New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1906-01-21
TUsKEGEES QUARTER CENTURY.

The Armstrong Association has in the last
few years held several notable meetings in
this city for the discussion of negro educa-
tional problems The twenty fifth anniversary
of the founding of Tuskegee Institute gives
peculiar interest 10 the meeting of next Mon
day night at Carnegie Hall, over which Mr..
Choate will preside and at which Booker I.
Washington. Mark Twain and Robert c. Og-
den will speak.
The quarter century of Tuskegee is point
worth marking in our history That institu-
ton stands most typicaIIy of all in the country
for the most hopeful movement in the nation
for the solution of the race problem in the
interests Of both whites and blacks. Tuskegee
is not the pioneer in industrial education for
the negro. Other schools came before it, most
notably Hampton, where General Armstrong
did his epoch making work. At Hampton,
however. negroes are largely taught by whites.
At Tuskegee the negroes are taught by the
leaders of their own people The race there
is working out its own salvation and sending
forth young colored men and women TO carry
on the same work of civilization through intel
ligent industry and appreciation of the dig
nity of labor in smaller schools as well as on
plantations and in workshops throughout the
South Tlskegee stands for the negro's power
to keep burning and hand on to others the
lamp of civilization given to him by Hampton
the missionary spirit, and it is splendid vim
dication both of the white missionaries and of
the colored race.
Tuskegee is every year doing a great work.
Since It's foundation 1t has had about six thou
sand students, 90 per cent of whom have been
citizens of positive usefulness in the material
and moral uplifting Of their own people. There
are now 1,426 students in the school. But
these figures by no means measure Tuskegees
are helping the people all through the South;
ii is the mother of other schools Perhaps it
is of the greatest Importance. however, as the
educational cathedral of the coored people.
/ about which they rally and from which more
and more they get their ideals Those ideals
do not mean acquiescence in helotry as some
impatient and vain negro teachers would have
us believe, but only philosophical understand
! ing Of history The primary needs of the negro
are economic independence, habits of industry
and sound morality. Without these political
privilege and higher education are a snare, and
it is these three essentials which Tuskegee en-
phasZes a preparation for whatever else
the negro may achieve.
While Tuskegee is largely the creation of
Booker T. Washington il is appropriate at this
! time 10 recall the story of its foundation and
the part played in it by a humble Tuskegee
tinsmith. Lewis Adams. Adams was a slave
who. after the war. set up a little shop in
Tuskegee. where he carried on the several
trades learned in slavery, and was much in
demand to teach them to young negroes. In
1880 ne told a candidate for the legislature
who asked his influence that this work too
much for him and he wanted an appropriation
for an industrial school there
A grant of 5000 a year was made, and
Adams sent to General Armstrong for
teacher, secured Booker Washington, and him
elf rted q The Srbo he
lived. To-day the income of Tuskegee is S213,-
O00 but an income of 100000 Is needed and
an endowment which would produce that ought
10 be raised work not SO much of be-