The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-11-27
THE AMERICAN NEGRO.
Booker 7. Washington's
Forecast of His
Possibilities.

L OEDSlDllllICDs
Booker T. Washington the Moses of |
! the colored race" has put into book |
form another justification of the title !
which he has already earned. In a little
volume entitled THE Future of the |
American Negro" he takes his fellows |
to a Mount Pisgah height of vantage
and points out the promised land that !
is theirs to achieve if they follow his !
counsels He tells them frankly what |
are their present limitations, in educa- |
ton, in intelligence and in the general |
conduct of life. but he deals just as
frankly with their virtues.
THE negro" he insists, SIS behind the |
white man because he has not had the |
same chance, and not from any inher- |
ent difference in his nature and desires" |
Nevertheless he holds that the failure |
to recognize a vast difference at present |
growing out of unequal opportunities |
in the past is the weak point in the |
educational work that has been done in !
the south
Negro education, Immediately after
the war, began there too early at the |
point where in New England it had Gull !
minated. In illustration he cites zone of |
the saddest sights ever saw'-the /,
placing of a three hundred dollar rose
wood piano in a southern country school
located in the midst of the BLACK belt" I
Not that he opposes the teaching of
instrumental music to negroes in any
locality, but he would have deferred
such instruction in such a locality for
about twenty-five years
There are numbers of pianos in thou
sands of New England (negro) homes.
But behind the piano in New England
lie one hundred years of toll, sacrifice
hi !, h faA tn
day in land ownership free from debt, in
comfortable homes and bank account.
In this black belt there is nothing but
squalor. All possible resources should
have been utilized in the effort to secure
industrial education for the boys and
girls, After the home and the necessar-
les of life were supplied the piano might
/ come. zone piano lesson in home of
ones own is worth twenty in rented
! cabin"
The same .eagerness ito leap before
learning to crawl is shown in the ne
! gro ambition to master all sciences
from their ornamental rather than their
practical side. Many of them have the
| idea that the mere filling of the head
with knowledge of mathematics, the
/ sciences and literature means success
in life. Mr.. Washington wisely points
out that knowledge is only useful for
! the negro is so much as it bears upon
| his present needs and conditions There
| is in the heads of the negro youth of
| the south, he says, enough general
/ and floating knowledge of cehmistry,
| botany, geology, mechanics, electricity
| and mathematics to construct large
| part of the agricultural, mechani-
cal and domestic life of the race" But
! where he asks in despair, are the CO.
| lored chemists and botanists-nay, 4
where are the colored mechanical or
\ civil engineers, the colored architects,
the colored agriculturists. He tells
of young negro, graduate of promi-
nent university. His father, though
comparatively ignorant, had by hard
work and exercise of common sense be-
| come the owner of two thousand acres,
well titled and well stocked.
I'm college the son has studied chem
istry. botany, zoology, surveying and
political economy. In my conversation
| l asked this young man how many
acres has father cultivated in cotton
and how many in corn. With a far off
gaze up into the heavens he answered
that he did not know. When l asked
| him the classification of the soils on
his fathers farm, he did not know. He
did not know how many horses or
cows his father owned, nor what breed
they were, and seemed surprised that
/ he should be asked such questions. 1t
that on his fathers farm was the place
to make his chemistry. his mathematics
and his literature penetrate and reflect
! itself in every acre of land, every bush
ell of corn, every COW and every, pig"
Asnotable feature of this book is the
broad outlook of it's author. Il thank
! God" he says, that / have grown to
the point where l can sympathize with
a white man as much as l can sympa-
thize with a black man. l have grown
to the point where l can sympathize
with the southern white man as much
as l can sympathize with a northern
white man"
Both north and south, he says, are
| suffering from the effects of negro Slay-
cry, for which both were responsible
What was the task the north asked
! the south to perform? Returning to-
their destitute homes after years of war
! to face blasted hopes, devastation, a
shattered industrial system, they asked
them to add to their own burdens that
of preparing in education, politics and
| economies, in few short years, for
| citizenship, four millions of former
! slaves. That the south, staggering UNI
/ der the burden, made blunders and
! that in measure there has been dis
| appointment, no one need be surprised"
/ Some portion \of the failure he
! charges 10 the INSCRIPTIONS carpet bag
/ pOutlcldAlS "ho Sol ttle HeSIo coIH-
1 dence and controlled his vote to further
/ their own ends, regardless, in many
/ cases, of the permanent welfare of the
negro.
Il have always considered it unfor-
| tunate that the southern white man
| did not make more of an effort during
| the period of reconstruction to get the
| confidence and sympathy of the negro,
and thus have been able to keep him
/ in close touch with sympathy in poll
| tics. It was also unfortunate that the
negro was so completely alienated from
! the southern white man in all political