Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-19
TO TEACH THE TRADES
Proposed CoIored Training
and Industrial School.
AIMING TO SAVE YOUTH
Congressional Appropriation Desired
to Establish the Institution.
S. P. CHASE AND JAY COOKE
Sidehghts on the Character Of the
Great Ohioan From the Biog-
raphy of the Banker.
BY WILLIAM r. CURTIS.

BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.
Written for The Star and the Chicago Record
Herald.
An ORGANIZED effort is being made this
winter to secure an appropriation from
Congress for the establishment in the
neigh borhood of Washington of train
ing and industrial institute for colored
boys and girls similar to those at Tuske-
gee, Ala, and Hampton, Va. 1t is pro-
posed to locate the academic buildings
and those for teaching the trades within
the District and a large farm for agri-
cultural instruction near the District line
in Maryland, which can be made salf-sup-
porting by raising poultry and garden
truck and keeping dairy. The boys
will be taught brickmaking, bricklaying
carpentry. blacksnithing, painting. wagon
and harness making, shoemaking, tailor
Ing. cooking and various other useful
trades; Ind the girls will be taught cook
ing, laundering, sewing, DIRE ssmaking.
millinery and other branches of domestic
science. which will fl; them to become
cool wives and mothers, as we'll as eff
1icient servants.
There is plenty of raw material among
the youthful colorad population of the
District of Columbia from which useful
citizens may be made. if it Is taken in
time. and no one will deny that it is
wiser for Congress to assist In training
good citizens rather than to punish bad
ones The criminal class OF Washington
is recruited chiefly from the uncared-for
element of the colored population. The
prisoners in the jail and the defendants
in the Police Courts are almost all mem
Nb"rs of the negro race. who have drifted
INTO vice and crime because of the temp
tations to which they have been exposed
and the lack of trades to keep them out
of mischief. Those who are familiar with
the colored children in the primary
schools all agree as to the high average
Of mental perception and their eagerness
and readinr SIS to learn. But, unfortu-
nately they can learn evil quite as rap
idly as good and many Of them are not
permitted TO remain in school until their
characters can he formed but are set
adrift and exposed to evil influences BE-
fore they are able 10 realize the diff
ference between right and wrong.
If Congress will provide means by which
this human drftwood can he gathered up
and cared for and trained to useful la Dor
a large portion Of the funds that are now
appropriated for the protection of the
public and for the punishment of evil
doors will be unnecessary. From an eco
nomic standpoint it will be good invest
ment.
Friends of the Movement.
The Rev. S. Geriah Laml1ins, pastor Of
the Tenth Street Baptist Church in this
city, is the leader of the movement. He
is graduate of Howard University; has
been preaching in Washington for twenty
years; he has been conspicuous In relig-
ious and educational affairs, and is well
known in the community. Cooperating
with him are other prominent citizens of
the colored race including Charles r.
Douglass son of the late Fred Douglass;
DR.. William Fl. Davis. Mrs. Annie E.
Cooper. formerly principal of the NJ Street
High School: Mrs Julia Mason Layton
and other earnest phlanthropists. John
JOY Edison, president Of the Washington
Loan and Trust Company, is the treas
urer: Commissioner Macfarland is chair
man of the advisory committee: exSena
tor Henderson, President Needham OF
George Washington University and Rabbi
Abraham Simon are members, and other
prominent white people are giving the
movement substantial encoura cement
Somebody has suggested that the bal
ance remaining o. the funds of the Freed
mems Bank shall be devoted to the eS-
tablishment Of such school, but there
are no such funds On the contrary. the
government of the United States owes the
depositors- Of the Freedmen's Bank nearly |
a million dollars, and year after year the
controller of the currency, who has charge
OF the affairs of that unfortunate institu
ton, recommends an appropriation to re-
inburse its depositors for what they have
lost. Most of them are dead, many of
them cannot he found. but the obligation
exists just the same and the government
cannot afford to permit this injustice to
continue much longer. Congress ought to
vindicate the honor of the country by APP
propriatng. a sum equal to the balance
due the depositors in that institution.
That is the least that can be done. and. if
after a suitable time the poor colored
people who are entitled to this money
cannot be found, no better disposition of
the balance could be made than to use
it to pay the expense of converting the
mischievous black urchins you find upon
our streets into useful citizens.