Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-06-28
PROGRESS IN THE SOUTH
OF SECTION LIES IN
PRACTICAL EDUCATION.
Training Illiterate Whites and Blacks
to Be Efficient Mill
Operatives.

From the New York Tribune.
There Is every indication that the best ele-
ment of the south understands more clearly
now than ever before that the salvation of
the south must be worked out by means
of education. This means is inextricably
bound up with the industrial development
of the states south of Mason and Dixon's
line. The natural resources Of these states
are practically limtless, and are only just
beginning to be thoroughly understood. For
many years agriculture has been practically
the sole dependence in the south, but mil
lions of dollars have been lost to other por-
tons of the country, and especially to the
north, because the south was unable to
manufacture her own great raw material
cotton. In the year 10000 the southern
states grew over ten million bales OF cotton,
but the great bulk Of it was sent north to
be manufactured.
Industrial Progress.
Southern economists have long realized
that when the south could build and equip
her own cotton mills and handle her own
raw material her industrial future would
become secure beyond all peradventure
But they have also now come TO see that
this cannot be until the negroes and the .un-
educated whites have been trained UP TO
the status of skilled operatives.
What is true of the cotton industry is
largely true of the other manufacturing IN
dustries of the south. And this is one rea-
son WHY public interest all over the south
has been turning of late so pointedly IN
the direction of technical educatoh ana
manual training for the many citizens OF
the south both black and white, VINO at
present have only the capacity for such
training Several schools having these ENDS
in view have sprung up In the last ten
years and in the last few years the result
became apparent in the large investments
made in cotton mills In the southern states
These investments, encouraged by leSIs-
lation in several states, are still gong on
All along the lines of the various southern
railways the traveller sees new mills Lttfe
manufa curing settlements are gathering
about them, and the signs OF the new III
dustrial growth are many.
Distinction of Race.
The distinction of race affects almost
every public question in the south as much
as ever it did, and the most optimistic can
scarcely look forward to a time when this
will cease to be the case 1t is idle to shut
ones eyes to the fact that the large ma
iorty of southern men of intelligence and
standing look with disfavor upon the high
er education of the black man. If you ask
them their reasons they will reply frankly
that in the vast majority of cases 1t results
in making him forget his place III you
pursue this phrase to its ultimate meaning
find that it voices the fear that the negro
will get more education than he is able to
digest, that he will conceive exaggerated
ideas of his own Importance; that he will
become conceited, insolent and self-import-
ant.
Nobody can fail to see that there is a
danger of giving the negroes as mass
more education than their mental digestion
can properly attend to. That the colored
man was unfit 20 exercise the privileges of
citizenship when they were suddenly ac-
ouired is q truism. His training had been
far from the kind best adapted to fit him
for the suffrage He has been gradually
decrca sing his unfitness for this great right
in the forty years that have passed since
he became free, but no reasonable observer
will say that nc is even yet trained up to
a high level of citizenship. Yet he has
made no mean progress, despite the fact
that for many years his training was con-
Quoted III the face of general hostility all
over the south.