The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-07-19

AS To INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.
The Messenger ventured to say that
the cry for industrial training was pos
sfbly excessive. 1t is we'll to have a
fair proportion of the youth Of both
races duly trained in the use Of the
brain and hand. But too much Of it
can be done. 1t is wise to educate the
mind properly. but so far as Industrial
or technical education is concerned it
may be in excess. Leastwise it so
strikes us. There is now a call loud
and long, beginning with Booker
Washington, for negro industrial train
ing" We think that it is better for the
races than the ordinary college educa-
ton. The whites stand in need of in
dustrial education no doubt. 1t is the
nal as the Chattanooga Tradesman,
that both races need it. and the whites
perhaps almost as much as the infer
ior race. 1t avs
mo white population needs training
in handicraft and the applied mechan-
ical sciences, more than do the sons OF
intelligent southern farmers and mer-
chants. Our boys are apt to make
eyes, at some profession before they
are we'll out of a high school or small
academy. We are training no whit
mechanics-such as carpenters. cabl-
net makers, machinists and the rest
of the list. The southern cotton trade
has been a great blessing to u poor
white people. and a good many boys
whose fathers are not poor, have be-
come expert in the business, but too
few entirely.
But the general fact remains that
our southern white boys of good breed
ing and some education too rarely take
to mechanical. engineering and similar
pursuits"
AS to farms, comparatively but few
of the negroes or whites who are edu-
Gated industrially return to the farms.
The Tradesman takes strong ground
in the following passage and it may be
the precise truth. Give the children
of both races a chance at the Three
RS and more. but do not take up
with fads and run into extremes. The
Tradesman says:
I'VE have no doubt but hat there
will always be too many educated
ounces, of all races. Shouting won't
keep the unfit out Of colleges. Fools
learn only in the dear school of ex-
perience. While we may do some good
by keeping up a sort of general clamor
on h subject. we take leave to SER
iously doubt it. We say that any
young human who provides his own
means to secure enlightenment for hirc
self is more likely to be doing righ-
himself. his race and his country, than
he would be if he were submitting to
EE~-N1o- --I1
proposed to reduce the individual and
his freedom of choice TO the alternative
Of accepting the reformers' regime, OF
taking nothing .
The most of this talk about this
and hat training for this n that
class and condition is stupid and i'm
pudent."
Not long since the Messenger refer"
red to the fact that but comparatively
few of the young who attended schools
of agriculture become scientific farm
ers, while OF the pupils of technology
cal institutions many become active
teachers and worker in after life. The
graduates in Technology or the most
of them become identified with the
productive industries. But it is a fac
that state schools Of agriculture in the
south fail to SEND educated, skilled mer
to the farms. We were impressed with
a recent statement in the Atlanta
Evening News. Its remarks are worthy
of citation. 1t says:
THE farmers are the only class
who pay a class tax for the general ed
ucation fund. The tax on fertilizers
turn large sums into the school func
each year for the education of the
children of the whole people. Yet the
farmers, constituting three-fourths Oh
the population, cannot find in Georgia
an agricultural school worth the name
The state gets from the federal govern,
ment each year large sums intended
for agricultural education. The
pretense of a model farm at Athens
was pretty thoroughly exploited by the
Hon. Pope Brown a year or so ago. ano
at one time it seemed likely that MS
agitation would result in something,
but he seems to have called of the
dogs when his friend was elected
chancellor of the university. There has
been a suspension of public opinion
since Chancellor Hill went into office,
because everybody thought it fair TO
give him time to do something. Isn't
it about time something was being done
for the farmers?"
1t is a fact that the farm itself is
an excellent school. But to train youth
right the head must be fully equipped
with enlightened brains. experience,
and industry. The greatest tobacco
raiser ever known in the United States
was the late Dennis Tilley, Of Granville
He was very nearly an i~lliterate. He
averaged higher returns for his tobacco
than any other farmer Of record. But
he understood the art Of making the
finest tobacco. better than any expert
teacher ever known in n public
school. He learned it by industrious
application and sound judgment. Some
wears he averaged from $1,000 to $1,000
to every employee or hand he worked.
But a genuine agricultural college OF
the best kind-one that teaches the pest
way to farm, how to enrich lanos' pro
Once manures. obtain the best results
is ndeed a great desideratum- Geor-
Chancellor in charge OF