Charlotte home and Democrat., 1886-11-19
An Important Lesson from a Northern
SOuree

1AA A"PoA toAt 1oSoUu lroM NOrGu6Fu
Source.
Edmund Kirke, Northern writer who
has recently published work entitled
"TLe Rear Guard of the Revolution"
which is a history of the troubles in the
estate OF Franklin," now Tennessee, in
the time OF Gen. Sewer, has short paper
in the North American Review for No
vember on Chow Shall the Negro be
Educated" Its value consists in giving
the experiences of Northern woman at
Knoxville. "Kirke'' says that the high
est education is to fit people "to do most
worthily and we'll the duties that pertain
to the stations in which they are placed" I"
Hence, he argues, that the kind OF educa-
tion the blacks need is that which will
make them expert house-servants and
farm laborers and mechanics He says
that the negroes learn like parrots-learn
the words, "but of the ideas the words
convey they have no comprehension" !"
He says he has found this to be invariably
true OF call advanced scholars" he has met.
This agrees precisely with the New
England "school-marm" we once wrote
about st length in these columns. She
taught in Petersburg, Va, soon after the
war. At first, she said in her very inter
esting communication to the Index-Ap-
pea, she thought the negro children
could learn more rapidly than the white
children could learn, but as soon as she
got them into higher branches where the
reasoning faculties must come into play
they fell immensely in the rear. She as
certained that their chief faculty was
imitation, and that they were unsurpassed
in learning by rots-by singing their
geography and spelling.
But let us glance at the experience of
another Northern woman-she of Knox
vile. She is "a highly cultivated and &C.
complished Northern lady," says Mr.
"Kirke." That is not his real name.
She has spent sixteen years in teaching
the negroes, and "Kirke" says she "h as
solved the problem, w hat to do with the
negro" When she first went to Knox
Vile she began school for the negroes,
teaching them in the usual way. She
kept this up for twelve years. She built
large, fine brick building-the hand
soonest, best, most spacious in Knoxville.
Here was the result:
"She saw (the fruits) in many of her best and
brightest scholars-girls who had gone to the
bad and boys who were untitled for useful work
and actually good for nothing. She had taught
| the blacks as she had taught the whites-all the
higher branches-and the result she saw was
harm instead of good"
She had literally "crammed with learn
ing they did not understand" her hun
dreds of pupils of twelve long years of
toll, and she found them destitute at last
"of the knowledge that is indispensable
to their success in the world"
Now what did this highly educated
and now richly experienced New England
woman do? She showed herself equal to
the occasion. She resolved to make her
pupils bread-winners-tbe girls to be
trained for household duties and the boys
for. various csllings. She relied much
less upon books. "She opened for girls a
sewing school and kitchen garden, in
| which she taught them simple house work.
Then she established carpenters shop
for boys. and cooking school for both
boys and girls"
She succeeded. After four years work
ing on this plan of industrial training her
| labors are rewarded. "Kirke" says cher
institution covers about eyery industrial
pursuit followed by the negro except ag-
riculture" She has added to the COM
munitY Hundreds of skillful workers" and
they get high wages" "Kirke'' says that
| if her sy stem was to become general it
"would revolutionize the South and solve
the problem now puzzling the heads of
the wisest statesmen The lesson taught
by this devoted, plucky Yankee woman
is-"train the negro to do skillful work,
and you will make him a good citizen
At least you will make him useful, eff
cient, and give him good chance iu the
race for living.
We are glad to find the lesson SO much
like that taught long ago in Southern
newspapers. 1t is common saying now
in the South, educate the negro and
you spoil good corn-6eld hand" Book
learning unfits more for useful life than
otherwise. Teach them the three Rs. Blu,
the main thing is to train them for house
servants, cooks, mechanics and the farm
There is growing necessity for training
schools for the blacks. In few years al
of the old trained servants will have died
and then good cooking will become lost
art in the South. How few of the young
er negroes are efficient and Trustworthy )
maids and nurses. As to the younger
race of blacks who can "read, write and
CIPHER" how lew of them are capable and
reliable compared with the great mass
Wilmington Star.