Page 1318 : NEGRO EDUCATION — NEGROES
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the curriculum; the literary and academic side was too much emphasized; and little or no attention was given to the practical side. For this these schools have been severely criticized. But each year is giving to these institutions, as to the colleges of the north, curricula which have more vital connection with the life the student is to live. In this direction no single influence has been so potent as that of Hampton Institute (q. v.), founded in 1868 by General Samuel Chapman Armstrong (q. v.). Its fundamental work has been the training of teachers, and industrial training was incorporated at the beginning and has continued a dominant factor. From Hampton sprang Tuskegee Institute (q. v.),a larger institution of the same kind, founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington (q. v.). It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of these two institutions and the value of the services of their two honored founders in the development of the education of the negro. In the secondary and higher schools for negroes, not including public schools, in the former 16 slave-states and the District of Columbia there were 20,972 pupils in 1904–5 receiving industrial training in farm-work, carpentry, sewing, cooking and other branches, while the total enrollment in these institutions was 42,889. The total value of the grounds, buildings, furniture and scientific apparatus was $11,102,283. A vast amount of money has been contributed by northern philanthropists to the support of these institutions, although an income of about $250,000 was derived in 1904-5 from tuition alone. These contributions, which began to pour into these states before the battle-drums had ceased and continue to the present day, now aggregate nearly $50,000,000. It was 1870 before much was undertaken in the way of establishing free public schools, but since that date rapid progress has been made. Separate schools for negroes are maintained in all of these states, with an enrollment in 1904–5 of 1,602,194 in the elementary schools and 50,251 in the higher schools and an average daily attendance of more than 60 per cent. of the enrollment. This was larger than the enrollment of both the whites and negroes in 1876–7. The number of teachers aggregated about 29,000. Although separate schools have been maintained, separate accounts have not been kept. But for 1904–5 the sum of $46,401,832 was expended for the support of common schools for both whites and negroes, and according to very careful estimates 20 per cent, of the total or about $9,000,000 was expended for the support of the schools for negroes, about as much as was expended for schools for negroes and whites in 1870. This growth and development has been gradual though rapid, and augurs well for the future. In the public schools, also, more and more emphasis is being placed on the side of industrial training, and the life the pupil is to live is receiving greater attention.
Ne′groes, a name given to most of the races inhabiting Africa, though it does not include all the inhabitants. The inhabitants of northern Africa, as the Abyssinians or Nubians, and the Hottentots of the south do not belong to the negro race. The physical characteristics of the true negro are black skin, woolly hair, flat nose and thick lips. Their skin is soft, and in the infant is a dull red, becoming black very soon. The negroes of the Guinea coast, who are rude savages, have a deep-black color and ugly features. Other tribes of the interior are tall, well-formed and warlike, and have some ingenuity in making implements from iron. The skull is long and narrow, with low forehead, prominent jaws and retreating chin. As a rule they are of a low order of intelligence, mechanical in their work but capable of great endurance. They are of a less nervous disposition than whites, more frequently color-blind, have smaller lungs and larger livers. The negro has long been a prey to the slave-traffic, being captured in large numbers and sold as slaves in other countries. The first slaves were brought to the United States in 1619, and this traffic was not discontinued until 1794, when it was prohibited by act of congress. The Spaniards began the trade, and King James and Queen Elizabeth both issued patents to companies. Between 1794 and 1840 the trade was confined mostly from the African coast to the West Indies and Brazil. The coast of Guinea was the largest slave-market, but inasmuch as they sold none of their own people but relied on those captured in war or by strategem, most of the slaves sent to the United States were of the pure negro type of the interior; while most of those taken to Brazil and the West Indies were closely allied to the [[../Kafirs|Kafir]] and Zulu stock of the eastern coast. The mortality among the negroes is greater than the whites, attributed in the south much to the fact of their low condition and inattention to the laws of health, in the north to their inability to withstand the cold and variable weather, as the diseases from which they suffer are mostly those of the respiratory organs. Therefore the publication, at frequent intervals, of accounts of long-lived negroes may be ascribed to the ignorance of their ages, and not to any exceptional tenacity of life.
In disposition the negro, as a rule, is cheerful and peaceable, unconcerned for the future, inclined to live in colonies and of emotionally religious instincts. Common among them even to the present day is the exercise of a certain form of witchcraft, called [[../Voodooism|voodooism]], prosecuted by means of charms, philters and fetiches.
The African negroes are quite ingenious in weaving mats and cloth and in making baskets from grasses; in constructing their huts;
