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The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861
Chapter XII - Vocational Training
by Woodson, Carter Godwin
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Having before them striking examples of highly educated colored men
who could find no employment in the United States, the free Negroes
began to realize that their preparation was not going hand in hand
with their opportunities. Industrial education was then emphasized as
the proper method of equipping the race for usefulness. The advocacy
of such training, however, was in no sense new. The early anti-slavery
men regarded it as the prerequisite to emancipation, and the
abolitionists urged it as the only safe means of elevating the
freedmen. But when the blacks, converted to this doctrine, began to
enter the higher pursuits of labor during the forties and fifties,
there started a struggle which has been prolonged even into our day.
Most northern white men had ceased to oppose the enlightenment of the
free people of color but still objected to granting them economic
equality. The same investigators that discovered increased facilities
of conventional education for Negroes in 1834 reported also that there
existed among the white mechanics a formidable prejudice against
colored artisans.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color", p. 26.]
In opposing the encroachment of Negroes on their field of labor the
northerners took their cue from the white mechanics in the South. At
first laborers of both races worked together in the same room and at
the same machine.[1] But in the nineteenth century, when more white
men in the South were condescending to do skilled labor and trying to
develop manufactures, they found themselves handicapped by competition
with the slave mechanics. Before 1860 most southern mechanics,
machinists, local manufacturers, contractors, and railroad men with
the exception of conductors were Negroes.[2] Against this custom
of making colored men such an economic factor the white mechanics
frequently protested.[3] The riots against Negroes occurring in
Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington during the thirties
and forties owed their origin mainly to an ill feeling between the
white and colored skilled laborers.[4] The white artisans prevailed
upon the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Georgia to enact
measures hostile to their rivals.[5] In 1845 the State of Georgia made
it a misdemeanor for a colored mechanic to make a contract for the
repair or the erection of buildings.[6] The people of Georgia,
however, were not unanimously in favor of keeping the Negro artisan
down. We have already observed that at the request of the Agricultural
Convention of that State in 1852 the legislature all but passed a bill
providing for the education of slaves to increase their efficiency and
attach them to their masters.[7]
[Footnote 1: Buckingham, "Slave States of America", vol. ii., p. 112.]
[Footnote 2: Du Bois and Dill, "The Negro American Artisan", p. 36.]
[Footnote 3: Du Bois and Dill, "The Negro American Artisan", pp. 31,
32, 33.]
[Footnote 4: Du Bois and Dill, "The Negro American Artisan", p. 34,
and "Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed.", 1871, p. 365.]
[Footnote 5: Du Bois and Dill, "The Negro American Artisan", pp. 31,
32.]
[Footnote 6: Du Bois and Dill, "The Negro American Artisan", p. 32.]
[Footnote 7: "Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed.", 1871, p. 339.]
It was unfortunate that the free people of color in the North had
not taken up vocational training earlier in the century before the
laboring classes realized fraternal consciousness. Once pitted against
the capitalists during the Administration of Andrew Jackson the
working classes learned to think that their interests differed
materially from those of the rich, whose privileges had multiplied at
the expense of the poor. Efforts toward effecting organizations to
secure to labor adequate protection began to be successful during
Van Buren's Administration. At this time some reformers were boldly
demanding the recognition of Negroes by all helpful groups. One of the
tests of the strength of these protagonists was whether or not they
could induce the mechanics of the North to take colored workmen to
supply the skilled laborers required by the then rapid economic
development of our free States. Would the whites permit the blacks
to continue as their competitors after labor had been elevated above
drudgery? To do this meant the continuation of the custom of taking
youths of African blood as apprentices. This the white mechanics of
the North generally refused to do.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Minutes of the Third Annual Convention of the Free
People of Color", p. 18.]
The friends of the colored race, however, were not easily discouraged
by that "vulgar race prejudice which reigns in the breasts of working
classes."[1] Arthur Tappan, Gerrit Smith, and William Lloyd Garrison
made the appeal in behalf of the untrained laborers.[2] Although they
knew the difficulties encountered by Negroes seeking to learn trades,
and could daily observe how unwilling master mechanics were to receive
colored boys as apprentices, the abolitionists persisted in saying
that by perseverance these youths could succeed in procuring
profitable situations.[3] Garrison believed that their failure to find
employment at trades was not due so much to racial differences as to
their lack of training. Speaking to the free people of color in their
convention in Philadelphia in 1831, he could give them no better
advice than that "wherever you can, put your children to trades. A
good trade is better than a fortune, because when once obtained it
cannot be taken away." Discussing the matter further, he said: "Now,
there can be no reason why your sons should fail to make as ingenious
and industrious mechanics, as any white apprentices; and when they
once get trades, they will be able to accumulate money; money begets
influence, and influence respectability. Influence, wealth, and
character will certainly destroy those prejudices which now separate
you from society."[4]
[Footnote 1: "Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color", p. 26.]
[Footnote 2: This statement is based on articles appearing in "The
Liberator" from time to time.]
[Footnote 3: "Minutes of the Second Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color", 1831, p. 10.]
[Footnote 4: "Minutes of the Second Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color", 1831, p. II.]
To expect the coöperation of the white working classes in thus
elevating the colored race turned out to be a delusion. They reached
the conclusion that in making their headway against capital they had a
better chance without Negroes than with them. White mechanics of the
North not only refused to accept colored boys as apprentices, but
would not even work for employers who persisted in hiring Negroes.
Generally refused by the master mechanics of Cincinnati, a colored
cabinet-maker finally found an Englishman who was willing to hire him,
but the employees of the shop objected, refusing to allow the newcomer
even to work in a room by himself.[1] A Negro who could preach in a
white church of the North would have had difficulty in securing the
contract to build a new edifice for that congregation. A colored man
could then more easily get his son into a lawyer's office to learn law
than he could "into a blacksmith shop to blow the bellows and wield
the sledge hammer."[2]
[Footnote 1: "The Liberator", June 13, 1835.]
[Footnote 2: Douglass, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass",
p. 248.]
Left then in a quandary as to what they should do, northern Negroes
hoped to use the then popular "manual labor schools" to furnish the
facilities for both practical and classical education. These schools
as operated for the whites, however, were not primarily trade schools.
Those which admitted persons of African descent paid more attention to
actual industrial training for the reason that colored students could
not then hope to acquire such knowledge as apprentices. This tendency
was well shown by the action of the free Negroes through their
delegates in the convention assembled in Philadelphia in 1830.
Conversant with the policy of so reshaping the educational system of
the country as to carry knowledge even to the hovels, these leaders
were easily won to the scheme of reconstructing their schools "on the
manual labor system." In this they saw the redemption of the free
Negroes of the North. These gentlemen were afraid that the colored
people were not paying sufficient attention to the development of the
power to use their hands skillfully.[1] One of the first acts of the
convention was to inquire as to how fast colored men were becoming
attached to mechanical pursuits,[2] and whether or not there was any
prospect that a manual labor school for the instruction of the youth
would shortly be established. The report of the committee, to which
the question was referred, was so encouraging that the convention
itself decided to establish an institution of the kind at New Haven,
Connecticut. They appealed to their fellows for help, called
the attention of philanthropists to this need of the race, and
commissioned William Lloyd Garrison to solicit funds in Great
Britain.[3] Garrison found hearty supporters among the friends of
freedom in that country. Some, who had been induced to contribute
to the Colonization Society, found it more advisable to aid the new
movement. Charles Stewart of Liverpool wrote Garrison that he could
count on his British co-workers to raise $1000 for this purpose.[4] At
the same time Americans were equally active. Arthur Tappan subscribed
$1000 on the condition that each of nineteen other persons should
contribute the same amount.[5]
[Footnote 1: "Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color", p. 26; and "The Liberator",
October 22, 1831; and "The Abolitionist", November, 1833 (p. 191).]
[Footnote 2: "Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color", p. 27.]
[Footnote 3: "Minutes of the Third Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color", p. 34.]
[Footnote 4: "The Abolitionist" (November 1833), p. 191.]
[Footnote 5: "The Liberator", October 22, 1831.]
Before these well-laid plans could mature, however, unexpected
opposition developed in New Haven. Indignation meetings were held,
protests against this project were filed, and the free people of color
were notified that the institution was not desired in Connecticut.[1]
It was said that these memorialists feared that a colored college so
near to Yale might cause friction between the two student bodies, and
that the school might attract an unusually large number of undesirable
Negroes. At their meeting the citizens of New Haven resolved "That the
founding of colleges for educating colored people is an unwarrantable
and dangerous undertaking to the internal concerns of other states and
ought to be discouraged, and that the mayor, aldermen, common council,
and freemen will resist the movement by every lawful means."[2] In
view of such drastic action the promoters had to abandon their plan.
No such protests were made by the citizens of New Haven, however, when
the colonizationists were planning to establish there a mission school
to prepare Negroes to leave the country.
[Footnote 1: Monroe, "Cyclopaedia of Education", vol. iv., p. 406.]
[Footnote 2: "Ibid.", vol. iv., p. 406; and "The Liberator", July 9,
1831.]
The movement, however, was not then stopped by this outburst of race
prejudice in New Haven. Directing attention to another community, the
New England Antislavery Society took up this scheme and collected
funds to establish a manual labor school. When the officials had on
hand about $1000 it was discovered that they could accomplish their
aim by subsidizing the Noyes Academy of Canaan, New Hampshire, and
making such changes as were necessary to subserve the purposes
intended.[1] The plan was not to convert this into a colored school.
The promoters hoped to maintain there a model academy for the
co-education of the races "on the manual labor system." The treasurer
of the Antislavery Society was to turn over certain moneys to this
academy to provide for the needs of the colored students, who then
numbered fourteen of the fifty-two enrolled. But although it had
been reported that the people of the town were in accord with the
principal's acceptance of this proposition, there were soon evidences
to the contrary. Fearing imaginary evils, these modern Canaanites
destroyed the academy, dragging the building to a swamp with a hundred
yoke of oxen.[2] The better element of the town registered against
this outrage only a slight protest. H.H. Garnett and Alexander
Crummell were among the colored students who sought education at this
academy.
[Footnote 1: "The Liberator", July 4, 1835.]
[Footnote 2: "Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention
for the Improvement of the Free People of Color", p. 34; and Monroe,
"Cyclopaedia of Education", vol. iv., p. 406.]
This work was more successful in the State of New York. There,
too, the cause was championed by the abolitionists.[1] After the
emancipation of all Negroes in that commonwealth by 1827 the New York
Antislavery Society devoted more time to the elevation of the free
people of color. The rapid rise of the laboring classes in this
swiftly growing city made it evident to their benefactors that they
had to be speedily equipped for competition with white mechanics or be
doomed to follow menial employments. The only one of that section to
offer Negroes anything like the opportunity for industrial training,
however, was Gerrit Smith.[2] He was fortunate in having sufficient
wealth to carry out the plan. In 1834 he established in Madison
County, New York, an institution known as the Peterboro Manual Labor
School. The working at trades was provided not altogether to teach the
mechanic arts, but to enable the students to support themselves while
attending school. As a compensation for instruction, books, room,
fuel, light, and board furnished by the founder, the student was
expected to labor four hours daily at some agricultural or mechanical
employment "important to his education."[3] The faculty estimated the
four hours of labor as worth on an average of about 12-1/2 cents for
each student.
[Footnote 1: "Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention
for the Improvement of the Free People of Color", p. 25.]
[Footnote 2: "African Repository", vol. x., p. 312.]
[Footnote 3: "Ibid.", vol. x., p. 312.]
Efforts were then being made for the establishment of another
institution near Philadelphia. These endeavors culminated in the
above-mentioned benefaction of Richard Humphreys, by the will of
whom $10,000 was devised to establish a school for the purpose of
instructing "descendants of the African race in school learning in
the various branches of the mechanical arts and trades and
agriculture."[1] In 1839 members of the Society of Friends organized
an association to establish a school such as Humphreys had planned.
The founders believed that "the most successful method of elevating
the moral and intellectual character of the descendants of Africa, as
well as of improving their social condition, is to extend to them the
benefits of a good education, and to instruct them in the knowledge of
some useful trade or business, whereby they may be enabled to obtain a
comfortable livelihood by their own industry; and through these means
to prepare them for fulfilling the various duties of domestic and
social life with reputation and fidelity as good citizens and pious
men."[2] Directing their attention first to things practical the
association purchased in 1839 a piece of land in Bristol township,
Philadelphia County, where they offered boys instruction in farming,
shoemaking, and other useful trades. Their endeavors, so far as
training in the mechanic arts was concerned, proved to be a failure.
In 1846, therefore, the management decided to discontinue this
literary, agricultural, and manual labor experiment. The trustees then
sold the farm and stock, apprenticed the male students to mechanical
occupations, and opened an evening school. Thinking mainly of
classical education thereafter, the trustees of the fund finally
established the Institute for Colored Youth of which we have spoken
elsewhere.
[Footnote 1: "Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed.", 1871, p. 379.]
[Footnote 2: "Ibid.", 1871, p. 379.]
Some of the philanthropists who promoted the practical education
of the colored people were found in the Negro settlements of the
Northwest. Their first successful attempt in that section was the
establishment of the Emlen Institute in Mercer County, Ohio. The
founding of this institution was due manly to the efforts of Augustus
Wattles who was instrumental in getting a number of emigrating
freedmen to leave Cincinnati and settle in this county about 1835.[1]
Wattles traveled in almost every colored neighborhood of the State and
laid before them the benefits of permanent homes and the education for
their children. On his first journey he organized, with the assistance
of abolitionists, twenty-five schools for colored children. Interested
thereafter in providing a head for this system he purchased for
himself ninety acres of land in Mercer County to establish a manual
labor institution. He sustained a school on it at his own expense,
till the 11th of November, 1842. Wattles then visited Philadelphia
where he became acquainted with the trustees of the late Samuel Emlen,
a Friend of New Jersey. He had left by his will $20,000 "for the
support and education in school learning and mechanic arts and
agriculture of boys of African and Indian descent whose parents
would give such youths to the Institute."[2] The means of the two
philanthropists were united. The trustees purchased a farm and
appointed Wattles as superintendent of the establishment, calling it
Emlen Institute. Located in a section where the Negroes had sufficient
interest in education to support a number of elementary schools, this
institution once had considerable influence.[3] It was removed to
Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1858 and then to Warminster in the same
county in 1873.
[Footnote 1: Howe, "Ohio Historical Collections", p. 355.]
[Footnote 2: Howe, "Ohio Historical Collections", p. 356.]
[Footnote 3: Wickersham, "History of Education in Pa.", p. 254.]
Another school of this type was founded in the Northwest. This was the
Union Literary Institute of Spartanburg, Indiana. The institution owes
its origin to a group of bold, antislavery men who "in the heat of
the abolition excitement"[1] stood firm for the Negro. They soon had
opposition from the proslavery leaders who impeded the progress of
the institution. But thanks to the indefatigable Ebenezer Tucker,
its first principal, the "Nigger School" weathered the storm. The
Institute, however, was founded to educate both races. Its charter
required that no distinction should be made on account of race, color,
rank, or religion. Accordingly, although the student body was from
the beginning of the school partly white, the board of trustees
represented denominations of both races. Accessible statistics do not
show that colored persons ever constituted more than one-third of
the students.[2] It was one of the most durable of the manual labor
schools, having continued after the Civil War, carrying out to some
extent the original designs of its founders. As the plan to continue
it as a private institution proved later to be impracticable the
establishment was changed into a public school.[3]
[Footnote 1: Boone, "The History of Education in Indiana", p. 77.]
[Footnote 2: According to the "Report of the United States
Commissioner of Education" in 1893 the colored students then
constituted about one-third of those then registered at this
institution. See p. 1944 of this report.]
[Footnote 3: Records of the United States Bureau of Education.]
Scarcely less popular was the British and American Manual Labor
Institute of the colored settlements in Upper Canada. This school was
projected by Rev. Hiram Wilson and Josiah Henson as early as 1838, but
its organization was not undertaken until 1842. The refugees were then
called together to decide upon the expenditure of $1500 collected in
England by James C. Fuller, a Quaker. They decided to establish at
Dawn "a manual labor school, where children could be taught those
elements of knowledge which are usually the occupations of a grammar
school, and where boys could be taught in addition the practice of
some mechanic art, and the girls could be instructed in those domestic
arts which are the proper occupation and ornament of their sex."[1] A
tract of three hundred acres of land was purchased, a few buildings
were constructed, and pupils were soon admitted. The managers
endeavored to make the school, "self-supporting by the employment of
the students for certain portions of the time on the land."[2] The
advantage of schooling of this kind attracted to Dresden and Dawn
sufficient refugees to make these prosperous settlements. Rev. Hiram
Wilson, the first principal of the institution, began with fourteen
"boarding scholars" when there were no more than fifty colored persons
in all the vicinity. In 1852 when the population of this community
had increased to five hundred there were sixty students attending
the school. Indian and white children were also admitted. Among the
students there were also adults varying later in number from
fifty-six to one hundred and sixteen.[3] This institution became very
influential among the Negroes of Canada. Travelers mentioned the
Institute in accounting for the prosperity and good morals of the
refugees.[4] Unfortunately, however, after the year 1855 when the
school reached its zenith, it began to decline on account of bad
feeling probably resulting from a divided management.
[Footnote 1: Henson, "Life of Josiah Henson", pp. 73, 74.]
[Footnote 2: Henson, "Life of Josiah Henson", p. 115.]
[Footnote 3: "Ibid.", p. 117.]
[Footnote 4: Drew, "A North-Side View of Slavery", p. 309; and Coffin,
"Reminiscences", pp. 249, 250.]
Studying these facts concerning the manual labor system of education,
the student of education sees that it was not generally successful.
This may be accounted for in various ways. One might say that colored
people were not desired in the higher pursuits of labor and that their
preparation for such vocations never received the support of the rank
and file of the Negroes of the North. They saw then, as they often
do now, the seeming impracticability of preparing themselves for
occupations which they apparently had no chance to follow. Moreover,
bright freedmen were not at first attracted to mechanical occupations.
Ambitious Negroes who triumphed over slavery and made their way to the
North for educational advantages hoped to enter the higher walks of
life. Only a few of the race had the foresight of the advocates of
industrial training. The majority of the enlightened class desired
that they be no longer considered as "persons occupying a menial
position, but as capable of the highest development of man."[1]
Furthermore, bitterly as some white men hated slavery, and deeply as
they seemingly sympathized with the oppressed, they were loath to
support a policy which they believed was fatal to their economic
interests.[2]
[Footnote 1: "Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention",
etc., p. 25.]
[Footnote 2: "The Fifth Report of the American Antislavery Society",
p. 115; Douglass, "The Life and Times of", p. 248.]
The chief reason for the failure of the new educational policy was
that the managers of the manual labor schools made the mistakes often
committed by promoters of industrial education of our day. At first
they proceeded on the presumption that one could obtain a classical
education while learning a trade and at the same time earn sufficient
to support himself at school. Some of the managers of industrial
schools have not yet learned that students cannot produce articles for
market. The best we can expect from an industrial school to-day is a
good apprentice.
Another handicap was that at that time conditions were seldom
sufficiently favorable to enable the employer to derive profit enough
from students' work to compensate for the maintenance of the youth
at a manual labor school. Besides, such a school could not be
far-reaching in its results because it could not be so conducted as to
accommodate a large number of students. With a slight change in its
aims the manual labor schools might have been more successful in
the large urban communities, but the aim of their advocates was to
establish them in the country where sufficient land for agricultural
training could be had, and where students would not be corrupted by
the vices of the city.
It was equally unfortunate that the teachers who were chosen to carry
out this educational policy lacked the preparation adequate to
their task. They had any amount of spirit, but an evident lack of
understanding as to the meaning of this new education. They failed
to unite the qualifications for both the industrial and academic
instruction. It was the fault that we find to-day in our industrial
schools. Those who were responsible for the literary training knew
little of and cared still less for the work in mechanic arts, and
those who were employed to teach trades seldom had sufficient
education to impart what they knew. The students, too, in their
efforts to pursue these uncorrelated courses seldom succeeded in
making much advance in either. We have no evidence that many Negroes
were equipped for higher service in the manual labor schools.
Statistics of 1850 and 1860 show that there was an increase in the
number of colored mechanics, especially in Philadelphia, Cincinnati,
Columbus, the Western Reserve, and Canada.[1] But this was probably
due to the decreasing prejudice of the local white mechanics toward
the Negro artisans fleeing from the South rather than to formal
industrial training.[2]
[Footnote 1: Clarke, "Present Condition of the Free People of Color of
the United States", 1859, pp. 9, 10, 11, 13, and 29.]
[Footnote 2: "Ibid.", pp. 9, 10, and 23.]
Schools of this kind tended gradually to abandon the idea of combining
labor and learning, leaving such provisions mainly as catalogue
fictions. Many of the western colleges were founded as manual
labor schools, but the remains of these beginnings are few and
insignificant. Oberlin, which was once operated on this basis, still
retains the seal of "Learning and Labor," with a college building in
the foreground and a field of grain in the distance. A number of our
institutions have recitations now in the forenoon that students may
devote the afternoon to labor. In some schools Monday instead of
Saturday is the open day of the week because this was wash-day for the
manual labor colleges. Even after the Civil War some schools had their
long vacation in the winter instead of the summer because the latter
was the time for manual labor. The people of our day know little about
this unsuccessful system.
It is evident, therefore, that the leaders who had up to that time
dictated the policy of the social betterment of the colored people had
failed to find the key to the situation. This task fell to the lot
of Frederick Douglass, who, wiser in his generation than most of his
contemporaries, advocated actual vocational training as the greatest
leverage for the elevation of the colored people. Douglass was given
an opportunity to bring his ideas before the public on the occasion of
a visit to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was then preparing to go
to England in response to an invitation from her admirers, who were
anxious to see this famous author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and to give
her a testimonial. Thinking that she would receive large sums of money
in England she desired to get Mr. Douglass's views as to how it could
be most profitably spent for the advancement of the free people of
color. She was especially interested in those who had become free by
their own exertions. Mrs. Stowe informed her guest that several had
suggested the establishment of an educational institution pure and
simple, but that she had not been able to concur with them, thinking
that it would be better to open an industrial school. Douglass was
opposed both to the establishment of such a college as was suggested,
and to that of an ordinary industrial school where pupils should
merely "earn the means of obtaining an education in books." He desired
what we now call the vocational school, "a series of workshops where
colored men could learn some of the handicrafts, learn to work in
iron, wood, and leather, while incidentally acquiring a plain English
education."[1]
[Footnote 1: Douglass, "The Life and Times of", p. 248.]
Under Douglass's leadership the movement had a new goal. The learning
of trades was no longer to be subsidiary to conventional education.
Just the reverse was true. Moreover, it was not to be entrusted to
individuals operating on a small scale; it was to be a public effort
of larger scope. The aim was to make the education of Negroes so
articulate with their needs as to improve their economic condition.
Seeing that despite the successful endeavors of many freedmen to
acquire higher education that the race was still kept in penury,
Douglass believed that by reconstructing their educational policy the
friends of the race could teach the colored people to help themselves.
Pecuniary embarrassment, he thought, was the cause of all evil to
the blacks, "for poverty kept them ignorant and their lack of
enlightenment kept them degraded." The deliverance from these evils,
he contended, could be effected not by such a fancied or artificial
elevation as the mere diffusion of information by institutions beyond
the immediate needs of the poor. The awful plight of the Negroes, as
he saw it, resulted directly from not having the opportunity to learn
trades, and from "narrowing their limits to earn a livelihood."
Douglass deplored the fact that even menial employments were rapidly
passing away from the colored people. Under the caption of "Learn
Trades or Starve," he tried to drive home the truth that if the
free people of color did not soon heed his advice, foreigners then
immigrating in large numbers would elbow them from all lucrative
positions. In his own words, "every day begins with the lesson and
ends with the lesson that colored men must find new employments, new
modes of usefulness to society, or that they must decay under the
pressing wants to which their condition is bringing them."[1]
[Footnote 1: Douglass, "The Life and Times of", p. 248.]
Douglass believed in higher education and looked forward to that stage
in the development of the Negroes when high schools and colleges could
contribute to their progress. He knew, however, that it was foolish
to think that persons accustomed to the rougher and harder modes of
living could in a single leap from their low condition reach that of
professional men. The attainment of such positions, he thought, was
contingent upon laying a foundation in things material by passing
"through the intermediate gradations of agriculture and the mechanic
arts."[1] He was sure that the higher institutions then open to the
colored people would be adequate to the task of providing for them all
the professional men they then needed, and that the facilities for
higher education so far as the schools and colleges in the free States
were concerned would increase quite in proportion to the future needs
of the race.
[Footnote 1: "Ibid.", p. 249.]
Douglass deplored the fact that education and emigration had gone
together. As soon as a colored man of genius like Russworm, Garnett,
Ward, or Crummell appeared, the so-called friends of the race reached
the conclusion that he could better serve his race elsewhere. Seeing
themselves pitted against odds, such bright men had had to seek
more congenial countries. The training of Negroes merely to aid the
colonization scheme would have little bearing on the situation at home
unless its promoters could transplant the majority of the free people
of color. The aim then should be not to transplant the race but to
adopt a policy such as he had proposed to elevate it in the United
States.[1]
[Footnote 1: Douglass, "The Life and Times", p. 250.]
Vocational education, Douglass thought, would disprove the so-called
mental inferiority of the Negroes. He believed that the blacks should
show by action that they were equal to the whites rather than depend
on the defense of friends who based their arguments not on facts but
on certain admitted principles. Believing in the mechanical genius of
the Negroes he hoped that in the establishment of this institution
they would have an opportunity for development. In it he saw a benefit
not only to the free colored people of the North, but also to the
slaves. The strongest argument used by the slaveholder in defense of
his precious institution was the low condition of the free people of
color of the North. Remove this excuse by elevating them and you
will hasten the liberation of the slaves. The best refutation of
the proslavery argument is the "presentation of an industrious,
enterprising, thrifty, and intelligent free black population."[1] An
element of this kind, he believed, would rise under the fostering care
of vocational teachers.
[Footnote 1: Douglass, "The Life and Times of", p. 251.]
With Douglass this proposition did not descend to the plane of mere
suggestion. Audiences which he addressed from time to time were
informed as to the necessity of providing for the colored people
facilities of practical education.[1] The columns of his paper
rendered the cause noble service. He entered upon the advocacy of it
with all the zeal of an educational reformer, endeavoring to show how
this policy would please all concerned. Anxious fathers whose minds
had been exercised by the inquiry as to what to do with their sons
would welcome the opportunity to have them taught trades. It would be
in line with the "eminently practical philanthropy of the Negroes'
trans-Atlantic friends." America would scarcely object to it as an
attempt to agitate the mind on slavery or to destroy the Union. "It
could not be tortured into a cause for hard words by the American
people," but the noble and good of all classes would see in the effort
"an excellent motive, a benevolent object, temperately, wisely, and
practically manifested."[2] The leading free people of color heeded
this message. Appealing to them through their delegates assembled in
Rochester in 1853, Douglass secured a warm endorsement of his plan in
eloquent speeches and resolutions passed by the convention.
[Footnote 1: "African Repository", vol. xxix., p. 136.]
[Footnote 2: Douglass, "Life and Times of", p. 252.]
This great enterprise, like all others, was soon to encounter
opposition. Mrs. Stowe was attacked as soliciting money abroad for her
own private use. So bitter were these proslavery diatribes that Henry
Ward Beecher and Frederick Douglass had some difficulty in convincing
the world that her maligners had no grounds for this vicious
accusation. Furthermore, on taking up the matter with Mrs. Stowe after
her return to the United States, Douglass was disappointed to learn
that she had abandoned her plan to found a vocational institution.
He was never able to see any force in the reasons for the change of
policy; but believed that Mrs. Stowe acted conscientiously, although
her action was decidedly embarrassing to him both at home and
abroad.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Ibid"., p. 252.]
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