226                   THE  A. M. E. REVIEW

the last fifty years. This must be the object not only of the colored
people themselves, but of all their white friends, and in no better
way could the race testify to its reverence for and gratitude to the
men who made the Emancipation Proclamation possible, and to him
who wrote it, than by joining in numbers the organizations which are
formed to assert their rights, supporting them generously, and by
laying aside all differences, that a united front may be shown to all
the race's enemies.

    Mr. Villard is a grandson of William Lloyd Garrison and head of the
New York Evening Post.--Editor.


                ------------------------------


            INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND NEGRO PROGRESS

     By Booker T. Washington, Principal of the Tuskegee Normal
                    and Industrial Institute

           THERE  are now  about 500 Negro  schools  in the
           South, most of them conducted and supported by
           our own people, that are trying to give some sort
           of training in the industries or trades.  This  is
           evidence enough, it seems  to me, to show  that
           industrial education is popular with the masses
           of our people. It shows that the masses of the
           people have learned that education, if it is to be
of any permanent value to the race, must take some account of the
practical interest of the people, must connect in some way with the
common, ordinary, daily life of the people.
    Now, I do not mean to say that all of these so-called industrial
schools are teaching the industries as well as they should. Like too
many of the schools of our people in the South, they are frequently
poorly equipped and poorly taught, and, instead of devoting time and
energy to doing well what they have attempted to do, they have more
often tried to do too many things and have done them poorly. What
I mean to emphasize is that the industrial schools, simply because they
are called industrial schools, are no better and no worse than other
schools which call themselves colleges or universities.
    In spite of mistakes and failures, the industrial schools have
performed one important service for the race. They have turned
the eyes of our people to the opportunities that lie close about them.
They have spread the idea that education is not something intended
merely for a few, but is something that every man should desire and




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 29, Num. 3

Industrial Education and Negro Progress

T.

Volume:  29
Issue Number:  03
Page Number:  226
Date:  01/1913