The Washington bee., 1909-01-30

Industrial Education
In the January number of the An
nails of the American Academy OF
Political and Social Science is a well
written article by DIR. Booker /.
Washington entitled Relation OF
Industrial Education to National
Progress. The article should be read
by every colored American in this
country, and believing that a careful
reading and digesting Of the article
will be beneficial to COlOred Amerl-
cans The Bee has decided to publish
the entire article in these columns, by
sections. The article shows that the
late Frederick Douglass conceived
the first idea of industrial education
for the Negro which has now become
an established fact and put into
practical operation by that distin-
guished educator, DR.. Washington.
RELATION OF INDUSTRIAL
EDUCATION TO NATIONAL
PROGRESS
By DR.. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON,
Principal Tuskegee Institute,
Alabama.
Continued from last week.
AS soon as they were able to han
die a hoe they were set to work in
a field. Perhaps they picked up
something of reading and writing du-
ring the few months that the country
schools opened and they learned
something of the outside from the
gossip of the old people gathered
around the little country church or
Sunday. The books they read in
school told them nothing of their own
life, nothing of the people about them
To them tbs world of books seemed
something wholly different and far
removed from anything they knew in
real life.
To make education a permanent
healthful influence in the lives OF
these young men it is absolutely nee
essary that what they learn in the
school-room should be connected with
what they do in the ordinary duties
of their ally life. The first and most
important advantage that industrial
has over any other form of education
is that it definitely makes this con
uec,ion between the school and life
The boy who learns about rods anC
furlongs and acres in the classroom
learns out on the farm to measure
off actual furlongs and actual acres
The boy who learns something o.
botany and something of plant life
and something of the chemistry of th'
soil in school puts all he has learned
into practice when he goes out t.
work on the soil
Where training in the industries i
carried on as it is in most industria
schools for the Negro, in connection
with the teaching of the common
school branches, an effort is made t
connect everything that is learned il
the classroom with some form o
productive labor, either in the felt
or in the shop. This correlation Of TIL
studies in the books with the practict
in the industries has a double value
For instance, the boy who is study
ING about the iron industries of Pitts
burg finds in the work Of iron mold
ing a practical illustration on a small
scale of what is going on in a mucl
larger scale III the great centers o
that industry. At the same time tn
boy who is learning the iron molder'
trade gets a new interest in his owl
work when he reads in his geograph,
about similar industries carried on Oh
a larger scale in a great many of thes
manufacturing cities. The knowledg
that he is part of a great and impor
tant industry gives new dignity t
the trade in which he is engaged, an
gives him both a more intimate ant
a wider view of the industrial lif
of which he is preparing to max
himself a part.
Industrial education sprang up i
this country to meet a national crisi
brought about, as l have explained
by the liberation of the Negro slave:
1t has had, and must in my opinio
continue to have, for some time an in
portant part in the industrial progres
Of the South While the Negro wa