The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-08-27
TAFT DISCUSSES
NEGRO EDUCATION
Address Is Made to Trustees of
Hampton Institute
HOPE IN THE SCHOOLS
Solution of Race Question Is in Edu-
cation Says the President and in
Training the negro How to
Make Living

Beverly, Mass. August 26.-President
TAFT attended at the home of Mrs. Rob-
ert s. Bradley at Prides Crossing this
afternoon meeting of the board of trus-
tees of Hampton institute and delivered
an address on negro education. The
President especially pieaGed for more lib
eIal financial assistance for schools like
Hampton and Tuskegee. Earlier in the
day tibet President received informal calls
from Governor Fort of New Jersey, who
motored in from a neighboring summer
resort, and Senator Lodge of Massachu-
sets ran over from Nahant for a little
talk on the political situation. In his adj
dress to the Hampton trustees Mr.. Taft
said:
L am not millionaire and I never
have had the feeling of one, but some
times ones imagination takes life and
you wonder what you would do
II you had an income OF 100000 or s10,-
00o. 900 a year and had the ordinary feel
ings of a man who wished to help his fell
low men. It seems to me that one would
like first to find those things to which
he could be certain he must give his
man kind and in looking about l am very
sure that he could not find a place by
which he could, for the benefit of human
kind, invest his money with more GER
tainty of returns than IN Hampton in
stitute
Il think it does not speak quite well
for all the gentlemen who are contributing
generously to various causes that the
lead of an institution like Hampton,
which is the beginning of a great move
1nent tc solve the race question In this
country, should be obliged to go about
seeking 100000 year. One hundred thou
sand dollars year is the income on a
certain number of millions and Hampton
ought to have had those millions long
ago.
Han pton has done more than merely
solving the race question in the proper
may 1t furnishes to tile American edu-
Vator a type of school that is now spread
Ing throughout the country. 1t is in
teresting that is required the solution
&C the problem of the education of the
negro to present to the white educators
interesting that ii requires the solution
One of the dangers that we are likely TO
fall into in the north in the education of
the negro is to forget the very great
necessity for a similar education for the
whites in the south.
Education is the solution of the race
question when it is directed toward CIV
ing the negro a self-respect and a belief
in the dignity of labor and in the neces-
Fity for his making himself a valued
member Of the community in order that
the white men may then give him what
Il his due.
Il believe the present situation in the
south is one full of hope for the solution
of the negro question, because politics is
largely out of 1t. All interests are unit
ing In this movement TO teach the 10000
0n0 negroes how to support themselves
how 10 support the community in which
they live and when their value in the
community is demonstrated the race
question will have it's solution. No one
can read the lectures that Booker Wash
incton has delivered to his own people
without realizing that he Is one of the
+ greatest men of this century and that he
aares to tell them the truth in order that
they may begin to build up their lives on
a sure foundation