Читать книгу Working With the Hands. Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee онлайн

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The tropical climate had been generous to the inhabitant of Africa and had supplied him without effort with the few things needful for the support of the body. I had cause to recall the story of a native who went to sleep on his back in the morning under a banana tree with his mouth open, confident that before noon a providential banana would fall into his mouth. While the African had little occasion to work with his hands in the land of his nativity, by the end of his period of slavery in this country he had undergone two hundred and fifty years of the severest labour. Therefore, many friends of the race argued that the American Negro, of all people, ought to be released from further hand-training, especially while in school. Others said that the Negro had been worked for centuries, and now that the race was free there ought to be a change.

BREAKING UP NEW GROUND WITH AN EIGHT-OX TEAM

At Tuskegee we replied that it was true that the race had been worked in slavery, but the great lesson which the race needed to learn in freedom was to work. We said that as a slave the Negro was worked; as a freeman he must learn to work. There is a vast difference between working and being worked. Being worked means degradation; working means civilisation. This was the difference which our institution wished chiefly to emphasise. We argued that during the days of slavery labour was forced out of the Negro, and he had acquired, for this reason, a dislike for work. The whole machinery of slavery was not apt to beget the spirit of love of labour.