Scarcely less popular was the British and American Manual Labor Institute of the colored settlements in Upper Canada. This school was projected by Rev. Hiram Wilson and Josiah Henson as early as 1838, but its organization was not undertaken until 1842. The refugees were then called together to decide upon the expenditure of $1500 collected in England by James C. Fuller, a Quaker. They decided to establish at Dawn "a manual labor school, where children could be taught those elements of knowledge which are usually the occupations of a grammar school, and where boys could be taught in addition the practice of some mechanic art, and the girls could be instructed in those domestic arts which are the proper occupation and ornament of their sex."[1] A tract of three hundred acres of land was purchased, a few buildings were constructed, and pupils were soon admitted. The managers endeavored to make the school, "self-supporting by the employment of the students for certain portions of the time on the land."[2] The advantage of schooling of this kind attracted to Dresden and Dawn sufficient refugees to make these prosperous settlements. Rev. Hiram Wilson, the first principal of the institution, began with fourteen "boarding scholars" when there were no more than fifty colored persons in all the vicinity. In 1852 when the population of this community had increased to five hundred there were sixty students attending the school. Indian and white children were also admitted. Among the students there were also adults varying later in number from fifty-six to one hundred and sixteen.[3] This institution became very influential among the Negroes of Canada. Travelers mentioned the Institute in accounting for the prosperity and good morals of the refugees.[4] Unfortunately, however, after the year 1855 when the school reached its zenith, it began to decline on account of bad feeling probably resulting from a divided management.
[Footnote 1: Henson, Life of Josiah Henson, pp. 73, 74.]
[Footnote 2: Henson, Life of Josiah Henson, p. 115.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 117.]
[Footnote 4: Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 309; and Coffin, Reminiscences, pp. 249, 250.]
Studying these facts concerning the manual labor system of education, the student of education sees that it was not generally successful. This may be accounted for in various ways. One might say that colored people were not desired in the higher pursuits of labor and that their preparation for such vocations never received the support of the rank and file of the Negroes of the North. They saw then, as they often do now, the seeming impracticability of preparing themselves for occupations which they apparently had no chance to follow. Moreover, bright freedmen were not at first attracted to mechanical occupations. Ambitious Negroes who triumphed over slavery and made their way to the North for educational advantages hoped to enter the higher walks of life. Only a few of the race had the foresight of the advocates of industrial training. The majority of the enlightened class desired that they be no longer considered as "persons occupying a menial position, but as capable of the highest development of man."[1] Furthermore, bitterly as some white men hated slavery, and deeply as they seemingly sympathized with the oppressed, they were loath to support a policy which they believed was fatal to their economic interests.[2]
[Footnote 1: Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention, etc., p. 25.]
[Footnote 2: The Fifth Report of the American Antislavery Society, p. 115; Douglass, The Life and Times of, p. 248.]
The chief reason for the failure of the new educational policy was that the managers of the manual labor schools made the mistakes often committed by promoters of industrial education of our day. At first they proceeded on the presumption that one could obtain a classical education while learning a trade and at the same time earn sufficient to support himself at school. Some of the managers of industrial schools have not yet learned that students cannot produce articles for market. The best we can expect from an industrial school to-day is a good apprentice.
Another handicap was that at that time conditions were seldom sufficiently favorable to enable the employer to derive profit enough from students' work to compensate for the maintenance of the youth at a manual labor school. Besides, such a school could not be far-reaching in its results because it could not be so conducted as to accommodate a large number of students. With a slight change in its aims the manual labor schools might have been more successful in the large urban communities, but the aim of their advocates was to establish them in the country where sufficient land for agricultural training could be had, and where students would not be corrupted by the vices of the city.