CHAPTER III.
CONGREGATIONAL SCHOOLS.
In this chapter, I propose to set forth the important educational work carried on in the South by the American Missionary Association. This work has certainly been significant, and I can do nothing better than quote from Mr. L. B. Moore, Professor at Howard University, Washington, D. C., these words on the industrial schools:
"These industrial schools have been sending to the country places and to the small towns a host of young people who have gone forth as skilled mechanics, and they have gathered them in from the hills and valleys and said, 'Go and learn how to farm with improved implements; go and learn the carpenter's trade with the best tools; learn painting and shoemaking and blacksmithing, and carry the knowledge of these things back to the homes whence you came.' They have been teaching the dignity of labor.
"These industrial schools have also been teaching the value of free labor. The South is just waking up to see what it has lost by slavery. If the white man of the South had been as shrewd as the white man of the East was, he would not now be groaning in poverty and saying, 'We would like to help in this work, but we are so poor.'
"The colleges of this Association are sending out leaders for the people, and oh, how my people need leaders! I can take you to places where the blind are leading the blind, and they are both falling into the ditch together. How important it is that there should be leaders among this people to instruct and help them! These colleges have sent forth 1,000 college-bred men who are going to teach that people; and I tell you the time is coming when that thousand will be increased by another thousand, and the ignorant and ofttimes immoral leaders will have to give way before the light which is now rising.
"Now, why ought this work to be sustained? The first reason is, it pays, and that is the business reason. When a man invests money he wants to know whether it is going to yield him a large income. Can you show me a work that has brought a larger income than the work of the American Missionary Association? Can you show me a people in all history that has made the progress which has been made by the black people in the South according to your own testimony and the testimony of white men in the South?
"Then there is another thing: this work is but justice. It is but just to the slave who toiled for 250 years and accumulated the wealth of this nation. The white man and the colored man were in partnership together for 250 years—John Smith & Co.: but when the dividends were declared, John Smith got them all and the poor colored man has yet to get a settlement. So he is just asking for a share in the dividends."