The Washington bee., 1909-01-30

of land owned by Negroes than in
any previous ten years period But
in 1890, when the last census was ia
ken, the Negro farmers owned, al
most wholly in the Southern states,
! I4,964,2I4 acres of land-an area
nearly as large as Holland and Bel
gium combined-and this was 35.8 of
al the land operated by colored
farmers. This represents the move
ment to which l have referred.
During the last three years there
! has been introduced in some of the
Southern states what are known as
demonstration farms" These farms
are carried on under the direction of
the Agricultural Department at
Washington, D. C., but they are sup
ported by funds from the General
Education Board in New York City.
By means of these demonstration
farms the ''short courses" in agri-
culture, farmers institutes and 9th
er devices of what are sometimes
called agricultural extension" work.
the benefits of industrial education
are now being extended to the man
on the soil. If this work can be con-
tinued and extended, I look for great
er changes in the next ten years than
in the past.
| have written at some length con-
cerning the relation of industrial edu-
cation to the Negro not merely be-
cause that is subject that l know
most about, but because | do not
know where else the far-reaching eff
fects of industrial education are so
open to observation and study. Per
hapS I should say, before leaving this
part of the subject, that it seems to
me, in the effort to solve the Negro
problem by means of sndustrial edu-
cation, we have succeeded in working
out in this country practical and
useful method OF dealing with other
primitive races, who are now coming
for the first time into close and init
mate contact with our civilization
For instance, I am convinced that in
dustrial education will be found just
as valuable in the solution of Our CO.
lonial problems in Porto Rico and in
the Philippines as it has been in solv-
ing some of our social and economic
problems in the Southern states.
When industrial education was first
started it was generally believed
throughout the Southern states that it
was a form of education especially
adapted to the Negro. AS the Negro
constituted the larger portion of the
laboring class, it was assumed by
many persons that industrial educa
ton would teach him to be contented,
to occupy a menial position, and to
be forever "a newer of wood and a
drawer of water"
Great changes have taken place in
public opinion since that time. The
Negro no longer has monopoly of
the occupations that were once call
ed ''menial," and not only has the
opposition to industrial education
that formerly existed among the Ne
gro people disappeared, but in recent
years the white people of the South
have become enthusiastic for exactly
the same kind of education that was
formerly thought fit only for the
members of the Negro race. Not
only in the South, but In the North,
there is a growing and increasing de
mand for just the sort of industrial
education that was once looked down
upon as degrading"
1t is now pretty generally recog-
nized that manual training does not
meet the needs of the situation. Any
form of schooling that merely pro-
vides discipline and culture is not
sufficient. Young men and young
women must from the first be taught
the Importance of making themselves
useful to the community in which
they live; they must be taught to fit
themselves for some. definite vocation.
It used to be thought that when
a young man went to college and Sc
cured a doctors diploma, or when he
entered a trade as an apprentice, and
after a course of years graduated as
journeyman, that his education, as
far as his vocation was concerned,
was finished. The usual program for
a boy in those days was to spend
some years in school learning to read,
write, and cipher; then, after, after
leaving school to spend some time in