the enjoyment of the comforts of life. The nations that have conquered nature by the aid of machinery can afford luxury for large classes. In Great Britain,[1] for example, thirty per cent of the families enjoy incomes of $1000 and upwards per annum, while the seventy per cent constituting the so-called "working classes" have an average of $485 to each family. When we consider how much this will buy in England, we see that the common laborer of to-day is better off for real comforts than the nobleman of three hundred years ago. In France, seventy-six per cent, including the working classes, receive $395 per family, while the twenty-four per cent, including the wealthy, get an average of $1300 and upwards. But in Italy the income returns show (in 1881) only 8500 families with incomes above $1000, while more than ninety-eight per cent of the population average less than $300 for each family.[2] Agriculture without manufactures and commerce cannot furnish wealth for a large fraction of the people. But with diversity of industry there is opportunity for many, and will be finally for all. The increased use of machinery multiplies wealth, so that production doubles twice as often as the population in the United States.
This is the significance of manual training in our schools. The youth learns how to shape wood and iron into machines, and thus how to construct and manage machines. The hand worker is to be turned into a brain worker; for the machine does the work of the hand, but requires a brain to direct it. Human productive industry needs more and more directive power, but less and less mere sleight of hand. The negro, educated in manual training, will find himself at home in a civilization which is accumulating inventions of all sorts and descriptions to perform the work necessary to supply the people with food, clothing, and shelter at so cheap a rate as to have a large surplus of income to purchase the means of luxury, amusement, and culture.
The friends of the education of the negro, North and South, have seen the importance of providing industrial education for him. So long as he can work only at the cultivation of staple crops he cannot become a salutary element in the social whole.[3] When he acquires skill in mechanical industries, his presence in the community is valued and his person is respected. Many colored institutions have been founded for the special promotion of skill in the arts and trades, and nearly all of the higher institutions have undertaken to provide some facilities for industrial education.
In analyzing the details of the school statistics for colored schools of the South for 1889, we find 25,530 pupils enrolled in private and endowed schools against 1,213,092 pupils in public schools. Although this number is relatively small,—less than one fortieth,—yet its importance cannot easily be overestimated, because of the fact that most of the secondary and higher education is received through these schools. Hence the efficiency of the colored teacher depends chiefly on the endowments made to institutions of this class. By teachers one is to understand preachers and all manner of professional men as well as those actually in charge of schools; for it is evident that every colored person who receives a higher education is a teacher of his race for good or evil in an exceptional sense.
- ↑ See Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics (new edition, 1890-91), pages 320-22.—W. T. H.
- ↑ The English laborer has a greater income than the Italian, because England is the common manufacturer for Italy. Southern climates, whether occupied by negroes or Caucasians, are fatal to the rigorous demands of scientific industry.—L. H. B.
- ↑ As yet public sentiment confines him principally to agricultural or other similarly unremunerative employments.—L. H. B.
