Dress for comfort and not as mere ornament, soap, towels, beds, regulated ventilation, the conditions and concomitants of true culture, these belong to a distinct epoch from that earlier and lower one characterized by love of display. The wise, Christian culture of our schools is intended to reduce this evil, to which the negro is specially inclined, to the least possible dimensions. We aim to make earnest, practical men and women, who shall value all they can acquire either of knowledge or of money, not in its relation to personal aggrandizement, but for its power to lift their homes, families and people out of their present degradation.
But the work of the teacher needs to be supplemented by other saving influences. In no other way could the Southern States do so much for the elevation of intelligence and virtue of its poorer classes, white and black, as by inducing them to build for themselves better homes. In more northerly latitudes, climate compels the erection of houses that are at least well made, and excellence in one particular suggests and gradually secures it in others; but where a hut, floorless and windowless, proves sufficient, nothing better is suggested, and life sustained on that level rises to no higher plane except under special, extraneous provocatives. In the present impoverished condition of these States, and comparative indifference of the better to the degraded condition of the lower classes, nothing can be expected from them, and the suggestion is made to philanthropists who are seeking the welfare of the colored people, whether something might not be done by offering premiums for the erection of homes, and by furnishing, in some way, plans and suggestions which would be helpful to them.
In some States, the negroes have, with good results, instituted agricultural fairs, and have thus stimulated each other to helpful rivalries. Cannot something be done by the offer, through these organizations, of suitable premiums for cheap, but suitable, homes?
Christianity ought, in this 1880th year of our Lord, to be more than a “voice crying in the wilderness;” more than John clad in skins and living on locusts and wild honey. She ought to go forth clad in her beautiful garments. During these two centuries she has ripened much fruit which the world knows is good; she has developed much power of which the world feels its need, and it should not go to the nations and tribes of the earth empty handed, only to utter, as at first, the glad tidings which she was commissioned to proclaim. She should march forth in the greatness of her strength and magnificence of her beauty, panoplied in power and garlanded with her victories, commending herself to man by what she has gained for him. Other avenues have been opened for approach—other than through his hopes and fears for the future life; substantial gains have been achieved for that which now is, and these should be made the allies of Christ and the instruments of the Church. It has taken centuries to build a Christian home, the mightiest ally of the Church; let the Church take it with her along with the school, and not suffer the filth, and discomfort, and degrading influences of the old hut to hang as a millstone about the neck of those she would save. Of man’s home here, no less than of the heavenly, “the Lamb should be the light;” his surroundings, person, intellect, every part of him and every interest pertaining to him, should be acted upon by the accumulated influences, and appealed to by the developed advantages and benefits of Christianity. If by some means the log cabins of the negroes can be supplanted by neat and healthful cottages—surrounded by gardens and shaded yards—more than threefold efficiency will be added to the efforts we are making through the schools and churches.
Send back our pupils from the refining influences of our boarding-schools into the dirt and squalor and ugliness of these cabins, and a large per cent. of our work will be lost.
Attention to the subject, immediate and earnest, is demanded by all the interests we seek, and it is hoped that some one competent to deal with it will give it thought, and suggest some practical way of securing so desirable an end.
THE GROWTH OF IDEAS AMONG THE NEGROES AND INDIANS.
REV. ADDISON P. FOSTER, JERSEY CITY, N. J.
It is a truism to say that the welfare of our country depends on the ideas which are prevalent. No inquiry, then, can be more helpful in determining our condition as a nation than that which relates to the progress of ideas among these classes which give us most anxiety. The Freedmen and the Indians are not the worst classes among us, but they have been the most ignorant, and every patriot is desirous of knowing their present mental condition. A recent visit to the Normal Institute at Hampton, Va., on the occasion of its graduating exercises, gave your correspondent, as he listened to the addresses of the students and conversed with different colored people, an opportunity to collect facts which, though not decisive, are at least suggestive on this point. Undoubtedly, these ideas came largely through the influence of Hampton Institute, but it must be remembered that similar institutions of the American Missionary Association and other boards are scattered throughout the South, and that, through their educated students, these ideas are diffused far and wide among the colored people.
As to work, the colored man long since learned the Divine law, that if he would not work, neither should he eat. One could not sit for an hour on the wharf at Norfolk, as we did lately, and watch the colored men about the sloops and lighters and on the docks, without being impressed by the fact that they had learned to work.