Various

“ Nursing and the general care of the sick is also a branch in which instruction and training are sadly needed by the colored women. Few things are more pitiful than the condition of the sick among any half-civilized people, with their caprices, their superstitions and their irregularities. In this direction, Fisk University takes a prominent place among our institutions, employing a professionally trained woman who gives her whole time to the hygiene of the school and the training of the students in health-preserving and health-restoring. ”

“ Drawing, not as a matter of picture-making, but as a means of systematic training for eye and hand, a training to accuracy and method, and as a vital help toward foremanship in any trade, ought everywhere to be held as a necessary element of industrial education. ”

“ With the beginning of a new fiscal year there came to me a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the present status of our work—a sadness which almost touched the borders of discouragement at the decrease in attendance on our schools, and the lack of eager outreaching and aggressive endeavor on the part of us all—Superintendent, Teachers and Chinese helpers,—all alike. ”

“ In several of our schools—notably Le Moyne Institute at Memphis—instruction in domestic economy, including cooking, is now well systematized as a part of the course of study for girls. At Atlanta University, a class of young women each year is inducted into a full and careful knowledge of good housekeeping by what is called the cottage plan, the girls doing their own housekeeping through the year under the training of a cultivated house-mother. ”

“ But what, after all, are the sufferings of the thousands compared with the freedom of the millions, and all the possibilities which that freedom grants? And whatever may have been the sufferings, it is safe, I think, to say that they would have been multiplied many times, had it not been for the tireless energies of the Christian churches.
The victories of peace are more glorious than those of war, it is said. I believe it; for they are generally more difficult to achieve. It is easier by far to kill a man than to change his opinions. ”

“ The negro will never be at his best either for this country or Africa until his physical condition is improved.
Looking at an industrial education simply from this point, much will be found to emphasize its urgency. The colored people have been limited to a very meagre variety of food. Pork with corn-bread improperly prepared has been the chief staple of a majority of them. In our different boarding institutions and in our schools for cookery we teach that suitable food should be used and how it should be prepared. The blacks are apt students in this department; they have ability as cooks. ”

“ And cooking is only one part of domestic economy. Of this art as a whole, the colored women are densely ignorant. They know nothing of orderly housekeeping, of marketing, or of economy in any true sense of the word. ”

“ One teacher can instruct from six [Pg 52] to ten pupils at as many forges, but the expense is greater than in teaching the use of wood-working tools. There is an inevitable consumption of coal and of metal—a serious loss unless some market can be found for simple articles of handiwork. Instruction in this branch is quite limited, though something is being done at Tougaloo, and more at the Santee Indian school.
Wheelwrighting is fast becoming an obsolete art in the North. The great factories have pushed the hand-made wagon out of the market. ”

“ But suppose these various societies had accomplished, up to this time, nothing more than the teaching of these thousands simply how to read and write, who could estimate the value of the achievement? Who could measure the scope of its influence and tell where that influence will end! When you have once taught a man to read you have placed in his hands the key with which he may—if he be industrious—unlock all the stores of knowledge in his own language. ”

“ The shoe-maker's occupation is gone, except as he becomes a part of the mechanism of a great factory, not making shoes, but confining himself to the simplest elements of a shoe, cutting uppers or scraping soles. Moreover, there is such competition and such depression in the shoe business as make this trade too unprofitable for prosecution in connection with school work.
6. Drawing.—So far, I have been considering only manual training for boys. But there is one branch of a true industrial training which knows no sex. ”

“ The girls have sent specimens of "stocking darning" and of that still more economical and homely employment known as "re-footing old stockings." A patchwork quilt made by the boys, forms a part of this display. Looking over the exhibits made under the American Missionary Association, the writer is pleasantly impressed with the excellent care with which the colored and Indian pupils all over the country are being instructed in trades. As cooks, carpenters, blacksmiths, farmers, brick-makers they are being practically instructed, as well as being given good collegiate educations. ”

“ So I am anxious to tell you something about my people, but as I say I have been here three years, I did not know how they getting along—But I think they are become like as civilized now, As some of them try very hard to do as the white people's. But there are some white men in our agencies, are good but only few of them, And there are most of all bad ones. Those bad ones who are try hard to pull us down. ”

“ We cannot shelter behind it, and think to retire with honor when we have as yet only skirmished on the edges of the field. For the Chinese heathenism of California remains to-day, so far as we can see, substantially a solid mass, without any fissure, though not without a scar. Many chips have been struck off from it, and for these we bless God; but the rock-like hardness of the Chinese heart remains substantially unbroken. Say that all our missions have reached, in the aggregate, 5,000 of these souls—there remain 65,000 virtually untouched. ”

“ Suffice it to add, without hyperbole, that it is easy to track these missionary schools, to trace their influence by their results upon the home life and domestic ambitions of the young people who have gone out from them to the work of the world. ”

“ In this, we may well give somewhat of theoretical instruction through lectures and even text-books; but more important than this, and not incompatible with it, is that effective teaching which comes by working out the practical object lesson of a thoroughly well tilled farm, as is done at Hampton, and to a less degree, as yet, at Tougaloo and Talladega. In this a two-fold purpose is served. Employment is given to needy students, and practical education is at the same time given, with but partial interruption of the progress of intellectual training. ”

“ The industrial training which can be given by the A. M. A. schools is necessarily limited, both by financial and other considerations, not only in extent but also in variety. The ways in which we can wisely make effort seem to be as follows: 1. Agriculture, which is to be, after all, the occupation of the great majority of the people for whom we are laboring. ”

“ The Southern country is capable of producing a large variety of crops, and we seek to encourage such agricultural industries as will be most helpful. At Berea a fruit-canning establishment has been put in operation. At Tougaloo, truck is raised for the Northern market. At Atlanta, experiments with a variety of crops have been abundant and successful, so that by these simple household and agricultural industries a good variety for invalids, young children and others is being furnished. We are rendering great service also by teaching our students to have care for the protection of their persons. ”

“ May we not, however, hope that the turning-point will soon be reached, and that all through the rest of the year it shall be our privilege to chronicle a steady increase? We are out in the current of our work. ”

“ The attempt of the writer of the letter to quote the inhuman sentiment so often uttered by bad white men: "There is no good Indian but a dead Indian," illustrates the extreme difficulty an Indian has in acquiring our language. ”

“ But the idea of running school farms simply for the first-named end, the giving of employment to students, was long ago abandoned. Student labor is too costly, simply as service. It must be made thoroughly educational in order to be justified. Fortunately, the style of farming which is most truly educational is also most nearly remunerative. ”

“ We know fifty cents is not a very convenient sum to send, but we beg our readers to remember that a dollar answers for two years. Vote early and often. In politics, this is not a commendable motto. In the peculiar election we are just now trying to carry through, we put special emphasis on the vote early, and yet do not object to the vote often—that is, if the voters feel like it.
A SANITARY VIEW OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
From the time when it was made manifest that man by the sweat of his brow must provide his bread, there has been occasion for industrial education. ”

“ An industrial education serving such ends has an unquestionable warrant.
In the August number of The American Missionary we gave statistics of mortality of colored people in several Southern cities. For the last week in May the number of deaths per 1,000 among the blacks in Atlanta was 49, in Charleston 39, and in Richmond 50; while the death rate among the whites in those cities was 19, 18 and 19, respectively—less than one-half. This showing was not on account of the negro's inaptitude for the climate ”

“ And so in all our schools, even the day schools, classes in plain sewing have long found a place; though of late the work has been taken up more systematically, all the [Pg 53] girls of certain grades being held to the sewing classes as strictly as to reading or writing. ”

“ After plain sewing comes the cutting and making of garments, the various forms of seductive "fancy work" being almost wholly ignored.
In our exhibit at the Madison meeting of the National Educational Association last summer were numbers of aprons, dresses, shirts, etc., made by pupils, often of the primary grades; and one of the most noticed specimens was a neatly darned stocking. Even darning must be taught to these girls in school; there is no instructor at home.
2. Cooking is much more widely understood by the colored mothers. ”

“ And finally we shall be risen very slowly, from the lowest to the highest civilization. Some of the white man those who opposed the Indian they said—"The Indians can never be civilized are dead Indian not lives Indians but dead, them are unsuccessful and good for anything." ”

“ Upon long tables are ranged for examination books in use, neatly bound, copy-books and innumerable specimens of drawing, fancy work, knitting and plain sewing, also agricultural and blacksmithing specimens from various training schools.
Straight University, which has nearly 600 pupils, sends examination pamphlets, a number of pictures and silk embroidery.
It is curious to note what most interests visitors in certain departments. Straight University sends large numbers of imaginary letters written by pupils from various parts of the world. ”

“ In the South, however, there is still much need of capable wheelwrights for the extensive repairs necessitated by the horrible roads—or rather lack of roads.
4. Tinning.—This is also limited in its possibilities. A market is necessary for the disposal of products. Even a few pupils under a competent instructor can turn off an inconvenient amount of tin-ware, if storage proves to be its fate rather than sale; and schools are always at a disadvantage in the market. ”

“ There are many whose gifts have come to us from an overflowing abundance. Suppose, now, that they should join the grand army of self-sacrificing givers that, at such a stress as hard times produce, is in sore need of recruits ”

“ As a reliable remedy, in cases of Croup, Whooping Cough, or sudden Colds, and for the prompt relief and cure of throat and lung diseases, Ayer's Cherry Pectoral is invaluable. Mrs. E. G. Edgerly, Council Bluffs, Iowa, writes: "I consider Ayer's Cherry Pectoral a most important remedy for home use. I have tested its curative power, in my family, many times during the past thirty years, and have never known it to fail. It will relieve the most serious affections of the throat and lungs, whether in children or adults." ”

“ To-day, according to the last report of the society under whose auspices I have been laboring for many years, that society alone has given instruction to 80,000 persons, and these in turn to tens of thousands more. ”

“ Along with wood-working, instruction in glazing would seem to be feasible, and even in that most useful art, soldering.
3. Blacksmithing.—There are many good blacksmiths among the older colored men; and there is no reason, except lack of opportunity for learning, why there should not be more among the rising generation. In school shops it is possible to teach this trade successfully to classes. ”

“ If ignored in the domain of private morals, they "spring up and expand once more into questions of public equity; neglected as matters of public equity, they blossom into questions of national interest ”