New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-03-10
4 PURSUIT or KNOWLEDGE UNDER Diff
CULTIES

4 PURSUIT or KNOWLEDGE UNDER Diff
CULTIES.
Some recent events in South Carolina and
in Louisiana call public attention to the gen.
eral character of the negro voter When the
War ended, halo encircled the dusky heads
of the freedmen. The memory of many acts
of perilOus bravery and devotion on their
part to that Union which wasl their merciless
oppressor, the reflection that we owed to them
our slow victory, the fresh knowledge of the
pathos, the romance, the tragedy that lay in
the negro life and character-all these con-
sderations inclined the Northern heart to
sentimental justice. And through official and
private channels a stream of compassionate
help set toward them. Northern men who had
been long among them, however, predicted
that when the suffrage should work its dis
enchantment, turning the mythical Uncle
Toms, Elias, George Wilson's, and Sunday
school saints in general, into the very dis
couraging actual black sinners of the new
dispensatiOn, the freed peoples real time of
trouble would arrive They saw that the dis
appointed benefactOrs would lose faith in
negro capacity, and that misguided interest
| would give place to an equally misguided in
difference.
Slavery is a bad school. 1t was not their
fault that its graduates proved lazy, shiftless,
helpless, thorough in all small vices, sadly
superficial in the higher virtues. For gen.
erations cunning and deceit had been their
| only protection; thieving, their only means of
gain. With thick padding of stupidity and
dulness kind Nature parted the daily out
RACES that had else been fatal. With child
like incapacity to calculate the future or fit
means to ends, she assured them against mad
ness. After two centuries of evil preparation,
the slave seemed subdued to what he worked in.
Though there were honorable and many
executions, this was the average condition
of that largo class which, being suddenly
thrust into freedom, it was needful to pro-
tect with the suffrage-a concession which
involved the protection of ourselves against
its inevitable dangers. 1t must be remem-
'bered that the negro is the most imita-
tive of creatures. The slaves notion of free
dom was the exchange of work, the lash,
and enforced obedience for a stumbling
laziness and eligibility to all those hon.
ors which he had seen heaped on white men.
His notion of O gentleman was, of course, a
man who lived without work, and gentle
man he creditably aspired to be. The result
of this defective system of induction is seen
through half the South to-day. The first step
into light must be competent and general in
struction and the substitution of better
| ideal.
The point of vantage is that, as the negrO's
model gentleman reads he, himself, is mad
for the alphabet. 2But thorough trial has shown
that gratuitous teaching is as mistaken as
other gratuitles, which, harmful enough among
the white poor, hopelessly pauperize the easy go
| ing blacks. To make them pay for all they have
is the only way to make them self-supporting
And since few of them have money they must
usually pay in labor. One of the most sue
cessful cOlored High Schools in the South is
the Hampton Normal and Agricultural School,
near Fortress Monroe. This institution, estab-
lshed by the American Missionary Association
in 1868, demands a fixed though nominal fee
for tuition, board, and lodging but accepts
the labor of the pupils in payment. At the
end of its first year it had eighty pupils, the
h0pelessly incompetent having been weeded
out, and was nearly self-suppOrting. The boys
ranging in years from twelve to forty, worked
on the school farm, in the carpenters, the
wheelwright's, the shoemaker's, the blacksmith's
shops, or wherever their special capacity de-
termined The girls did the household work
and learned trades to some extent Wages
vary from four to twelve cents an hour.
The mornings are given to work, the after
moons to recitation, and the evenings
to study. When, after their three years
course. these teachers seek schools, each one
is skilled handcraftsman as well as compe-
tent educator, and each q missionary of the
new gospel of work. The moral effect of this
system is seen in the negro village adjacent
to the Hampton School. where the force of
example is transforming a disreputable hudile
of lazy beggars into clean and thrifty ham,
let of ambitious freeholders.
Successful teachers of the negroes must be
negroes, held to their work by class sympathies
and kindled by class PRIDE And they must
be legion. The dangers of ignorant negro
suffrage are already written in blood. IL
vitality concerns tho nation that tho prepara-