OUR INDUSTRIAL WORK.
The American Missionary Association was a pioneer in introducing industrial training and work among the freedmen of the South. In May, 1867, the Association purchased a tract of land on which the buildings at Hampton, Va., are now located, and agricultural and industrial pursuits were immediately inaugurated. In 1872 a charter was obtained and the property was turned over by the Association to a Board of Trustees, and Gen. Armstrong, with his remarkable enthusiasm and administrative skill, pushed the institution forward in its marvelous career.
At Talladega, Ala., in 1867, the Association purchased a large building, with forty acres of land attached, and the young men were set to tilling the soil under systematic training. In 1877 the Winsted Farm, of 160 acres, was secured, and ten years later the Newton Farm was added, the whole tract now containing 270 acres. On this large farm is carried forward every variety of agricultural industry in the preparation of the soil, in drainage and irrigation, rotation of crops and the raising of stock. An institute for farmers of the county is statedly held under the College auspices, and annual meetings of several days' length are conducted in three or four of the counties of the State. The varied industries of the shop are kept up with the home industries of cooking, laundry, sewing and nursing. A printing office publishes a little monthly which is very creditably printed. Similar periodicals are published in nearly all our large institutions.
At Tougaloo, Miss., the Association purchased 500 acres of land in 1869 and subsequently added another tract, until now the whole domain embraces 650 acres. A great feature of the institution is its industrial work. Here has been developed the full range of farming industries, stock raising and the cultivation of the various crops adapted to the soil, together with shops for mechanical work, embracing carpentry, blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, steam-sawing, sewing and other branches of domestic economy. Strawberries are raised and shipped to the Chicago market.
Our normal schools at Memphis, Tenn., Macon, Ga., and Williamsburg, Ky., have carpentry, printing and other industrial training for young men, and training in the various arts of home life for the young women. At Wilmington, Savannah, Thomasville, Athens, Marion, Mobile, Pleasant Hill and other normal, graded and common schools, the young women are trained in all things needed in making comfortable and pleasant homes.
In our Indian schools industries are taught and practiced. At the Santee Agency a tract of nearly 500 acres gives room that is well used for farming and stock-raising, and well-arranged shops give employment in carpentry, blacksmithing and printing and other avocations. The "Word Carrier," a monthly publication, is not surpassed in neatness of printing by any paper that comes to this office. In other Indian schools various industries are taught, especially those that relate to the care and improvement of homes.
As evidence that this industrial work is pushed forward, we may mention that in our most recently established school in the South, that at Enfield, N. C., the farm of more than a thousand acres of land (the gift of a generous Christian lady of Brooklyn, N. Y.), a large portion of which is under cultivation, gives ample employment to the student. Cotton, corn, potatoes, and the products of the field, the garden and the orchard are cultivated, while in the shops the boys are taught in blacksmithing and in carpentry, and the girls in the various kinds of domestic work, sewing, cooking and housework.