the latter of which is the
basis of all modern law. A strong and an abiding faith subsisted
between the Roman State and each of her citizens. "I am a Roman
citizen," was the proudest allusion a man could make to himself, for
he knew that the great Roman power was behind him to protect him in
his rights. The children of the Romans were educated to be of use to
the state. Cicero says: "The fatherland has produced us and brought us
up that we may devote to its use the finest capabilities of our minds,
talents, and understanding. Therefore, we must learn those arts
whereby we may be of greatest service to the state, for that I hold to
be the highest wisdom and virtue."
The aim and purpose of our government is to maintain and perpetuate
the idea of constitutional liberty and to develop a popular government
in which each inhabitant shall feel a personal interest in all that
pertains to the government, and the government in turn shall feel
itself obligated to protect and defend the interests of the humblest
citizen within its dominion. Our government is "of the people, for the
people, and by the people."
In this country there must be but one system of education welding all
the people in one aim and purpose. Unity of thought, unity of action,
and sympathy, unity in American life and duty, is and must ever be
maintained in the stratification of American society. The government
must be unique and homogeneous in its aim, purpose, and sympathy. The
entire question of American citizenship is especially important in
harmonizing the elements. Herbert Spencer says: "The education of the
child must accord, both in mode and arrangement, with the education of
mankind as considered historically; or, in other words, the genesis of
knowledge in the individual must follow the same course as the genesis
of knowledge in the race. * * * It follows that if there be an order
in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge,
there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of
knowledge by the same order. As the mind of humanity placed in the
midst of phenomena and striving to comprehend them, has, after endless
comparisons, speculations, experiments and theories reached its
present knowledge by a specific route, it may rationally be inferred
that the relationship between mind and phenomena, is such as to
prevent this knowledge from being reached by any other route; and that
as each child's mind stands in this same relationship to phenomena
they can be accessible to it only through the same route."
Man is a trinity in his nature, consisting of mind, soul and body;
these must be developed and the same means must be employed to bring
it about. Intellectual, moral and physical training must characterize
our system of education. The intellectual and the physical is being
emphasized and the moral training must be made more prominent than it
has been in the past. The aim and purpose of the founders of this
Republic was to preserve in the substrata of the government those
noble and lofty principles of the Christian religion for the
maintenance of which they left their native land that they might plant
these principles in the virgin soil of America.
Manual training is now being made an attractive feature in our
schools, though by no means a new feature. Manual training must be
made to strengthen the intellectual and moral training or it will fail
in its purpose and end as an educational value. Trade schools are one
thing, manual training schools another thing. It is not the purpose
nor the end of manual training schools, as a branch of our school
system, to teach trades _per se_, but rather to aid the pupils to find
out their natural bent and to strengthen the trend of their ambition
along chosen lines; or, in other words, to help the pupil to discover
his powers, capabilities and capacity, to reveal the pupil to himself.
Dr. Mayo says: "The higher education according to the last American
interpretation is just this: The art of placing an educated mind, a
consecrated heart, and a trained will, the whole of a refined manhood
and womanhood, right at the ends of the ten fingers of both hands, so
that whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do you may do all to
the glory of God."
There were two distinct civilizations attempted in this country; one
was planted at Jamestown, Virginia, the other at Plymouth,
Massachusetts. They were antagonistic in thought, aim and purpose. The
civilization at Plymouth was an example of the "survival of the
fittest," the errors of the one must be engulfed in the ever abiding
principles of the other. The educational feature of the one must yield
to the educational feature of the other. There must be but one system
of education for all the people, great and small, black and white.
This is essential for the peace, comfort, and prosperity of the
nation.
This is an Anglo-Saxon country. The thought of this country is
Anglo-Saxon. The progress of this country is Anglo-Saxon. The colored
people of this country, like all others born and reared on our shores,
are Anglo-Saxon in thought, in religion, in education, in training,
and hence it is unsafe and dangerous, not to say impracticable, to
educate them or any other class of our citizens along different lines.
The people of this nation must be one in purpose, one in aim; there
must be a common bond uniting them in a common sympathy and
fraternity. To secure this end all the people must be trained to the
highest wisdom. "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." Hence,
says Milton: "To govern well is to train up a nation in true wisdom
and virtue and that which springs from thence, magnanimity and
likeness to God, which is called godliness. Other things follow as the
shadow does the substance."
THIRD PAPER.
SHOULD THE NEGRO BE GIVEN AN EDUCATION DIFFERENT FROM THAT GIVEN TO
THE WHITES?
BY REV. S. G. ATKINS.
[Illustration: Prof. S. G. Atkins]
PROF. S. G. ATKINS, A. M.
Prof. S. G. Atkins, President and Founder of The Slater
Industrial and State Normal School, Winston-Salem, N. C.,
was born of a humble, yet high, because Christian,
parentage, in Chatham County, North Carolina, June 11, 1863.
Through this humble slave, yet Christian, parentage, there
came to this youth principles of industry, morality and
Christianity which formed the broad, deep, and solid
foundation on which has rested his eventful and useful life.
In early life he learned that "the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom." In the days of youth he remembered his
Creator.
Like many of the world's noblest and best characters, Prof.
Atkins started life's journey at the plow handles; clearing
the ground of roots and stumps, splitting rails, opening the
furrow, planting and harvesting the crops, constituted the
duty and pleasures of his early life.
Early evincing an insatiable thirst for knowledge, all the
advantages of the village school were given him. His
progress here was phenomenal. His eagerness to know truth;
his power of mind to perceive, comprehend and analyze; his
retentive memory, soon gave him first place among his
fellows in the school in the village. A few years passed; he
in the meantime having prepared himself, the master-mantle
of the village school falls upon him. His work here caused a
widening of his intellectual horizon. In the year 1880,
therefore, he entered the Academic Department of St.
Augustine Normal and Collegiate Institute, Raleigh, N. C.,
and graduated with distinction in 1884.
Immediately after leaving college, President J. C. Price,
the famous colored orator, invited him to join the faculty
at Livingstone College, Salisbury, N. C. At this post he
proved himself one of the most useful men in the faculty. At
times he filled various positions in the college. The
Grammar School Department, under his management, was a model
department, and was the pride of the college. He taught
here, serving well and at a great sacrifice, six years.
Prof. Atkins retired from the Livingstone College to enter
the public school work in which he had long taken a deep
interest. This interest had been manifested chiefly in
connection with his devotion to the work of building up the
North Carolina Teachers' Association, which body he helped
to organize and of which he was President for three
successive years. His first extended work in this field was
as Principal of the Colored Graded School, of Winston, N. C.
This position of responsibility he held, with increasing
success, for five years, when he gave it up, against the
protest of the Board of School Commissioners of Winston, to
become President of The Slater Industrial and State Normal
School. This Institution had already been projected by him
to meet a want among the colored people in the community
which he soon saw that the public school could not meet,
viz.: a deeper ethical culture and the training of the youth
of the community, not only in books, but also in some useful
handicraft which would the sooner furnish the basis for
strong personal character and sound home-life. His first
step in this direction had been the founding of the
settlement known as "Columbian Heights," to serve as a
background for the Institution, which would do this. The
settlement was founded in 1891, and the Institution
projected in 1892. Prof. Atkins, as the first settler on
Columbian Heights, and as the organizer and both Secretary
and agent of the Board of Trustees, pushed the work of The
Slater Industrial School, encouraged and supported by the
industrious efforts of the members of the Board, until in
1895 he was called to the Presidency of the Institution.
From that date to the present his labors have been an
inseparable part of the history of the school.
Hon. C. H. Mebane, Superintendent of Public Instruction for
North Carolina, says of him: "If I had fifty such men as
Prof. Atkins in North Carolina, I could make a complete
revolution in educational work in a short while, a complete
revolution as to moral uplift and general good of the negro
race."
In addition to his work as an educator, Prof. Atkins has
taken much interest in the work of the American Academy of
Social and Political Science, of which he is a member. He is
also a member of the American Statistical Association, and
has been twice elected Secretary of Education of the A. M.
E. Zion Church.
The esteem in which he is held by leading men of the nation
wherever he is known is fairly indicated in the following
statement of Hon. J. L. M. Curry, LL. D., ex-minister to
Spain and agent of the great Peabody and Slater Trusts for
educational purposes. Dr. Curry says: "I regard President
Atkins, of The Slater Industrial and State Normal School at
Winston, N. C., as one of the most worthy and capable men
connected with the education of the Negroes in the South.
His intelligence, courtesy, good deportment, high character
and efficiency as the head of a school have won the
confidence and goodwill of the people among whom he lives,
and of all who best know his work and worth."
"The education of a Negro is the education of a human being. In its
essential characteristics the human mind is the same in every race and
in every age. When a Negro child is taught that two and two are four
he learns just what the white child learns when he is taught the same
proposition. The teacher uses the same faculties of mind in imparting
the truth as to the sum of two and two. The two children use the same
faculties in learning the truth; it means the same thing to them both.
In further teaching and training the methods may vary, but variations
will depend less on differences of race than on peculiarities of the
individual."--Bishop Haygood.
The above quotation from Bishop Haygood indicates my answer to the
question. This question is simply a revival of the old superstition
concerning the Negro that manifested itself in the inquiry as to
whether the Negro had a soul. Civilization and fraternity have so far
developed that it would be hard in these days to find a person whose
skepticism concerning the Negro would find a doubtful expression as to
the Negro's humanity. The light has become too strong for the
existence of that kind of mist; hence the unsympathetic critic has
been forced to find a new way of putting his wish begotten thought.
There is still a higher authority for a negative answer to the
question, "Should the Negroes be given an education different from
that given to the whites?" in the following language: "God had made of
one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of all the
earth."
This declaration of St. Paul goes to the core of the matter, unless it
is proposed to revive the old superstition that the Negro is not
included as a part of the "nations of men." It is a strange fact that
nobody ever proposes a modified or peculiar form of education for any
other nationality.
It is the glory of the backward peoples of the earth that they are
adopting the forms and methods of education which have made Western
civilization the touch-stone of the world's progress.
But the implied contention that the Negro should be given an education
of a different kind is not absolute. Most disputants on this
subject--so far as published statements go--allow that after a long
period of adaptation and modified training the American Negro may
reach a stage in his mental evolution that he may assimilate the same
kind of mental food that is admittedly suited to the Caucasian,
Mongolian and others. This view of the matter leaves out of the count
another great fact, viz., that the American Negro is more American
than anything else, that he is not an alien either by birth or blood.
Whatever exceptions might be alleged against Africa can no longer be
made a bar to him.
But let us recur again to the evolution theory, and I will not
undertake to consider this theory as Darwinian.