The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-08-29
THE FAULT OF NEGRO EDuCA.
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TON. /
 The Portland oregonian is sometimes unjust to the South. but. as we have before taken occasion to remark. there is hardly newspaper published .n any portion of the North which keeps itself better posted on Southern affairs than The Oregonian, or which, as a. general thing. takes a fairer view of conditions existing here. A recent issue has this:
 One of the reasons why education as ap- piled to the black race in the United States is a practical failure is because the purpose of education is ridiculously mis- those who attend the schools which North ern philanthropy has established In var fous places in the South. Nine young negroes out of ten who go in for educa- tion do 1t with the nation that educa- ton will enable them to live without work. For the same reason the ranks of Of the black ministry throughout the South are always full. being recruited put fourth each year a large number of persons ''educated" to point where they despise manul labor and are eager S sSe catch any s chance sma wssh se Tss religious and moral status of these self elected spiritual leaders of the race may be judged from the fact that few months aEO there were uLIY-nlne OlaCk preachers in the Georgia State peniten- tiary.
 Perhaps The oregonian is more sweep ing than The Advertiser would be. but our far-away contemporary alludes to one of the greatest drawbacks to negro edu- cation. It is not as bad now as it has been, for the efforts of Washington and few others to educate the colored peo- pie on industrial lines and to At them for lives of useful labor have not been entirely without success, but that success is not very encouraging. we must admit. It ha been q common expression in the South that when a negro is educated, it is one more removal from the ranks of labor.
 It has been the almost universal obser- vation that a negro who receives an ed- ucation will not engage In manual labor As before remarked, the efforts of Booker Washington and a few others have been | largiy directed to the commendable work of teaching the colored people that labor Is as honorable and necessary to an ed- ucatsd man or woman as 1t is to an H. | literate one. and certainly they can have | no more ardent well-wishers in that eff | fort than among the Southern people If | they can impress it upon the minds of the people that all labor is honorable, and that an educated farmer or mechanic stands better chance in the struggle for existence than an illiterate one does, they | will be rendering the negro race the most important service that educators ever may count on the moral and active SUD- port and encouragement of all who have the best interests of the South at heart. As stated by The Oregonian, one of the | reasons why the education of negroes has | not heretofore received more general en- couragment arose from the fact that those who received the education almost inva- | riably thought themselves too good to work. and 1t must be acknowledged that in too many cases their teachers made no effort to teach them differently. In | short, the belief largely prevalent among the latter-day negro youth. that because they have received an education they should not be expected to work for a | living. is responsible for much of the crime among them. for the palpable req son that they would not work and couldn't live lawfully without work. That kind of education made loafers, Eamb- lers and law-breakers instead of good cit izens. That they are now being educated | on different lines. to some extent, is as | creditable to their teachers as 1t will be beneficial to them as race.
 What The Oregonian has to say about negro preachers in the Georgia penitenti- ary is news to us. and, if that paper has not been misinformed, it reveals a fear full condition in our sister State. We arc not posted as to the criminal statistics of Georgia, and do not know whether The l Oregonian is correct or not, but If 1t is. the fact is due to the want of proper training. If there Is a large surplus of | negro preachers, with no churches to serve and no congregations to pay their salaries. and they have unfortunate been educated to believe that work is dis creditabie. 1t is natural to suppose that they will resort to unlawful practices. and the result shown In Georgia win follow We have no statistics at hand for Ala bama. but no such proportion of preacher convicts can be found in this State, we are sure,
 The only hope and safety for the negro
 youth is to educate them to feel that
 manual labor is both necessary and hon. l orable.