The author was not only concerned for the well-being of those who were enslaved in the South, but was also intensely interested in those who were already free in the North. She looked to Mr. Douglass as the most eminent representative of the Negro race in the free-states, and before sailing for England, whither she had been invited by the people, who were anxious to show her some honors for what she had done, asked him to her home in Andover, Mass. He gladly accepted the invitation, and, in his Life and Times, gives the following account of his visit:
“I was received at her home with genuine cordiality. There was no contradiction between the author and her book. Mrs. Stowe appeared in conversation equally well as she appeared in her writing. She made to me a nice little speech in announcing her object in sending for me: ‘I have invited you here,’ she said, ‘because I wish to confer with you as to what can be done for the free colored people of the country. I am going to England and expect to have a considerable sum of money placed in my hands, and I intend to use it in some way for the permanent good of the colored people and especially for that class which has become free by their own exertions. In what way to do this most successfully is the subject which I wish to talk with you about. In any event I desire to have some monument rise after Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which shall show that it produced more than a transient influence.’”
They discussed at some length the condition of his people in the Northern states, and as a result both concluded that there should be established an “Industrial College,” where colored people could learn some of the useful handicrafts,—to work in iron, wood and leather—and where a good plain English education could also be obtained. Their poverty kept them ignorant, and ignorance kept them degraded. Mrs. Stowe became so much interested in Mr. Douglass’s educational purposes that she asked him to submit his plans in writing, so that she could take them to England with her and show them to her friends. On his return to Rochester he elaborated his views, as she had requested. The plans were then shown to many of the leading Negroes who worked with him, and they very heartily approved. Later they were submitted to a convention of representative colored people in Rochester to receive the endorsement of that body. In this educational scheme, Mr. Douglass has given evidence of his understanding of the needs of the Negro in our generation, as well as of those in his own. The following is an extract from the statement which he sent to Mrs. Stowe in 1853:
“The plan which I humbly submit in answer to this query is the establishment in Rochester, N. Y., or in some other part of the United States, equally favorable to such an enterprise, of an Industrial College in which shall be taught several important branches of the mechanic arts. This college shall be open to colored youth. I will pass over the details of such an institution as I propose.... Never having had a day’s schooling in all my life, I may not be expected to map out the details of a plan so comprehensive as that involved in the idea of a college. The argument in favor of an Industrial College, a college to be conducted by the best men and the best workmen which the mechanic arts can afford; where the colored youth can be instructed to use their hands, as well as their heads; where they can be put in possession of the means of getting a living, whether their lot in after-life may be cast among civilized or uncivilized men, whether they choose to stay here, or prefer to return to the land of their fathers, is briefly this: Prejudice against the free colored people in the North has nowhere shown itself so invincible as among mechanics. The farmer and the professional man cherish no feeling so bitter as that cherished by these. The latter would starve us out of the country entirely. At this moment I can more easily get my son into a lawyer’s office to study law than I can into a blacksmith’s shop to blow the bellows and to wield the sledge-hammer. Denied the means of learning the useful trades, we are pressed into the narrowest limits to obtain a livelihood. In times past we have been the hewers of wood and drawers of water for American society, and we once enjoyed a monopoly in menial employments, but this is so no longer. Even these employments are rapidly passing out of our hands. The fact is, that colored men must learn trades; must find new employments new modes of usefulness to society; or they must decay under the pressing wants to which their condition is rapidly bringing them.
“We must become mechanics; we must build as well as live in houses; we must make as well as use furniture; we must construct bridges as well as pass over them, before we can properly live or be respected by our fellow-men. We need mechanics as well as ministers. We need workers in iron, clay, and leather. We have orators, authors, and other professional men, but these reach only a certain class, and get respect for our race in certain select circles. To live here as we ought, we must fasten ourselves to our countrymen through their every-day cardinal wants. We must not only be able to black boots, but to make them. At present, in the Northern states, we are unknown as mechanics. We give no proof of genius or skill at the county, state, or national fairs.
“The fact that we make no show of our ability is held conclusive of our inability to make any, hence all the indifference and contempt with which incapacity is regarded fall upon us, and that too when we have had no means of disproving the infamous opinion of our natural inferiority. I have during the last dozen years denied before Americans that we are an inferior race, but this has been done by arguments based upon admitted principles rather than by the presentation of facts. Now, firmly believing as I do, that there are skill, invention, power, industry, and real mechanical genius among the colored people, which will bear favorable testimony for them, and which only need the means to develop them, I am decidedly in favor of the establishment of such a college as I have mentioned. The benefits of such an institution will not be confined to the Northern states nor to the free colored people. They would extend over the whole Union. The slave, not less than the freeman, would be benefited by such an institution. It must be confessed that the most powerful argument now used by the Southern slave-holder, and the one most soothing to his conscience, is that derived from the low condition of the free colored people of the North. I have long felt that too little attention has been given by our truest friends in this country, to removing this stumbling block out of the way of the slave’s liberation.
“The most telling, the most killing refutation of slavery is the presentation of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty and intelligent free black population. Such a population I believe would rise in the Northern states under the fostering care of such a college as that proposed.
“Allow me to say in conclusion that I believe every intelligent colored man in America will approve and rejoice at the establishment of some such institution as that now suggested. There are many respectable colored men, fathers of large families, having boys nearly grown, whose minds are tossed by night and by day with the anxious query, What shall I do with my boys? Such an institution would meet the wants of such persons. Then, too, the establishment of such an institution would be in character with the eminently practical philanthropy of your trans-Atlantic friends. America could scarcely object to it as an attempt to agitate the public mind on the subject of slavery, or to dissolve the Union. It could not be tortured into a cause for hard words by the American people, but the noble and good of all classes would see in the effort an excellent motive, a benevolent object temperately, wisely and practically manifested.”
It would hardly be possible to show in any better way the far-reaching and prophetic character of the mind of Frederick Douglass. This letter indicates very plainly that even before General Armstrong had formulated his plan of academic and industrial education, before Hampton Institute, and long before Tuskegee Institute was thought of, Frederick Douglass saw the necessity for just such work as many of the industrial schools are doing in the South at the present time.
It is thus most pleasant to have the name of Douglass linked with the cause of industrial education. He believed not only in academic and college training but also in agricultural and mechanical education. Hampton, Tuskegee and many other institutions are now putting his teachings into practice.