Working With the Hands / Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee

by Booker T. Washington

Answers: Yes, 102; no, 19; unanswered, 15.

11. Is the moral growth of the Negro equal to his mental growth?

Answers: Yes, 55; no, 46; unanswered, 35.

But it has been said that the Negro proves economically valueless in proportion as he is educated. All will agree that the Negro in Virginia, for example, began life forty years ago in complete poverty, scarcely owning clothing or a day's food. From an economic point of view, what has been accomplished for Virginia alone largely through the example and work of the graduates of Hampton and other large schools in that state? The reports of the State Auditor show that the Negro to-day owns at least one twenty-sixth of the total real estate in that commonwealth exclusive of his holdings in towns and cities, and that in the counties east of the Blue Ridge Mountains he owns one-sixteenth. In Middlesex County he owns one-sixth; in Hanover one-fourth. In Georgia, the official records show that, largely through the influence of educated men and women from Atlanta schools and others, the Negroes added last year $1,526,000 to their taxable property, making the total amount upon which they pay taxes in that State alone $16,700,000. From nothing to $16,000,000 in one State in forty years does not seem to prove that education is hurting the race. Relative progress has been made in Alabama and other Southern States. Every man or woman who graduates from the Hampton or Tuskegee Institutes, who has become intelligent and skilled in any one of the industries of the South, is not only in demand at an increased salary on the part of my race, but there is equal demand from the white race. One of the largest manufacturing concerns in Birmingham, Alabama, keeps a standing order at the Tuskegee Institute to the effect that it will employ every man who graduates from our foundry department.

When the South had a wholly ignorant and wholly slave Negro population, she produced about 4,000,000 bales of cotton; now she has a wholly free and partly educated Negro population, and the South produces nearly 10,000,000 bales of cotton, besides more food products than were ever grown in its history. It should not be overlooked that it is not the Negro alone who produces cotton, but it is his labour that produces most of it. And while he may pay a small direct tax, his labour makes it very convenient for others to pay direct taxes.

Judged purely from an economic or industrial standpoint, the education of the Negro is paying, and will pay more largely in the future in proportion as educational opportunities are increased. A careful examination shows that, of the men and women trained at the Hampton and Tuskegee schools, not ten per cent. can be found in idleness at any season of the year.

Years ago some one asked an eminent clergyman in Boston if Christianity is a failure. The Reverend doctor replied that it had never been tried. When people are bold enough to suggest that the education of the Negro is a failure, I reply that it has never been tried. The fact is that 44.5 per cent. of the coloured people of this country to-day are illiterate. A very large proportion of those classed as educated have the merest smattering of knowledge, which means practically no education. Can the Negro child get an education in school four months and out of school eight months? Can the white child of the South who receives $4.92 per capita for education, or the black child who receives $2.21, be said to be given an equal chance in the battle of life, or has education been tried on them? The official records in Louisiana, for instance, show that less than one-fourth of the Negro children of school age attend any school during the year. This one-fourth was in school for a period of less than five months, and each Negro child of school age in the State had spent on him for education last year but $1.89, while each child of school age in the State of New York had spent on him $20.53. In the former slave States ninety per cent. of the Negro children of school age did not attend school for six months during the year 1900.

Wherever the race is given an opportunity for education, it takes advantage of that opportunity, and the change can be seen in the improved material, educational, moral and religious condition of the masses. Contrast two townships, one in Louisiana, where the race has had little chance, with one in Farmville, Virginia, by means of the United States Bulletin of the Department of Labour. In the Louisiana township only 10 per cent. attend school, and they attend for but four months in a year, and 71 per cent. of the people are illiterate. And as a result of this ignorance and neglect, we find that only 50 per cent. of the people living together as man and wife are legally married. Largely through the leadership of Hampton graduates, 56 per cent. of the black children in Farmville, Virginia, attend either public or private school from six to eight months. There is only 39 per cent. of illiteracy. Practically all the people living together as man and wife are legally married, and in the whole community only 15 per cent. of the births are illegitimate.

But the vital point which I want to emphasise is the disposition of the Negro to exercise self-help in the building up of his own schools in connection with the State public school system. Wherever we send out from Tuskegee, or any of our Southern colleges, a Negro leader of proper character, he shows the people in most cases how to extend the school term beyond the few months provided for by the State. Out of their poverty the Southern States are making a tremendous effort to extend and improve the school term each year, but while this improvement is taking place, the Negro leaders of the character to which I have referred must be depended upon largely to keep alive the spark of education.