Tired of reading? Add this page to your Bookmarks or Favorites and finish it later.
|
|
Such higher training-schools tended naturally to deepen
broader development: at first they were common and grammar
schools, then some became high schools. And finally, by
1900, some thirty-four had one year or more of studies of
college grade. This development was reached with different
degrees of speed in different institutions: Hampton is still a
high school, while Fisk University started her college in
1871, and Spelman Seminary about 1896. In all cases the aim
was identical,--to maintain the standards of the lower training
by giving teachers and leaders the best practicable training;
and above all, to furnish the black world with adequate
standards of human culture and lofty ideals of life. It was not
enough that the teachers of teachers should be trained in
technical normal methods; they must also, so far as possible,
be broad-minded, cultured men and women, to scatter civilization
among a people whose ignorance was not simply of
letters, but of life itself.
It can thus be seen that the work of education in the South
began with higher institutions of training, which threw off as
their foliage common schools, and later industrial schools,
and at the same time strove to shoot their roots ever deeper
toward college and university training. That this was an
inevitable and necessary development, sooner or later, goes
without saying; but there has been, and still is, a question in
many minds if the natural growth was not forced, and if the
higher training was not either overdone or done with cheap
and unsound methods. Among white Southerners this feeling
is widespread and positive. A prominent Southern journal
voiced this in a recent editorial.
"The experiment that has been made to give the colored
students classical training has not been satisfactory. Even
though many were able to pursue the course, most of them
did so in a parrot-like way, learning what was taught, but not
seeming to appropriate the truth and import of their instruction,
and graduating without sensible aim or valuable occupation
for their future. The whole scheme has proved a
waste of time, efforts, and the money of the state."
While most fair-minded men would recognize this as extreme
and overdrawn, still without doubt many are asking,
Are there a sufficient number of Negroes ready for college
training to warrant the undertaking? Are not too many students
prematurely forced into this work? Does it not have the
effect of dissatisfying the young Negro with his environment?
And do these graduates succeed in real life? Such natural
questions cannot be evaded, nor on the other hand must a
Nation naturally skeptical as to Negro ability assume an
unfavorable answer without careful inquiry and patient openness
to conviction. We must not forget that most Americans
answer all queries regarding the Negro a priori, and that the
least that human courtesy can do is to listen to evidence.
|