The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1903-05-12
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING FOR WHITE BOYS

4NOUS4N1AL 4NA4N4NO rON "n11G DO4O |
In commenting last week on the discussion
of negro education at the Richmond Conference
for Education in the South, we should not have
overlooked the address of DR.. Lyman Hall, of
Georgia, in which he made an earnest plea for
more liberal support of white training schools.
81 do not believe" he said, "that there is a
school in the South where a white boy can4earn
bricklaying, or plumbing, furniture making, or
practical manufacturing in wood and metal and
clay on a practical commercial basis. Our tech
nical schools are sending out a few leaders, super
intendents, scientists, who are not to form the
rank and file of skilled labor. But the colored
race is meeting this problem with abundant means,
had for the asking. Their industrial schools are
making skilled workmen who command good
wages, and who are turned from employment by
no fasle sentiment, by no prejudice, by no union
in any trade or handicraft in the Southern States.
These schools are increasing in number and size.
When the colored race all become skilled brick
layers somebody will have to carry the mortar.
When they all become plumbers, who are going to
be the helpers, the men who carry the tools?
When they become scientific farmers, who are
going to be the laborers? We SOutherners, we
Southern whites? No. We have settled that ques-
tion long ago, and Richmond, Va, is the last place
on earth to ask that question and receive a doubt
full reply. But unless we have trade and indus
trial schools, our boys will have to carry the NOR
tar for somebody, even if they have to emigrate
to do it,.
DR.. Hall, it will be seen, was not pleading for
any backward step in negro education, but for
greater facilities for industrial training of
white boys. And the appeal was a timely one.
Tuskegee Industrial Institute for Southern ne
groes now has a 81, 100000 endowment; where is
there an equally well-equipped school to train
Southern whites as farmers and mechanics
The demand for industrial education for the ne
gro is wise and proper, but there seems to be
some danger of making the impression that it is
Fhe peculiar need of the negro, and not a need
of the white man also. We cannot better express
our own opinion as to this matter than by quoting
the words of Rev. Baylus Cade, at one time Edi-
tor of The Progressive Farmer:
much harm as has been done to the South in
many ways, no greater harm has come to it, than
the cultivation of the opinion that manual labor
should be given over into the hands of underling
classes-that the marks of degradation is upon
manual labor to such an extent as to make it de-
sirable to turn it over to interiors. There is
nothing else that so shamefully harms the South,
and the people of the South as their dependence
upon negroes for the performance of all sorts of
manual labor. This section of the Republic can
never take its place with the other sections in
winning industrial hOnors and economic distinc-
tions until it shall set it best blood and its best
a~ttainments to the doing of all sorts of tasks that
need to be done. The so-called ruling classes,
the so-called social upper crust, the professional
classes even, are not the best, nor the most hon
orable classes in any State. The strength, the
honor, and even the beauty of any people reside
in the ability and Willingness of that people to do
all the tasks that come up to be done-to solve all
the problems that come up for solution"