s have been mentioned, but the greatest is reserved
for the last. This is embraced in one word--WORK. For the first time the
Negro was made to work, not casual work, but steady, constant labor.
From the Negro's standpoint this is the redeeming feature of his slavery
as perhaps it was for the Israelites in Egypt of old. Booker Washington
has written:[5] "American slavery was a great curse to both races, and I
would be the last to apologize for it, but, in the providence of God, I
believe that slavery laid the foundation for the solution of the problem
that is now before us in the South. During slavery the Negro was taught
every trade, every industry, that constitutes the foundation for making
a living."

Dr. H. B. Frissell has borne the same testimony:

"The southern plantation was really a great trade school where
thousands received instruction in mechanic arts, in agriculture, in
cooking, sewing and other domestic occupations. Although it may be
said that all this instruction was given from selfish motives, yet
the fact remains that the slaves on many plantations had good
industrial training, and all honor is due to the conscientious men
and still more to the noble women of the South who in slavery times
helped to prepare the way for the better days that were to come."

Work is the essential condition of human progress. Contrast the training
of the Negro under enforced slavery with that of the Indian, although it
should not be thought that the characters were the same, for the life in
America had made the Indian one who would not submit to the yoke, and
all attempts to enslave him came to naught. Dr. Frissell out of a long
experience says:

"When the children of these two races are placed side by side, as
they are in the school rooms and workshops and on the farms at
Hampton, it is not difficult to perceive that the training which
the blacks had under slavery was far more valuable as a preparation
for civilized life than the freedom from training and service
enjoyed by the Indian on the Western reservations. For while
slavery taught the colored man to work, the reservation pauperized
the Indian with free rations; while slavery brought the black into
the closest relations with the white race and its ways of life, the
reservation shut the Indian away from his white brothers and gave
him little knowledge of their civilizati