“Industrial education in the comprehensive sense is the very essence of democracy in education. Civilized society has long been democratic in the advocacy of education for all the people, regardless of race, color, and previous condition. In curriculum and method, however, the schools of the land have continued to be both aristocratic and arbitrary. Subjects introduced in the middle ages to meet the needs of the aristocracy of that time have been retained for their cultural value. Democracy in the content of education demands that the curriculum shall impart culture through knowledge and practice related to the farm, the shop, the office, and, above all, the home.”
According to figures recently published by the Bureau of Education there are 61 public and private institutions which offer some industrial training to their pupils, and 174 with manual training and household arts courses. Of the former group, 29 are maintained by State and Federal funds. The 16 agricultural and mechanical schools largely supported by appropriations from the National Government are fairly well equipped to teach the more important trades and to train girls in household arts. Only a few of them, however, teach the trades effectively, and practically all subordinate the industrial training to the literary instruction. The 13 State institutions are schools of elementary and secondary grade, with some teacher-training courses and some facilities for manual training. Six of them are located in Northern States. In addition to these State institutions, well-managed manual training schools are maintained by the cities of Washington, D. C.; Charleston, S. C., and Columbus, Ga.
The private institutions are divided into two groups: Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute, with their large plants, constitute the first group. They occupy a unique position, not only for their influence among the schools for colored people, but also for the part they play in determining the educational policies of the country.
A number of effective movements for the extension of industrial education have been organized within the past ten years. These movements are the result of the cooperation of the Jeanes Fund, the Slater Fund, and the General Education Board with the State and county departments of education. Through this cooperation, State supervisors of colored schools have been appointed in ten Southern States and county industrial teachers are maintained in 131 counties of these and other States. These agencies have organized home-makers’ clubs, encouraged the introduction of industrial courses into the schools, and assisted in arousing public opinion favorable to industrial education.
No discussion of industrial education is complete without reference to the late Dr. Booker T. Washington, who in this field attained world-wide fame and brought more to the cause of all education, than any other individual of this generation. His life history and the wonderful story of Tuskegee, which he founded, are too well known to be given in detail. But his influence was not limited to Tuskegee. He did more than any other individual in teaching the world “that democracy’s plan for the solution of the race problem in the Southland is not primarily in the philanthropies and wisdom of Northern people; nor is it in the desires and struggles of the colored people; nor yet in the first hand knowledge and daily contacts of the Southern white people. Democracy’s plan is in the combination of the best thought and the deepest sympathy and the most abiding faith of these three groups working with mutual faith in one another.”
No more appropriate ending can be found to this section on industrial education or the entire chapter on Negro education, than the beautiful poem of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, written as a tribute to Dr. Washington:
The word is writ that he who runs may read,
What is the passing breath of earthly fame?
But to snatch glory from the hands of blame—
That is to be, to live, to strive indeed.