The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-08
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groes who begin to approach him in gem eral culture.
 Need of Normal Schools. What the negroes need fin the way of literary schools could be supplied by a few institutions of the ordinary normal
 school type. That is a school which is familiar throughout the best educated States in the North. It is quite sufficient for ordinary grammar school teachers to
 give them Q high school training, with | year or two of a normal course as an addition. These normal and high schools
 are absolutely all that will be needed by the negroes for two or three generations to come, leaving one or two colleges to
 provide for the aspirations of the few | who desire to pursue their studies fur ther.
 For the great mass of the negroes the | need to-day is for a genuine system of primary schools. I would teach the az
 ricultural laborer and the toiler in the city how to read and how to write. to l add two and two. and count to 1000. T would teach him how to make change and to read an ordinary contract. l would teach him how to write plain
 readable letter, how to give receipt how to make out bill, and then let him
 alone. What IS embraced in the primary
 and the early grammar school grades in
 New England and New York is quite enough for the average country negro | for the next fifty or seventy-five years. Side by side with this primary school and grammar school education there
 should be manual training for the ne gro. I am in hearty sympathy with the
 work being done by Booker Washington
 and by the splendid school at Hampton where that great negro himself was ed
 ucated. have had frequent occasion tc say already that. in my opinion, the ne gro is the best laborer in the world. His
 ability in that respect is not confined tc agrciulture. He is essentially an imita- tor, and any handicraft which can be
 learned by imitation is at his disposal al
 once. He can be made, by little training
 into a good carpenter, bricklayer, black
 smith, tinsmith, wheelwright, or any oth- | CT ordinary artisan. This seems the best
 possible avenue for the negro to escape from the awful drudgery of the field without making use of the menial occu' patton of the barber shop and the boot black stand.
 | Put with the industrial education the
 grammar school training which have already indicated and you will make for
 the negro race an opportunity of self
 respect and of capable service in the
 world, which is now denied 1t.
 Teach the negro how to use his hands
 intelligently, give him chance to read
 daily paper, let him have 8 letter now
 and then from his children. and the days of assaults, of violence, and of lynching will disappear.
 Must Avoid Approximation. Great care must be taken to avoid the supereducation of the negro. And this | word of warning is especially directed tc many estimable philanthropists who are
 willing to attach their names to colleges but are slow to devote their money to the multiplication of humble little country | schools.
 The redemption and uplifhting- of the negro will not be through the comedies of Aristophanes or from the differential calculus but from the old spelling book
 the green back primer, and the black l board.
 The field hand does not need to know | Latin, and he may we'll be ignorant of the | chemistry of the soil, but he can be sue
 cessfully taught to use his hands, how tc | detect fraud in 8 labor contract, how tc | scrutinize his account at a plantation
 store, and. above all. how to write his
 name so that he shall not be made the victim of his own ignorance. Most of the | ills of the negro in the South today are | brought about by his own consuming ignorance, and I greatly fear that some l of the Southern opposition to his ignor- | ance is born of a selfish desire to utilize | it for his continued enslavement
 Stop the colored university just where il it. Don't starve it, but don't build any
 more, and don't increase the endowment of the existing ones until illiteFacy has been practically stamped out, put little red school house within sight of every plantation, and give the children time to ! go to school. Prohibit employment on the ] plantation. except during the summer months. and require the little darlxies to l put in a certain number of weeks in I school Multiply institutions like the Tus- kegee and Hampton Industrial School and endow them with funds by the national | government. Put one in every black | County in the Southern States. Teach
 reading. writing arithmetic, geography and little else out of books. Teach black
 smithing and the use of the hammer;
 teach reasonable. sensible agricultural
 methods, and then turn the negro hoy and girl loose to teach their younger | brothers and sisters the same thing. l The older generations of the black peo- | ple in the South cannot be reached today | I believe, by any possible system of edu- l cation, but the little children, boys and l girls. are actually hungry for schooling l They will respond Co the effort instantly and in fifty years the illiteracy of tho black people of thes South which Is today a disgrace to the civilization. of AAinerica | could readily be wiped out.