COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 451 



SOLVING THE NEGRO PROBLEM IN THE BLACK BELT OF 



THE SOUTH. 



For a number of years I have tried to advocate the advantages of in- 

 dustrial training for the negro, because it starts the race off on a real, 

 sure foundation, and not on a false, deceptive one. 



Last year, when in England, I observed in Birmingham, London and 

 elsewhere, in the large polytechnic schools, that thousand of men and 

 women were being trained in the trades that cover work in the earth, 

 in metal, wood, tin, leather, cloth, food preparation and what not. 



When I asked, why do 30U give this man or this woman training in 

 this or that industry? the answer came that when these students come 

 to us we ask in each case, what are the prevailing occupations of the 

 people in the community where the students live? In a word, it is found 

 out what the student can find to do in his immediate community, not 

 what he ought to find to do, not what the instructors might desire him 

 to do, but what the economic and other conditions prevailing in his 

 neighborhood will actually permit him to do. 



With this knowledge obtained, the student was trained, for example 

 in leather, because at his home that was the prevailing industry; that 

 w'as the occupation at which he could find immediate and profitable 

 employment. The same logical and common sense principle should be 

 applied to the negro race. For example, the great bulk of our people 

 live directly or indirectly by work in the soil. This gives us a tremen- 

 dous advantage in the w^ay of a foundation. 



*- * * 



From the beginning of time agriculture has constituted the main 

 foundation upon which all races have grown useful and strong. 



In the present condition of the negro race it is a grave error to take 

 a negro boy from a farming community and educate him in about every- 

 thing in heaven and earth, educate him into sympathy with everything 

 that has no bearing upon the life of the community to which he should 

 return, and out of sympathy with most that concerns agricultural life. 

 The result of this i)rocess is that in too many cases the boy thus trained 

 fails to return to his father's farm, but takes up his abode in the city 

 and falls in too many cases into the temptation of trying to live by his 

 wits, without honest productive employment. And, my friends, if there 

 is one thing at the present time that should give us more serious con- 

 cern than another, it is the large idle class of the negro race that linger 

 about the sidewalks, bar rooms and dens of sin and misery of our large 

 cities. 



Every influential man and woman should make it a part of liis duty 

 to reach the individuals of this class and either see that they find em- 

 ployment in the cities or are scattered to the four winds of the earth 

 in agricultural comnuinities. where they can make an honorable living 

 and where their services are needed. 



If it be suggested that the white boy is not always thus dealt with, 

 my answer is: My friends, the white man is three thousand years ahead 

 of the negro, and this fact we may as well face now as well as after, 



