New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-04-25

of education are taught, within whose walls
no demagogues lurch or false syrens sing,
whose teachers are efficient and loving, above
all, genuine friends of the negro race, which
is to-day the dupe of designing hno'c-noth,
ings, and the cats paw for drawing money
| from the Government chest to make rich men
and women whose hearts are strangers to
the elevation of an oppressed race, and who
go frenzy at the idea of equality-is the great
need of this Republic. 1t is no less singular
than true that our schools, like our public
offices, are too often occupied by unfit per-
sons. Men and women entirely unknown,
who, from their obscurity, seek light among
the sable sons and daughters of our people.
What an anomaly! Not entirely so, since
feline like, their dilated pupils can find suili-
Gent light in a corner, and much more so
upon a hill, to enable them to plumber. l
have found, through personal experience,
that the greatest curse which can fall
connect it with politics, and thus sacrifice
its pupils by hecatombs to the avarice
of demagogues, whose constant tune is no
"longer pipe, no longer Dance" We can
lay our finger upon such an institution which
is whited sepulchre and full of dead mems
bones. In it, there arc not six living, loving
teachers of the race of the people who are IN
the majority within its walls. To-day there
is no longer pipe Ga grant from Congress-
and oh, to what an awful dance is the negro
treated! In mid winter no fire, and in the
face of eXtravagant bills for fuel, students are
told if they want heat, carry the water them
selves to the boiler. Two of their best teach
ere removed--one because she is too familiar
with the cOlOred people, and for this reason
is snubbed by her white associate teachers,
at meals, and at all times-another because
he is said to be incompetent to teach colored
people although fully competent to teach
white, meaning he is too learned. l can
back this up by affidavit. l know l ask you
a great deal to believe all this, but it is all
true, and if placed upon the list of investiga-
tons, much will be found rotten in Denmark
Pardon me for my depression. A national
school, built upon the granite basis ofequality,
is doubtless one of our great needs. One de-
signed for the education of our composite
nationality. We are among the nations of
the earth a singularly great nation, being
comprised nearly of all others. This makes
our need great and diversified. A national
school should be one fitted to meet all the
wants of human civilization. In such, not
only the general branches of education would
be taught, but all the professions, arts, and
sciences, trades, and systematic knowledge
of every human occupation practiced among
civilized nations. 1t is the interval between
the graduation at college and the entering
some other seminary, for the profession, or
the workshop for the trade, that causes us to
have so many young men of no position, OBJ
.iect, or pursuit. Let us illustrate. A school
in which the seven-year boy or girl may enter
to receive liberal education or study classics,
mathematics, and the living languages, and
at the close of this, have the opportunity to
receive, within the same walls, further in
structions in whatever pursuit he or she may
select. We will begin at the lowest order of
things so-called. If to be washwOman,
proper knowledge of the action of the sun
in bleaching certain things placed under its
influence. If to be cook, as almost all
women are in some degree, then proper
knowledge of all that pertain to culinary sci
ence-neatness, cleanliness, and order, never
excluded. And so on in this line. Now as to
men. Let the school be such, that Ito be
shorty whatever you desire to learn, you can
be instructed in, where those who have had
to do with your early training, can best inn
part to you. Let manufactures of every de-
scription stud its broad acres let there be
fields for the application of agricultural
knowledge; schools of poltics--in short, a
nation within ITSELF What source of great
riches such an institution would be to q coun-
try, can only be understood by practical eff
forts of the same. Persons having such an
institution would no longer have to spend six
years in the outside world to know of the
things of practical utility. There would be
no mOnOtOnOus, bOok-wOrms, and the Hebrew
scholar and nothing else; but insteadwe should
have the farner-a compound knowing his
Greek roots and his potato roots with like
efficiency. At some other time l will con-
tinue my views on this subject.