a total failure to recognize the
essential conditions of race progress. When the Roman monks penetrated
the German woods the chief benefits they carried were not embalmed in
Latin grammars and the orations of Cicero, but were embodied in the
knowledge of agriculture and the arts which, adopted by the people, made
possible later the German civilization. The old rescue mission sought to
yank the sinner out of the slough of despond, the social settlement
seeks to help him who has fallen in the contest of life or him to whom
the opportunity has not been offered, to climb, recognizing that
morality and religion attend, not recede progress. The old charity gave
alms and the country was overrun with hordes of beggars; the new seeks
to help a man to help himself. A similar change must come in the efforts
for the Negro. It has been sought to give him the fruits of civilization
without its bases. It will immediately be argued that this is wrong,
that the chief educational work has been but primary and that little
so-called "higher education" has been given. This is true, even to the
extent that it is possible to find a town of 5,000 inhabitants one-half
Negroes, in which the city provides but one teacher for the black
children and the balance are trained in a school supported by the gifts
of northern people. But, and this is the important thing, the spirit of
the education has been clear and definite and that the plan has not been
carried out has not been due to lack of faith in it. General Armstrong,
thanks to his observations in Hawaii, perceived that a different course
was necessary. His mantle fell on H. F. Frissell and Booker T.
Washington, so Hampton and Tuskegee have been the chief factors in
producing the change which has been noted as coming. Now that industrial
training is winning support it is amusing to note the anxiety of other
schools to show that they have always believed in it. I can but feel
that had the plans of General Armstrong been widely adopted, had the
teachers been trained to take the people where they were and lead them
to gradual improvement, that the situation today would be radically
different. It is, however, not too late to do this yet and the
widespread founding of schools modeled after Hampton and Tuskegee
indicates a general recognition of the needs of the situation.

Yet, even these schools have not turned out as many farmers as is often
supposed. On examination of the catalog of Tuskegee for 190