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38 Document Xo. 3. [Sessiox
Lave right ideals and know tiow to direct it, prove a remedy for many of
these undesirable changes in the negro incident largely to this unavoidable
and radical change in his life, environment and relations to those about him?
May not his condition and character have been infinitely worse and more
brutal under the changed order of things without the little training that he
has received from conscientious teachers here and there, even in the poor
schools that have been opened to him, and without the little glimpses of a
better life and the aspirations for it and the acquisition of a little power to
reach out after it that he has obtained here and there even in these schools?
These are questions to which conscientious men and women should give serious
consideration before condemning and abandoning the experiment of the edu-cation
of the negro.
"It is my firm conviction, as I have said above, that we must demonstrate
liy a better sort of education for the negro, and a more effective sort, that it
may be helpful to him and to us before we can hope to convince many of our
people that education, even of the right sort, is a good thing for the negro.
We cannot answer argument and pre.i'udice much longer by theory and ap-peals
to conscience. It is my conviction, also, that the best training and edu-cation
for the masses of the negroes in the South is agricultural. It is of
cour.se absolutely essential for evei-y human being to have first a masteiy of
the essentials of knowledge, such as will give him a reasonable degree of
intelligence. The negroes have not yet acquired this, nor would I preclude
the few negroes that manifest an adaptedness to scholarship and learning
and a power to acquire them from the opportunity to pursue the study of the
higher branches of learning. I must express the conviction, however, that
this class of negroes will be found to constitute but a small per cent, of the
race at present, and perhaps for some generations to come.
"I believe that farm life offers the safest environment for the negro, or, as
for that matter, for any other race, in its primitive stage of progress and civ-ilization.
Strange to say, however, the tendency of the negro is to flock to
the towns where the temptations to idleness and vice and dissipation of every
sort are manifold greater than in the country, and are usually greater than
negro weakness can stand. The health conditions, too, in the towns are wor.se.
Scores are .sometimes huddled together in small rooms and houses without
regard to the laws of health or sex. It can but prove ruinous to the negro
if he seeks town life before his race has grown stronger in character and intel-lect
and industry and in all the essentials of racial strength by the Antean
touch of Mother Earth in the quiet country life on the farm.
"There is greater demand on the farm for the negro in the South at present.
It is the one open door for liim, as I see it. Xot only is there great demand
for his services on the farms already under cultivation, but there are also
^ast territories of uncultivated lands, exceeding, perhaps, the cultivated ter-ritory,
that invite his industry and offer ample compensation for intelligent
cultivation and for increase in the wealth and prosperity of the State. If the
negro can be trained and educated to occupy this field intelligently and con-tente<
lly, thus demonstrating that his education has fitted him for making
better crops and more money for himself and his landlord, and has developed
in him the power and the ambition gradually to acquire little holdings of his
own and to help redeem from waste the great wealth of these thousands and
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| Title | Page 96 |
| Full Text | 38 Document Xo. 3. [Sessiox Lave right ideals and know tiow to direct it, prove a remedy for many of these undesirable changes in the negro incident largely to this unavoidable and radical change in his life, environment and relations to those about him? May not his condition and character have been infinitely worse and more brutal under the changed order of things without the little training that he has received from conscientious teachers here and there, even in the poor schools that have been opened to him, and without the little glimpses of a better life and the aspirations for it and the acquisition of a little power to reach out after it that he has obtained here and there even in these schools? These are questions to which conscientious men and women should give serious consideration before condemning and abandoning the experiment of the edu-cation of the negro. "It is my firm conviction, as I have said above, that we must demonstrate liy a better sort of education for the negro, and a more effective sort, that it may be helpful to him and to us before we can hope to convince many of our people that education, even of the right sort, is a good thing for the negro. We cannot answer argument and pre.i'udice much longer by theory and ap-peals to conscience. It is my conviction, also, that the best training and edu-cation for the masses of the negroes in the South is agricultural. It is of cour.se absolutely essential for evei-y human being to have first a masteiy of the essentials of knowledge, such as will give him a reasonable degree of intelligence. The negroes have not yet acquired this, nor would I preclude the few negroes that manifest an adaptedness to scholarship and learning and a power to acquire them from the opportunity to pursue the study of the higher branches of learning. I must express the conviction, however, that this class of negroes will be found to constitute but a small per cent, of the race at present, and perhaps for some generations to come. "I believe that farm life offers the safest environment for the negro, or, as for that matter, for any other race, in its primitive stage of progress and civ-ilization. Strange to say, however, the tendency of the negro is to flock to the towns where the temptations to idleness and vice and dissipation of every sort are manifold greater than in the country, and are usually greater than negro weakness can stand. The health conditions, too, in the towns are wor.se. Scores are .sometimes huddled together in small rooms and houses without regard to the laws of health or sex. It can but prove ruinous to the negro if he seeks town life before his race has grown stronger in character and intel-lect and industry and in all the essentials of racial strength by the Antean touch of Mother Earth in the quiet country life on the farm. "There is greater demand on the farm for the negro in the South at present. It is the one open door for liim, as I see it. Xot only is there great demand for his services on the farms already under cultivation, but there are also ^ast territories of uncultivated lands, exceeding, perhaps, the cultivated ter-ritory, that invite his industry and offer ample compensation for intelligent cultivation and for increase in the wealth and prosperity of the State. If the negro can be trained and educated to occupy this field intelligently and con-tente< lly, thus demonstrating that his education has fitted him for making better crops and more money for himself and his landlord, and has developed in him the power and the ambition gradually to acquire little holdings of his own and to help redeem from waste the great wealth of these thousands and |
