The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-02-19
Written for the Sunday Standard.

About the negro conference. which
for the past eight years has been held
annually at Booker r. Wash1ngton's
Tuskegee school, there clings fine
Spirit of novelty. The school itself is
q new departure in the affairs Of negro
education. Just after tile war, when
the thirst for knowledge among the
black folks was we'll nigh Unsuitable,
schools were, founded for them. and the
best material in the north was sent
down to take charge OF them. The
American Missionary society, and kim
.dred organizations, took tine matter in
hand and founded such places of learn
ing as Fisk, Straight and Atlanta uni
versities. But in the first enthusiasm
for teaching the newly emancipated
negroes, the north, which was largely
una cquainted with the material which
1t had on hand, went to the extreme Of
making out their curricula. They fol-
lowed the right principle Of offering
to black boys and girls and to black
men and women. for pupils ranged in
age then from 7 to TO- the opportunity
for the broadcast culture. But they
made the mistake of offering Latin.
Greek and the higher mathematics to
minds which had as yet no foundation
in the commoner branches. Behind this
people were no intellectual traditions.
and when all this weight of elasticity
was placed upon them, they became
mentally topheavy. There could be but
one outcome of ali this, and 1T was seen
in the pompous, half-educaLed, big
worded negro, who came on the stage
of active life after the war. He could
parse you a Latin noun, and could de-
monstrate a theorem in geometry, he
,Nr1r, III
tons, but he could not make O. living
unless he found some pitiful church in
q more pitiful community which he
could cling to like an incubus, or found
down in the country some school where
he could impart his half knowledge to
others of his race.
But very soon a gradual change be-
gan to take place. The negro began to
find that education meant not only
knowing but using. He found that
broad culture meant not only the use
of big words and high sounding
PHRASES, but capacity for the enjoy
ment of the highest things IN life. He
began to teach in the schools that had
been organized for him, and began to
organize some of his own. The churches
Of the, race came in now and took up
some of the educa tional work. and their
colleges and seminaries aided in send
ing eut men fully equipped for the work
of teaching others. But ii was out of a
school, that owed its existence to no
negro denomination that the man final
ly capaeew hos most distinctly stands for
the. idea of utility in education. Booker
7. washington came up to Hampton a
boy with nothing in his pockets, and
came away in much the same state. but
with a good deal in his head. The es-
sential difference between the school he
organized, and those which had pre-
coded 1T. is that it is school for col
ored people, founded by colored man,
who had himself undergone all the ad-
vantages and disadvantages of the kind
of education that was being given his
people, and So should be supposed to
understand their needs. He had taught
in one of the institutions for higher ed
ucation of the negro, and felt that what
was being given the pupils who came
lately from the farms and cotton fields
was not what they hungered for most.
He cut loose from tradition, and fol-
lowing to a large degree the principle
used at Hampton, he embodied his idea
in the institution at Tuskegee.
1t is a significant indication of the
change in the intellectual status of the
negro that right. here in the depths of
Alabama's black belt should rise
school where more than one thousand
students are preparing for the work of
damaged. No more come ancient uncles
and aunties, the hoary- headed daddies
and mammies to the log school house to
learn their a, b-abs, but to this con-
ference do they come from every point
OF the compass within a radius of so
miles or more. In many cases their
children are attending school there
Perhaps they are not digging out the
Greek roots, but learning humbly to
tend those other roots whose growth
means sustenance and an independent
livelihood
Every February the conference is
held, and old and young gather there
for a. heart to heart talk about the con-
ditions OF the race. They meet to plan
improvements in their homes, in their
churches, in their fields and on their
farms. They compare notes upon the
work that has already been done. upon
the improvements that have already
been made, and each year shows the
good results Of the suggestions of last
years conference. Old men, who have
been plcdding on in their own ignorant
way, year after year, wrenching from
the reluctant earth a bare livelihood,
after attending one or two, perhaps, of
these meetings, come back to report
with crops, and money saved. The bane
OF the black farmers life has been the
mortgage of his crops before they are
planted, and the rental Of his land paid
in its best products. The former kept
him ever in debt, the latter left him
with only the scantiest remnants of
what ne had grown, when the land own
er was paid. But eight years of plan
7ling together, eight years of intelligent