The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-07-14

times ahead of US.
The soldiers are coming back from the
Philippines, at least North Carolina's
contribution to the army of subjugation
is dropping in from day to day, and they
are getting hearty welcome. They have
borne themselves worthily and too much
praise canot be given them for their gal
ant conduct. Whatever we may think
about the Philippines and the rights
and wrongs or our exploits there, we are
all glad the fighting has stopped and 1.-The
boys are being sent back home. Now let
the work of reconciliation and reconstruc-
ton in the newly acquired territory be
such as fairness and justice would die
tate.
There is Il growing belief that the SAL
walton of the negro race, if it is to be
saved at all, lies in the line of industrial
education. Reason points to this con-
clusion and experience has demonstrated
it's correctness.
Literary training, as rule, units
the negro for his sphere and makes of
him first an idler, then too often a Grim
inal. Industrial education, on the other
hand, trains him along the line of his
own natural bent 1t selects the work
for which he is best fitted by nature-as
carpentering, blacksmithing, shoemaking,
farming and the like-and instructS him
in the best methods Of doing this work.
At the same time it gives him a good,
common school education, sufficient for
the needs of his station in life. 1t sends
him forth skilled laborer, creator OF
u.l1 oif xyhap hn
purely literary school would most likely
have sent him out an idler, consumer
of wealth, perhaps criminal.
And why? Because the negro is by rea-
son of his centuries of savagery and slav-
cry, as a race untitled, for a professional
career. But he is fitted for an industrial
life, and nobody is beginning to realize
this more than the leaders of the race.
Booker Washington has dedicated his life
to this idea, the school at Hampton Va.
was built and has fiourished upon this
idea, Shaw University, of this city, by
reason of it has taken on new life, and
the State Board of Education at it's re-
cent meeting to consider the negro Nor
NAL Schools in North Carolina, impressed
upon the principals and teachers who
cane before it the Importance of making
feature.
The Board found, in course of it's inves-
tigation, that some of the schools were
already doing larger amount of indus
trial work, and in every case these have
become the strongest and most success
full schools, and their continuance was
most strongly urged upon the board by the
white people of the towns in which they
are located.
The school at Winston, probably has
most largely developed the industrial fea-
ture of its work, and this it has been
enabled to do because of it's connection
with Slater Institute, which has an en-
dowment of its own, independent of the
State.
I'VE have" Mr.. H. E. Fries, one of the
local board of managers, told the State
Board of Education, facilities for teach
ing our students all the trades for which
the negro seems best adapted The men
are taught farming, shoemaking, black
smithing and the like; the women learn
to keep house, sew, cook and the like. We
do much along this line, but not as much
as We wish to do. We are preparing to
buy a large farm near the school, to be
known as the "Shpp Memorial Farm
and on this we want to teach farming.
We propose to cut it up into small farms
of forty or fifty acres and build house
on each. Then on these farms we will put
students, assigning to each a farm as he
shows his capacity to manage it. If he is
successful with it, we will give him a
certificate stating the fact and this, if he
&c obo will 70
GO out into the world and buy land on a
credit and with what we have taught him
he can soon pay for it. On this line we
think much can be done for the negro"
1--WE North Caroliniansf are queer
people," said Judge Walter Clark the
other day. II have been invited to de-
liver an address at Beaufort on the oath
of this month on Capt. Otway Burns, the
commander OF the Privateer Snap Dragon
in the war of 1912, but find it hard to get
any reliable information concerning his
career. The other day in my search
for material ! ran across communica
tion in an old issue Of the Newbern Jour-
nal, in which correspondent signing
himself 'Carteret' uses these words: AT
this time many vessels were captured
on this coast by the we'll known pirate,
Otway Burns
Now mind YOU continued Judge Clark
that was published in the city of New
bern and ii any body ever replied to it
or otherwise resented it, l can find no
record of the fact; and there are many
descendants of Burns in Newbern and
Carteret county. That is why l say we
are a queer people,"
Judge Clark might have added that 1t
shows the Importance of writing history
duty in which we have been sadly rec
reant. Had not Judge Clark and other
public spirited men of the State inter-
csted themselves in writing and publish
ing the history of the North Carolina
troops in the Civil War, l doubt not that
in years to come mistakes equally as
ridiculous and unjust as that about Capt.
Burns would have been made in regard
to North Cardinals part in that memora-
BILE struggle.
Judge Clark's address will be made at
the unwilling of a monument to Captain
Burns memory, and will doubtless be a
valuable contribution to an almost for
gotten chapter in North Cardinals his
tory.
FRED L. MERRITT.