CHAPTER XI.
INDEPENDENT AND STATE SCHOOLS.
In this and the next two chapters I shall deal with the Independent and State schools. I open this chapter with Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute because it has created a greater amount of interest and has been the subject of more discussion in recent years than any other.
THE TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE.
Charles Dickens says somewhere: "There is not an atom in Tom's slime, not a cubic inch in any pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity, or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his committing, but shall work its retribution through every order of society, up to the proudest of the proud and the highest of the high."
Ignorance and degradation among the people clearly menace the South, and not only the South, but the entire country. The action and reaction of human life is such that no class of persons, however wise or wealthy, can stand aloof from those lower, and remain unaffected, even though unmoved, by their misfortunes. More and more is this fact being recognized, and, as a means of self-protection, as well as from philanthropic motives, a widespread interest is being taken in the education of the Negro.
Perhaps the phase of this question which has aroused the greatest discussion is, "What kind of education does the Negro need?" Yet, probably, if we would try better to understand each other, there would be less difference of opinion. He who claims that there are those who should receive the higher education, and he who contends that what the masses need is an English course and a trade, are not necessarily antagonistic in their views. They may simply stand each for the prominent presentation of a special phase of the work to be done for the race. Bright colored girls and boys who wish to go to college and can do so, certainly should be encouraged to go. We have need of men and women with trained and disciplined minds. Besides there are individuals who are endowed with special gifts which can be used, to the greatest advantage, for the race and for humanity, only by giving them the highest possible degree of culture. On the other hand, there are the masses, who, like the masses of any race, are not able, either intellectually or financially, to take a college course, and who, besides, are destined to callings which require training other than that the college gives. What is to be done for them? This Booker T. Washington is ably demonstrating at Tuskegee. Both of these cases should be presented in equity, and the importance of either should not cause the other to be overlooked.
