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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An argument handed down from Reconstruction times was once urged by many people, both white and coloured, against industrial education. It was to the effect that because the white South had from the first opposed what is popularly called "higher education" for the Negro, this must be the only kind good for him. I remember that when I was trying to establish the Tuskegee Institute, nearly all the white people who talked with me on the subject took it for granted that instruction in Greek, Latin, and modern languages would be main features in our curriculum; and I heard no one oppose what it was thought our course of study would embrace. In fact, there are many white people in the South at the present time who do not know that the dead languages are not taught at Tuskegee.

Further proof of what I have said will be furnished by the catalogs of the schools maintained by the Southern States for Negro people, and managed by Southern white people; it will be found that in almost every instance instruction in the higher branches is given with the consent and approval of white officials. This was true as far back as 1880. It is not unusual to meet even at this time Southern white people who are as emphatic in their belief in the value of classical education as a certain element of the coloured people themselves. But the bulk of opinion in the South had little faith in the efficacy of the "higher" or any other kind of education for the Negro. They were indifferent, but did not openly oppose. Not all have been indifferent, however, for there has always been a potent element of white people in all the Southern States who have stood up openly and bravely for the education of all the people, regardless of race. This element has had considerable success thus far in shaping and leading public opinion, and I believe it will become more and more influential. This does not mean that there is as yet an equitable division of the school funds raised by common taxation.