f history unless he has been taught to see
things grow--has so seen things not only with the outward eye, but with
the eyes of his intelligence and conscience. The actual things of the
present are more important, however, than the institutions of the past.
Even to young children can be shown the simpler conditions and processes
of growth--how corn is put into the ground--how cotton and potatoes
should be planted--how to choose the soil best adapted to a particular
plant, how to improve that soil, how to care for the plant while it grows,
how to get the most value out of it, how to use the elements of waste for
the fertilization of other crops; how, through the alternation of crops,
the land may be made to increase the annual value of its products--these
things, upon their elementary side are absolutely vital to the worth and
success of hundreds of thousands of these people of the Negro race, and
yet our whole educational system has practically ignored them.

* * * * *

"Such work will mean not only an education in agriculture, but an
education through agriculture and education, through natural symbols and
practical forms, which will educate as deeply, as broadly and as truly as
any other system which the world has known. Such changes will bring far
larger results than the mere improvement of our Negroes. They will give
us an agricultural class, a class of tenants or small land owners, trained
not away from the soil, but in relation to the soil and in intelligent
dependence upon its resources."

I close, then, as I began, by saying that as a slave the Negro was worked,
and that as a freeman he must learn to work. There is still doubt in many
quarters as to the ability of the Negro unguided, unsupported, to hew his
own path and put into visible, tangible, indisputable form, products and
signs of civilization. This doubt cannot be much affected by abstract
arguments, no matter how delicately and convincingly woven together.
Patiently, quietly, doggedly, persistently, through summer and winter,
sunshine and shadow, by self-sacrifice, by foresight, by honesty and
industry, we must re-enforce argument with results. One farm bought, one
house built, one home sweetly and intelligently kept, one man who is the
largest tax payer or has the largest bank account, one school or church
maintained, one factory running successfully, one truck garden profitably
cultivated, one patient cured by a Negro doc