Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-31
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL
COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES AT
MANASSAS YESTERDAY.

Manassas Industrial School, located on the
| Bull Run battlefield, were held yesterday
afternoon. The president of the Manassas
Association, Mr.. Oswald Garrison Willard
| of New York, and Mrs. Ellen Spencer
Mussey, Miss Jane E. Thompson, DR.. w.
S. Montgomery, Rev. NJ. G. Williams, Rev.
d. G. Henderson. DR.. Wilson Bruce Evans
| and Jennie Dean of the board Of directors
were present.
The order of exercises included musical
number by the pupils. under the direction Of
| Miss Edith Wilson Costin and Mr.. ]. Ger
| aid Tyler, AMI the following addresses by
| members of the graduating class THE
Advantages of Having a Trade" Melvin
T. Wiley; Helping the Rural Schools,
Louise V. Brown; Success the Reward of
Labor" Lavinia E. Washington; Forty
Years Under Freedoms Banner, Andrew
L. Bilups; The Value of Education" Alice
| L. Martin, and The Worth of the Edu-
| Gated Negro Woman to the Community,
| Wella F. c. Jeffries. Sixteen certificates
| and diplomas were awarded by Mr.. George
| II. Mays the principal, the address to the
graduating class being made by Mr.. Ros-
coe Conklin Bruce, recently elected super
intendent for colored schools of the District
of Columbia.
Business Enterprise of Negroes.
Business enterprise should certainly
prove attractive to many of you" Mr..
Bruce said. When hear men ridicule the
modest beginnings of business enterprise
| among the negro people, l am consoled in
recalling travellers tales of the astonishing
acumcn of native African traders On his
| own ground the native African trader Illus
trates all the qualities and devices of the
keen-witted sons of scattered Israel. Then,
too. we must remember that slavery is the
death of the spirit of enterprise. Two ham
bred and fifty years of American slavery
would blunt the wits of the most mex
pugna BILE Jew, Besides. the meanest stock
/, in trade cannot be had without capital. and
in a land of dollars the dollarless I'M
skilled man finds capital infinitely hard to
get and infinitely harder to keep. But. fin
ally, there are thousands of negro business
men in America today, and many of them
have shown such pluck and shrewdness
and thrift and enterprise that they have
won and are winning success and the re-
spect that goes with proved ability.
Il tell you, then, that there is every >rea-
son in the world why you should look TO
business enterprise with reasonable conf
dence. Everything depends upon your in
tereStS and aptitudeS. If you have an apti-
tude for buying and selling, work and save
and plan and get practical experience until
at last you can open a store for yourself.
The negro storekeeper is born with one
| great advantage over his white COMPETE
| tors. If only his goods be good, his store
neat and clean and attractive his prices
! within reason, he may count upon his own
people for trade and support. There is, In
deed, no more reasonable and convincing
evidence of this fact and of the economic
awakening of people than the multi
tude and the astonishing variety of CO.
operative enterprises springing up II
from dragons teeth sown everywhere A
large proportion of these enterprises fail;
the baby must fall not once, but again and
again, and yet again, if al last he Is to walk
the method of pogreSs is that of trial and
error and trial again. 1t is thus that eX-
perience Is won and managers are trained
and the people are whipped and stung into
more intelligent and successful effort The
promoters and managers of these corpora
tive endeavors must be picked men, and
education Is essential. Teach the people to
pool their issues, to combine their capital.
Here, l say, opportunity beckons you. The
negro business man must, of course. put
his heart and conscience into his store; he
must encourage the men and women and
children VINO trade with him to buy not
gimcracks and barber-pole candy but the
things they really need; he must sell dol
lars worth for dollar The social bene-
fits which one good storekeeper in a negro
community can confer by tactfully direct
/ ing his patrons purchases Alright and by
| refining their wants by suggestion-I say
these benefits are simply incalculable.'
Annual Meeting of Directors
Preceding the exercises the annual meet
ing of the board of directors was held,
and reports of the business manager and
treasurer were submitted. At the meeting
of the Manassas Association the action of
the board in accepting the resignation of
George W. Mays, the principal. was unani-
mously ratified, was its action in select
ing Leslie Pinckney Hill to succeed to the
position.
The new principal is an honor graduate
of Harvard University, and has had five
years experience as a teacher at Tuskegee
Institute.
Maj Charles r. Douglass was elected
member of the association, and DIR. Wilson
Bruce Evans was elected permanent secre-
| tary.