The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-08-02
ToUGALoo UNIVERSITY.
President Frank G. Woodwork at Willis.
ton Church Yesterday.

congregational church, relative to the
work of the American Missionary associa-
ton. He said that it was the pioneer in
work for the colored people of the South.
1t has now six higher schools, 43 normal
and graded schools, 81 common, 413 teach
ers, 2449 pupils. Its large chartered
schools are now the most advanced and
thorough that are at work. Fisk, ITALIA
dega, Straight, Tougaloo are becoming
each year better. know and more efficient.
Tougaloo is prominently the black belt
school. 1t is near jackson, the capital of
Mississippi, which has negro population
of $50, 900, 60 per cent of them illiterate.
The four counties nearest to Tougaloo
have a colored population of $4,000. With
in a radius of rs miles are $50, 900 negroes.
The main work to be done in the South
is for the plantation negroes who COM
prise more than SIS per cent of the total
negro population. They are the most
ignorant most important and most hope
full element to work for. This is the ele-
ment chiefly reached by Tougaloo which
enrolls from $50 to 400 pupils and has %
officers and teachers.
The great work to be done cepters about
maintenance of good homes; the reinforce
ment of the public schools; moral and
religious uplifting; development of lead
ership. Two things enter into home de-
velopment-the ability to have and main
tain home, the economic idea, and the
true conception of family life. The ordi-
nary plantation negro, earning much less
than 81 a day, knowing little better than
the one roomed cabin has little chance for
a better home 1t is having margin
and knowing how to use it that makes
progress possible. Added skill is needed
that moro money may be made and SO a
margin made possible. There must be in
creased earning capacity. Recognizing
this, Tougaloo is in most respects typical
OF the A. M. A. schools, has for many
years given much attention to such in
dustrial training as is most needed. Car
pentry and other forms of woodwork, iron
work, mechanical and Industrial draw
ing, form part of it's course for the boys,
and more than 100 have such daily in
struction just as much as they have
arithmetic and grammar. Many who
have gone out have been able as carpenters
or smiths to earn $3.50 to So per day.
A plantation of over 500 acres $50 under
cultivation, gives opportunity for object
lessons in improved farming, market
gardening, etc. Shipments of berries,
vegetables, etc., are constantly made to
Chicago OF other places. Not a few
former students are engaging in trucking
successfully. So successful was intensive
cultivation at Tougaloo as applied to cot
ton last year that the planters about sup
posed new kind of cotton had been in
PRODUCED. Cotton, corn, sweet potatoes,
sugar cane, all vegetables needed for a
boarding department of 200 are raised by
student labor. Cattle, swine-one hun
dred or more of each-are raised and
practical instruction given in their care
and breeding. So furnished the boys are
able to get margins. Instruction is given
to fit the girls for home life in sewing,
cooking-forr years courses in each-and
practical housekeeping in a finely
equipped cottage for that special purpose.
Girls are adding to their income by sew
ing and cooking and are being fitted to
be home makers and home keepers. None
Of them can ever again be satisfied with
the one roomed cabin. Dissatisfaction
with remediable present conditions is
first essential in progress. Careful in
struction in the moral ideas fundamental
to successful family life is being constant
ly given. Among the homes of the grad
yates and former students of the school
are many that are models of neatness and
of true home life
The girls have also opportunity for help
fitness and to Increase their earning
capacity, in the instruction in nursing tho
sick given the classes of boys as we'll as
girls, but the girls specializing in it. -Four
out of five who were examined by
prominent physician and received certifi-
Gates of proficiency as attendants of the
sick this spring, have been constantly at
work, two of them in a new hospital. The
specimens of skillful bandaging and re-
markable fine couch for the sick made at
the school, have attracted large attention
at the Nashville exposition. 1t is through
this special home life that the real social
problem that of high type of society
among the negroes themselves, is to be
solved The elevation of the colored race
as race depends chiefly on the teachers
of the common schools. All the southern
states have ideally good systems. The
terms ARE unfortunately too short and
there are many incompetent teachers.
Progress is being made in this direction.
The terms are being lengthened. Exami
nations-in Mississippi the same for
white and colored-are becoming more
rigid more interest is taken in the
schools. Few realize how much the
southern states have done for negro
education. Mississippi has spent over
IS, $50 600. Not less than $50, 100000 has
been expended by the South. The northern
states through missionary and philan-
thropic channels have sent probably half
nc y,,,,ob For MANY wears one of the