150 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



was nothing but praise. One of the men dwelt with pleasure on the 

 fact that in the nearest large town two negroes, trained at Tuskegee, 

 were doing all the contract building, having 'run out' some cheap, ill- 

 trained whites who had long been in the business. This talk was 

 clearly not shaped for Northern ears, for the double reason that the 

 Southern folk are not in the least moved to such deception, and also 

 because I was with them as one of their own people. Very many such 

 occasions for learning the temper of the ex-slaveholder class have 

 convinced me that at present, and until the Southern conditions are 

 assimilated to those of the North, there will be no difficulty in develop- 

 ing the technical skill of the blacks arising from the disinclination of 

 the people when they are thus employed. It is true that the old slave- 

 holder, with his care-taking humor towards the blacks, is passing away; 

 but his motives are likely to be continued in his descendants at least 

 for some generations. 



There are at present in the South many thousand places for which 

 it would be easy to train negroes — places which would give them a 

 liberal education of the kind most needed by their race. It is not too 

 much to reckon that each year, in the development of the industries of 

 that region, adds some thousand chances which can not well be 

 filled from the native white people, but are likely to go to men brought 

 from elsewhere. Every opportunity to establish a family supported by 

 a skilled mechanic is of value. With even five per cent of the male 

 negroes thus employed, the prospects of their future would be greatly 

 benefited. The means for attaining this end are not difficult to find. 

 What is needed is an extension of the system followed at Tuskegee, 

 where youths are trained with the intent that they shall be made ready 

 for high-grade manual labor, the general schooling being limited to 

 what is necessary to ensure success in such practical work. A system 

 of trade schools for negroes, sufficient to supply the present demand 

 for skilled mechanics, is now the gravest need of the South. 



It has been suggested that the troops which are required for the 

 Federal service in tropical lands might well be recruited from the 

 negroes. It has indeed been proposed that these soldiers should be 

 permitted to take their families with them so that they might become 

 permanently and contentedly established in Luzon and elsewhere in the 

 colonies. There is no doubt but that the abler negroes, when properly 

 officered, make excellent soldiers — at least as infantry men. The expe- 

 rience had with them during the Spanish War makes this point perfectly 

 clear. It may also be reckoned that they would endure tropical 

 climates better than the whites. It may further be said that the ex- 

 istence of a large and well respected force of blacks in the Federal army 

 would unquestionably add to the social position of the negroes in the 

 estimation of both races. Again, the return of these men to their 



