Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1904-07-02
LIGHT FOR NEGRO
S. J. Hunter Advocates Training Him
So That He Will Be Able to
Help Himself.
AID FOB SOUTHERN SCHOOL
That Is Located In One of the Most
DenseIy Populated Counties
OF mississippi.

When you have taught the negro
of the south to exercise the resources
nature has endowed him with, and the
possession of which he has been held
in ignorance of, then. and only then,
will you have begun the solution of the
race problem" This is the theory of
S. J. Hunter. founder OF the Noxubee
Industrial school located eight miles
east of Macon, Miss.
Mr.. Hunter has been spending the
week in Rock Island and surrounding
cities in an endeayor to interest PEG
pie of means in the erection OF a new
school. He gave an address last We'd
nesday evening at the First Methodist
church, and his story of the struggles
of his race in the densely populated
districts of the south won considerable
sympathy for the work that he is
championing. Mr.. Hunter is a cul-
tured negro. Tomorrow he is to speak
in the Congregational and First Meth
odist churches in Moline, and G. w.
Brown, the superintendent of the NuX-
ubee school. is TO talk to the congrega-
ton of the Central Presbyterian church
at the morning service tomorrow.
Need Lower SchOOI
The Noxubee school was founded in
1898. The building has only three
rooms. 1t is wholly inadequate to &C
commodate the young folks who wish
to receive training there. 1t is locat-
ed on a farm of $50 acres. The farm
has been paid for. The students work
in the field, and the products of the
farm are sold and the monies raised
therefrom are paid out in salaries for
the instructors.
This school, which bears the name
of the county in which it is located,
was founded as the ripened fruit which
grew out of an innate desire to test the
negro's capacity for developing the re
sources which lay buried within his
grasp. as well as out of the deepened
conviction that the hope of the negro
race depends upon the industrial de-
velOpment of the masses, So per cent
of whom are in the rural districts and
therefore remote from those infiu-
enceS of culture and refinement pos
sessed by the farmers in the more ia
vOred communities of the north and |
east" said Mr.. Hunter The aim is
not a college education, but thorough |
ness in the English branches and to |
make good. useful christian citizens of |
our boys and girls. Our object and |
aim is to educate the head, cultivate |
the heart and train the hand-the |
head to think, the heart to dictate and |
the hand to do noble things.
1900 Negro Children In County.
while this work, located as it is,
eight miles from any railroad station,
and remote from the center of civil
ization, carries with it some discour
agementS, yet there are many COM
mendable features - distance lends
enchantment to the view We should
not be discouraged when we remem-
Der that our own beautiful America,
with her cultivated fields. magnificent
cities and net work of railroads, was
itself. a few years ago, a dense for
est.
This school is located in the prai-
ries of Noxubee county, Miss, nine
miles from the Alabama line. There
are 10000 negro children in this coun-
ty. 1000 of whom have never attend
ed any school. Some industrial eff
fort is needed TO gather them into the
school room. where they may receive
christian training to fit them for chris
tian citiZenShiD"