Birmingham age-herald., 1895-03-03
AeE WE IN THE RIeHT pArHY

Without considering what motive or ln- fiuence, conscious or unaware to us, keeps alive the active work of educating the ne- gro race in our midst, the work goes on and none purpose to delay or defeat it. It has been recently shown by a census of Memphis that the negro population>~t there attending the free public schools is more than half of the attendance, and that of the funds raised to support Inc schools the negro population, neatly a full generation after emancipation, pays only 11a per cent.
 This is deeply interesting social fact. Does education along the same lines pro- duce the same results in the two reces? Does education which fits the tax payer of the white to maintain himself as tax payer qualify the negro to become tax payer? If more than half the public school funds are bestowed upon practically Don- tax payers of different lace, depriving the other race of its apparent share. what would be the result upon the negro If the tax payers, all white, received their share in full, securing to them better education, larger capacity to employ the negro in in- dustrial pursuits and securing to the whites an advancing social condition into which the negro must be incorT orated, morally, to greater or less degree?
 General Armstrong, familiary known as "the apostle to the negroes, says: "What the negro needs at oLcs is elementary ana industrial education and moral develop ment.'' The want is the same, We ven- ture to add, with all mentally and morally receptive races. The aph prism of "apos- tle'' merely gives emphasis to the problem of methods. Does the development of the negro move on the same lines with the one on whose benefcence he is maintained at schools? The observation of army officers is that the Indians- educated at Carlisle, Pa., and Southampton, Va., do not relish their ettainments when reincor- porated in the Indian population of the West. gentleman of this city, corre- spending ceusually with Dr. A. B. Mayo of Boston, who spent dozen or more con- secutive winters in the South, styling him. self "the missionary of education,' ,'' prin- cipally with the colored race in view, was reminded by the Doctor that be knew number of negro female school teachers in Washington city whose manners were ap- propriate to gentleman's drawing room, and thereupon hinged the Doctors argument for education. The reply from Birmingham was that all our grandmothers of the South reared negro girls whose manners were gentle, whose gait was as light as fawn's, whose Eng fish was correct and whose accents were soft and melodious, but the argument of today for scholastic education was then unrecognized. Miss Amelia Murray, maid of honor to the reigning Queen of England, after prolonged and careful travel and study of the South in the last decade of our then existing institution, declared the ne- gro servants of the household were with. out rivals for good man ners and efficiency of service. The negro laborers she found unexcelled.
 The end we aim at is the culture of the negro mind and the fortification of moral character in him. The very best success attained in Alabama, with these purposes in view, is the Tuskegee school under Pro- lessor Washington. It combines industrial training with books, the former being given the preference, we believe, and the other held as incidental. The result of ed- ucation along that line with the negro is unquestionably conclusive.
 The negro race has courage, retentive memory, an initiative faculty wonderfully active, and physical power beyond the whites. It is not worth while to argue the expediency of educating such race; it is imperative that the white tax payers who support negro schools shall ascertain the question of economy as to how to educate it here in our midst. Those lawmakers and educators, who, like the benign pr. Mayo, refuse to detect the hand of God in the division of races, especially declining to see the difference between the negro of the South and the tax payers of the South, will, of course, meander along free of all doubts of the equality of the two in normal aptitude of receptive faculties and retentiye powers.
 The negro has never invented an alpha bet. No written language aRd ocaToa spoken one is possessed by the race in Africa. The logical inference is, the race .nns: grow up to the white mans inven- tions of letters. Professor Washington s school is prima facie evidence that it can reach letters, not as an end, but as an incl. dent of education. The $240, 1000 that Ala bama pays out biennially for the laudable purpose of negro education seems to be a fixed expenditure. Does the race who re- ceves the benefaction or the race which bestows it derive the proper measure Of benefit from 1t? Does not the loss of it to the tax payer from his own children s school present q question worthy of posi- tive opinion and direct action?
 
 IRELAND'S HERO.
 Rohart Ep,msf waa horn in DnhIip in