E
185.6
.B26
The Influences cf the Change of the Industrial
Systems of the South on the Development
of Personality in the Afro-American.
A 839,082
THESIS
PRESENTED BY
Jasper C Barnes, Ph. D.,
Professor of Pedagogy, Mary ville College, Maryville, Tenn.
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Examination, in the Post-Graduate
Department, «Course 4. Philosophy, of the University of
Woosler, June, 1900.
Reprinted from the Post-Graduate and Wouster Quarterly, April, 1900,
WOOSTER, OHIO:
THE HERALD PRINTING CO
1900
ܥ
tatio
QUR
. ܕ 1 1
ܐ ܐ ܐ ܐ ܐ ܐ
l . . .
ܝ { . ܕ ܥ
ܬ
27.
£ {{
ܘ ܕܫ A1
* ]ܕܪ
LATE
AAC
ܐ ܐ ܘ 4 ܬ
A
1
ܐ ܀
ܐ ܐ ܝ
Ende Mon
Merci
ܐ
ܗ
1
*
ܐ. ...
r ܝ _

^ Vra
܀ 1
ܐ ܙ ܕ ܐ
1 ܢܫܐ
ܐ ܐ ܐ ܐ ܕ ܕ ܐ
The g
ܙ ܐ ܗ ܝ ܢ . ܕ
5 ؛
NW
ܢ
. . . ܃
ܐ ܐ ܐ ܐ
ܐܐ
܀ 84 ܕ ܒ ܚ ܠܝܢ ܕܗ
. ܐ ܐ ܝ & ܢ ܕ
t
3:52
her hai ng
MARS
ܐܗܐ
ܕ ܀
AGG
1
inity
ܐܪܐܬ ܬ { The Bjk
ܐ ܕ
3
An
ܐ ܐ ܐ
WSK
ܘ ܕ ad, 38. ii& 3,
ܗ .
ܕ
Thit «tw
21929
. . . . .
W
ܐ ܐ ܂
ܐ
SHARE
ܐ ܐ
ܐ ܐ ܢ 1
ܕ ܕ ܀
4
܀
ܕ ܪ
The
VOLA KUTIN
ܼܵ
***
阀门
​
INFLUENCES OF THE CHANGE OF THE INDUS-
TRIAL SYSTEMS OF THE SOUTH ON THE
DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY
IN THE AFRO-AMERICAN.
PROFESSOR JASPER C. BARNES, PH. D., Maryville, College, Mary-
ville, Tenn.
A Graduating Thesis; Course A, Philosophy.
The development of the American Negro from a barbar-
ous state to the highest degree of modern civilization fur-
nishes a fertile field for sociological study. The Negro was
thrust into the midst of modern civilization, though he had
done almost nothing to produce that civilization. The negro
problem is, therefore, unique. The history of mankind
demonstrates the truth that all genuine development has been
attained by hard work. The careers of Germany, France,
England and the United States are good exemplifications of
this truth. The three first) nations mentioned struggled for
centuries to attain their present high state of civilization.
They have earned their present privileges at the cost of all
the labor of which human beings are capable. The social
status of the American negro is the result of a very different
process. His civilization is an engrafted one. To trace the
development of his personality, it is necessary to go a little
back of his emancipation. The investigator must know the
Negro's condition at that time, and the traits that he ac-
quired during his bondage, a period during which individual
action was unknown to him.
Personality is an indefinite and variable quantity; hence
a concise definition of it cannot be given. It varies in mean-
ing from the vague conscious experiences of the lower types
of humanity and of children to the clear and vivid experiences
of the wisest men. Prof. James Mark Baldwin says: "A per-
E
185,6
B26
i
!
2
1
Development of Personality
son stands for a group of experiences quite unstable in its
prophetic as in its historical meaning." Each person, then,
stands for an indefinite and varied number of experiences
linked together in consciousness.
The writer's first thesis is, that work is the most impor-
tant factor in the development of personality. That is, that
work in its various forms affords more of the conscious exper-
periences that make us what we are, than does any other one
kind of experiences, and, if we take work in its broadest
sense, its influence is greater than is that of all others
combined. The term work signifies physical or intellectual
effort in which the end lies outside the immediate. Its effect
is to bind together the past, present and future. Play, then,
may become work whenever its activities are directed toward
an end outside of the immediate. The professional base-ball
player furnishes a good example of this fact; the chief object
of his play is to gain a livelihood.
Is the group of experiences occasioned by work a more
important factor in the development of the individual con-
sciousness than is the group of experiences occasioned by
play? The games of children afford excellent training for
the work of manhood. Children should be taught to play by
system. This habit will help them to work by system. Just
as instincts ripen and pass over into reason, so the activities
of play may be made to pass over into the higher activities of
of work. Early in life, at least before our maturity, we
must choose our occupation, if we hope to succeed; our
thoughts and our acts must be directed toward the accom-
plishment of the end we have in view. It is a maxim that
the education of the child should begin three generations be-
fore its birth. To begin ten generations before its birth would
be still better.
Heredity wields a powerful influence in the development
of mankind; tendencies are transmitted to succeeding gener-
ations whose whole future seems to be directed by the devel-
opment of inborn tendencies. Tendencies to form habits of
gesture, modes of walking, smiling, eating, talking and the
like, are transmitted from parent to child, and seem to in-
fluence the action of that child so strongly that one might
think that all his personality depends upon its ancestors, and
1
1
་
J
I
}
1
1
1
3
in the Afro-American.
that he might well exclaim: "Nihil est in puero quod non
prius in parenti." But what was the cause of these habits,
manners and tendencies of the parents? Occupation, employ-
ment, work. The tendency to activity is inherent, but the
individual is enlarged and developed by activity; work
being a necessary activity wields the greatest influence.
a people indicate to
The occupations of
a large
condition.
extent, their physical, intellectual and moral
Or, to put it more accurately, the degree of perfection reached
in their various vocations is an index to their civilization.
Mind and body develop by action. Work is the occasion of
systematic effort and activity, and by repetition habits are
formed. In accordance with the law of habit in the nervous
system, the activities occasioned by work plow a deeper
groove in the nervous structure, and so deyelop a more defin-
ite and stable personality than do play and other kinds of
activity. The habits of systematic work change the ten-
dencies of the individual and these tendencies are
transmitted to off-spring, and in this way work is
indirectly the cause of many hereditary traits. The activities
of ordinary manual labor, after they are once learned, are
carried on chiefly by the lower nerve centers; and, if the
individual thus engaged does not supplement his conscious-
ness with other things, he will become narrow in his intellec-
tual nature.
If work, then, is the most important factor in the devel-
opment of personality, the elevation of the Negro will be
accomplished only in so far as his literary and his industrial
education go hand in hand. All other races have worked and
fought for every step in their progress. It is true that
their progress has been slow. All genuine advancement
is slow. The rights and privileges enjoyed by the
people of Germany, France and England, haye cost cen-
turies of toil and hardships. History teems with accounts
of valiant deeds. In the United States, a man's real worth
measures his social and civil standing. He stands where he
himself has climbed. The Negro is an exception to this rule;
his history is a savage, a slave, a freeman. The last two
steps were not taken by himself; another took them for him.
Citizenship, with its rights, privileges and burdens was, with-
1
by
4
Development of Personality
out effort on his part, thrust upon him. This has no parallel
in the history of civilization.
1. THE PERIOD OF BONDAGE. What were the in-
fluences of slavery upon the Negro? A Southern his-
torian says: "Under its influences they (the slaveholders)
saw hundreds of thousands of African savages civilized
and Christianized; and many of them thought it the
greatest missionary agent the world had ever known!" This
is a startling statement to be made in the dawn of the twen-
tieth century; and yet while intelligent people hold such
views, their views must not be disregarded in the considera-
tion of the great problem. Upon careful investigation, the
writer finds that a very small per cent of the slaves were thus
Christianized and civilized by the influence of their masters.
A few old slaves have told the investigator personally of the
good influences and of the kind treatment given them by their
masters. But those masters formed the class that finally
either gave or sold the slave his freedom. Such good men, of
course, could easily believe slavery to be a missionary agent;
and it was, so far as they were concerned; true, their number
was, perhaps, greater than we now believe it to have been.
But the history of slavery shows that it has been neither a
Christianizing nor a civilizing agent. Forcible seizure in Africa,
cruel exportation and coercive enslavement, tended to emascu-
late the negro of all noble aspirations. His Caucasian master
compelled him to live in the midst of civilization, and yet he
did not permit the negro to enjoy its blessings. Laws were
enacted making it a penal offence to teach a negro to read;
he was kept thus in ignorance and abject slavery. These
influences, in no manner, tended either to civilize or to Chris-
tianize him.
During his bondage, the Negro was excluded from all the
professions, from mercantile transactions, and from all the
pursuits in which skilled labor was required. For two and
one half centuries, or from 1619 to 1865, his development was
due almost entirely to two occupations,-agriculture and per-
sonal service. Individual personality and independent action
were unknown to him. In his native tribes the Negro was
obliged to do as his chief commanded, and in slavery he was
compelled to do as his master directed. The influence of
1
in the Afro-American.
heredity during these periods counts as a negative quantity for
the Negro. His work and his environments developed in him
some elements of positive value.
The first of these influences was the work of agriculture,
that is, the mere drudgery of agriculture, for he was not per-
mitted to engage in the intellectual part of it. All persons
learn largely by imitation, and this is especially true of the
Negro; he is an imitator. His first attempts in agriculture
were attempts at imitation. But these attempts brought him
conscious experiences of success or failure. The former pro-
duced in him a state of satisfaction and confidence; the latter,
disappointment and distrust. Failure to imitate exactly the
acts of another is frequently more valuable to the individual
than are the exact imitations; for the failure results in a new
experience which, in a somewhat different manner, accomp-
lishes the end in view. And this new experience becomes
original knowledge to the individual. Each effort to repro-
duce or to perform a given act is an invention peculiar to the
individual imitator. The Negro acquired some originality in
the simplest form of work. In the mere drudgery of plowing
and hoeing, sowing and reaping, planting and picking, new
acts and ideas, and new habits became a part of his personal
self.
5
Personal service wielded a greater force in the Negro's
elevation than did the occupation of agriculture. The more
docile slaves were used for this service; and in considering
the educational influence of such service, we must not overlook
this fact. Being more teachable than the others, and coming
in closer contact with their cultured masters, they acquired
quite a number of the traits of civilization. The personal ser-
vice slaves with their newly acquired culture tended by their
example to elevate the less favored of their race. In short,
they learned the culinary arts, the household duties, the toil-
ette and the etiquette of the most highly civilized race.
The statement of the Southern historian that slavery was
a civilizing agent is not wholly false. Even drudgery under
the direction of an overseer developed habits of doing certain
things at fixed times and in a definite manner, and so tended
to build up a definite personality. Personal service developed
habits of politeness, and gentility, while constant contact with
T
6
Development of Personality
}
people of superior attainments developed the power of imita-
tion. Slavery developed three good characteristics in the
Negro his imitative instinct, the habit of work, and the habit
of politeness.
Work, imitation, and politeness are the valuable results of
his bondage. But personality stands for a bundle of experi-
ences; and so it is necessary to consider his bad acquisitions
as well as his good ones. The first bad habit for which
slavery is responsible, and perhaps the most detrimental to the
race, was the almost total disregard of the marital and family
relations. The fundamental principle of modern Christian
civilization, the basis of both Church and State, was not con-
sidered applicable to the Negro. As a rule, his marriage was
little more than a mating: whenever the master thought it ad-
vantageous to sell the so-called husband and wife and chil-
dren, they were widely separated at his will. So the con-
sciousness resulting from the faithful keeping of the marriage
Vow and the joy in caring for loyed ones in the home were al-
most entirely wanting in the Negro. The other day, the
writer asked an old slave who had been put on the block seven
different times, and sold to the highest bidder, how he felt at
such times. He replied, "I got so I did not care what they did
with me." All confidence and self respect was gone. But
this auction business was not the worst practice: it was a
common custom, in order to improve the stock, to select
choice males for breeding purposes, just as farmers select male
calves or colts for that purpose. Some negroes who were used
in that way are still living. This practice shows that the
personal purity of the slave was totally disregarded. In view
of the fact that the Negro was taught impurity for two hun-
dred and fifty years, we can not expect him to attain purity in
the thirty-five years of freedom. The influence of heredity is
too great for that miracle to be possible.
1
-
Slavery is responsible also for the Negro's disposition to
steal, the next bad habit acquired during the period of servi
tude. In his native condition, the Negro was as little ad-
dicted to this fault as was any other race on the globe. The
missionary Grout says: "There is, perhaps, no more astonish-
ish trait of the Kafir character, at least so far as the tribes
surrounding Natal are concerned, than the scrupulous honesty
7
in the Afro-American.
of almost every individual." Of course, Kafirland is a very
small part of Africa. but the Kafirs are evidently fair repre-
sentatives of the Negro race.
It is a common saying among
Southern people that all Negroes will steal. The writer's
observations haye been that, in the same or similar financial
circumstances and conditions, the percentage of negroes that
steal is no greater than is that of the Caucasians. But the
Negro himself is stolen property; for two and a half centuries
the products of his labor were taken from him, and so it is
easy to see how he justifies his own thefts. There are honest
negroes just as there are honest white people. As fast as the
colored people are educated and Christianized, they become
good, honest, and useful citizens.
II. THE PERIOD OF FREEDOM. The sudden emancipa-
tion of the four million slaves of the United States is one of
the most remarkable events in the world's history. To under-
stand fully the development of the Negro, it is necessary to
keep in mind the fact that work is the most important factor
in the development of personality. In the following discus-
sion, the writer's aim is to show the influences of the change
from slavery to freedom upon the development of the Negro's
personality.
Emancipation opened five great institutions for the per-
sonal development of the Negro: the family, the school, the
church, civil society, and the State.
The first important effect of emancipation upon the
Negro was the change in his home life and in his family rela
tions. The family is the basic element of a community. All
genuine development begins in the individual. The good
seed must be planted and cultivated in the home. If this
truth be a fundamental principle it follows that the home is
the real starting point of the Negro's development; for as a
rule, prior to his emancipation, the marital relation was for
him a mere mating, and not a sacred ordinance. He began
his new family life with a very loose idea of its duties and
sacred obligations. Deprived of mental and moral develop-
ment under the degrading and baleful influences of slavery
for two and one-half centuries, nevertheless the Negro is now
rapidly learning virtue. The writer does not mean to say
that the great masses of the colored race are chaste, but
•
Development of Personality
judging from statistics collected for him by educated, Chris-
tian men of the negro race, he belieyes that a goodly number
of the race are liying chaste liyes. The truth is, that the per
cent of chaste negroes is more nearly equal to that of the
Anglo-Saxons than one would think; for impure practices of
the latter in society circles are passed in silence. But Mary-
ville affords exceptional opportunities for education and moral
training, and so we can not, perhaps, form a general induction
from conditions found within its limits. Hoffman tell us that
fifty per cent of the Negro children born in Richmond, Vir-
ginia, die before they are one year old. He believes that the
cause of this mortality is due to "enfeebled constitutions and
congenital diseases, inherited from parents suffering from the
effects of sexual immorality and debauchery." The same
writer says that twenty-five per cent of the Negro children
born in Washington are illegitimate. This laxity was prac-
ticed for two hundred and fifty years; we need not hope to
eradicate it in thirty-fiye years, no, nor in a hundred and
thirty-five years. This state of affairs still leaves the other
seyenty-five per cent with, at least, a chance to cultivate
purity and chastity. The influence of Christian education is
a mighty power in developing chastity in the Negro; but in
order for this development to endure, industrial education
must go hand in hand with it. A large per cent of the
negroes are learning to live virtuous lives; and, since their
emancipation, all of them are conscious of their privilege and
power to live such lives. Personality is a bundle of conscious
experiences, and the experience mentioned above is one of
fundamental importance.
In the January (1898) number of the United States Bul-
letin of Labor, Prof. DuBois shows that the average negro
family of Farmyille, Virginia, consists of five members; that
the school attendance of the children between the ages of six
and twenty years is only forty-six per cent of the school pop-
ulation; and that some of these enrolled pupils attend school
for a few days only during the year. Statistics, collected
from fifty-fiye families in Maryville, show that the average
negro family consists of five members.
8
The following tables are the results of careful investiga-
tion of fifty-five families of Maryville, Blount County, Ten-
་
1
in the Afro-American.
nessee. The facts were obtained by educated negroes, and are
as nearly correct as can be obtained.
Blount County, of which Maryville is the county seat,
has a population of 17,589, 1632 of whom are negroes. The
population of Maryville can not be given accurately, because
the town is not incorporated, but it is estimated at 2509, 600
of whom are negroes: this estimate includes a number of
suburban residents. The following table shows (a) the real
family, i. e., the parents and all children living at present; (b)
the economic family, i. e., all persons related and unrelated,
living together in one home under conditions of family life.
NUMBER OF FAMILIES BY SIZE IN MARYVILLE, TENNESSEE.
The Real Family. (The Economic Family.
Families. Persons. Families.
Persons.
2
4
10
14
9
18
4
59
18
70
32
Size of Family.
1 Member,
2 Members,
3 Members,
4 Members,
5 Members,
6 Members,
7 Members.
8 Members,
9 Members,
10 Members,
11 Members,
12 Members,
13 Members,
14 Members,
Totals,
Average,
253
DSNOBOTLOCO TEHA
1
10
3
10
2
1
2
55
42***8
6.89
45
30
44
13
379
4767~~~~LO
12
3
ܗ:
2
:
55
::: N: AUAHONWEA
60
49
16
45
9
22
274
5.02
The average results obtained from this table do not differ
materially from the results of the similar investigations of the
condition of the negroes of Farmville, Virginia, made by Prof.
DuBois. As Prof. DuBois says, "The size of the real family
comes nearest to being a real test of the fecundity of the race
under present conditions, while the economic family shows the
results of the present economic conditions." It is the economic
family with which we are concerned; it shows the results of
freedom.
4
Development of Personality
PER CENT OF NEGRO FAMILIES OF MARYVILLE, TENN.,
OF FARMVILLE, VA., AND OF THE ENTIRE UNITED
STATES.
10
Size of Family.
1 Member,
2 to 6 Members,
7 to 10 Members,
11 Members and over,
Size of Family.
1 Member,
2 Members,
The houses, which the fifty-five Negro families of Mary-
ville accupy, vary from two to eight rooms each in size.
The following table shows the distribution of families by
size of family and number of rooms to the dwellings they oc-
cupy:
3 Members,
4 Members,
FAMILIES, BY SIZE OF FAMILY, AND NUMBER OF ROOMS
TO A DWELLING.
5 Members,
6 Members,
7 Members,
8 Members,
9 Members,
10 Members,
11 Members,
Total Families,
Total Rooms.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Negroes of Negroes of
Maryville. Farmville.
....
7.27
63.63
25 45
3 64
....
Families occupying dwellings of
1
23
14 5 6 7 8
rm. Irm srms rm erm 8rm srm sr ms
…………
22:27:
1M12
1 2
1
....
1
……..
pred
1
....
··
1
1
...
4.96
72.90
19.47
2.67
21
Gri
....
1
1
NN:
2
2
....
113
܃
܃
2
…………
....
8 11 14 8
16 33 56 40
…………
12
3
....
2
1
....
****
***
9
54
……….
....
U. S.
3.63
73.33
20.97
2.07
..
....
....
……….
....
2
****
....
1
1
....
....
Total
47
6
2372DON
12
5
1
4 55
7 32 238
This table shows that the one-room cabin of the days of
slavery is rapidly disappearing. The larger and better houses
add comfort and health to the Negro. They furnish oppor-
tunities for larger and broader intellectual and moral culture;
they present opportunities for aesthetic culture; the large
number of rooms provides separate bedrooms; the report shows
that most of the Negro families investigated in Maryville
haye from two to three separate bedrooms; these are conducive
to health and to that purity which the Negro needs to learn
in order to eradicate the influences of slavery.
Forty-six of the fifty-five families mentioned in this re-
in the Afro-Americvn.
port own their houses, and nine rent the houses they occupy.
The estimated values of the homes of the different families
range from $100 to $1500, the average being about $350. The
writer does not think the estimated values given in the reports
sufficiently accurate to warrant the giving of a table showing
the values. The remarkable and instructive part of the report
is the large number of families that own their homes. This is
partly due to the fact that the information was obtained by
the ministers and prominent teachers of the town, and so the
report is probably made up largely of the members of the
church and school. But, nevertheless, the report gives impor-
tant information regarding the development of the Negro's
personality. The consciousness of ownership makes him re-
spect his own ability and powers, and causes him to be re-
spected by other people. This power of independent action
and ownership was not possessed by him during slavery.
NUMBER OF FAMILIES, BY SIZE OF ECONOMIC FAMILY,
AND ANNUAL INCOMES.
Annual Incomes.
Less than $100,
$100 to $150,
$150 to $200,
$200 to $250,
$250 to $350,
$350 to $500,
Over $500,
Total Families,
Annual Savings.
Less than $25,
$25 to $50.
$50 to $100,
$100 to $150,
Over $150,
Totals,
Families of (below)
members.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
···
•ử…
1
ITQ
72
•
1
2 1
.... ..
1
21
…………
....
.... ....
1
17 1
2 1 1 1 2
2323 31 1
11 1
band plan a
1
2 4
……….
1
**
pumant
4 7 5 517 2 5 4 4
517
2
Families of (below)
members.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
:|
1
25 1
:::
....
……….
..
··
☺
NUMBER OF FAMILIES, BY SIZE OF FAMILY, AND ANNUAL
SAVINGS.
1
31..
: -
.... ....
сл
..
1|
211
1
1
3 2 2
……..
152
poned
....
11
....
Totals.
2773 -
1 11
2 55
12
9
15
1
1
Total
Families.
20
3

Food, etc.
Fresh Pork,
Pork Steak,
Beefsteak,
Ham and Bacon,
Chickens,
Hens,
Turkeys,
Wheat Flour,
Wheat Flour,
Corn Meal,
Rice,
Cabbage,
Eggs,
Apples Dried,
Pepper,
Buttermilk,
Starch,
Wood, Cut,
Kerosene Oil,
Boys' Suits,
PRICES OF COMMODITIES AT MARYVILLE
Unit.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Each.
Each.
Pound.
24 lb, bag.
Barrel,
Peck.
Pound.
Pound.
Dozen.
Pound.
Pound.
Gallon.
Pound.
Cord.
Gallon.
Each.
Price.
.08% to
$ .05 to .10
.10
.12
.08 to
.10 to
.12% Peas,
.10 to
.15
.20 to .25
.05 to .07
.45 to
Article.
Potatoes,
Green Corn,
Tomatoes,
.10 to
.05 to
.02 to
.10 to
.04・ to
.15 to
.20
.10
.05 to
.05 to .10
2.00 to 3.00
.15 to .20
to 5.00
1.00
Beans,
Canned Goods,
Tea,
.55 Coffee,
Sugar,
.12
.15 Lard,
.07% Butter,
.03 Salt,
Apples,
Watermelons,
Milk,
Soap,
.06
Wood Uncut,
Coal Bitum.
Men's Suits,
Women's Dresses,
Unit.
Bushel.
Dozen.
Gallon.
Quart.
Quart.
Cap.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Peck.
Each.
Quart.
Cake.
Cord.
Ton.
Each.
Each.
69
Price.
.40
.05 to
.05 to
.05
.05
.08 to
.50
to
98869888
to $.60
.10 to
.05 to
.08 to
.08 to
.01
399999999
.10
to
.05 to
.04
to
.02% to
.15
.10
.10
.60
.15
.06
.12]
.15
.25
.50
.05
.05
1.50
3.00 to
5.00
2.50
to
15.00
.50
to 10.00
nished by the grocers of Maryville.
commodities usually bought by Negroes. The data were fur-
living in the community. The following is a price list of
read in connection with figures as to the cost and scale of
The last two tables are better understood when they are
Development of Personality
12

T
in the Afro-American.
OCCUPATIONS OF HEADS OF FIFTY-FIVE NEGRO FAMILIES
OF MARYVILLE.
Barbers,
Blacksmiths,
Bricklayers and Plasterers,
Carpenters,
Cooks,
Draymen,
Farm Laborers,
Housekeepers,
Janitors,
Laborers,
Laundresses,
Paperhangers,
Porters,
Teachers,
Teamsters,
Restaurant Keeper,
[Number of Number of
Men.
Women.
2242
5
11
1
23
1231-
1
55
:::
2
34
17
:
D
2
••
13
55
Eighty-five per cent of these are able to read and seventy-
four per cent can write.
own.
Industry is the first element to be attained in education;
it develops power, good habits and positive character. In all
good teaching, recitation and laboratory work alternate; and
if this be a true principle in the teaching of children of peo-
ples that have developed by means of their own activity, how
how much more necessary it is that the Negro be taught by
means of the industrial system! His civilization is engrafted,
and so he must work to realize what it is, and to make it his
Industrial knowledge is the true basis of all progress.
By means of the industrial system, the Negro can gain for
himself the primary principles of knowledge and culture, a
knowledge of concrete things, and a mastery over the material
world. Prof. Kelly Miller wisely says, "Indeed, the higher
phases of life must ever rest upon a material foundation."
The intelligent workman is able to earn larger wages than
his ignorant neighbor, and so the former provides better op-
portunities for the education of his children. The descend-
ants of these educated children are prepared still better for
the battles of life, and so development goes on and on. Those
who direct work of Hampton and Tuskegee institutes have
taken advantage of this primary principle of education. The
!
¿
14
J
Development of Personality
[April,
wisest men of the colored race advocate industrial education
for the masses. Atlanta, Fiske and Howard universities are
doing admirable work in the realm of higher education.
These are institutions for the choice and gifted individuals of
the race. But Prof. Miller says, "The locomotive throws
forward the rays of its headlight dispelling the encircling
darkness, in order that its mighty engine may make way safely
through the dangers of the night. The Negro needs head
light to direct his energies and make way through the
difficulties and intricacies of the industrial world." This is a
beautiful thought and throws light on the situation. The
necessary headlight must be acquired by means of instruction
in the intricacies and difficulties of the industrial world; of
course, intellectual education, as given in the common schools,
must go with it. "Headlight" sufficient to direct one's ener-
gies is essential for the development of personality. The in-
dustrial schools are furnishing this "headlight" and hand-
light for the masses.
We would not deprive the choice young
men of the race of a liberal education; but these are very few
compared to the masses. In the most highly developed races
only one in every thousand receives a liberal education; the
ratio of liberally educated Negroes to the total number is nec-
essarily much smaller. These few must be leaders, and their
number must necessarily be limited until the common people
are educated and elevated by the example and instruction of
intelligent and skilled workmen; that is, persons skilled in
the common work of life, in economy, in cleanliness and in
purity.
The young men and women trained in the industrial
schools are inculcating habits of industry and economy
among the masses. Industry and economy enable the Negro
to own his home. The Eleventh Census shows that of the
farms in the United States occupied by Negroes, twenty-two
per cent were owned by their occupants; and that ninety and
four-tenths per cent of these were without incumbrance. The
same report shows that seventy-one and seven-tenths per cent
of the white farmers own their farms, but only seventy-one
and three-tenths per cent of them are without incumbrance.
Nineteen and one-tenth per cent of the homes occupied by
Negroes in 1890 were owned by their occupants, and only
15
in the Afro-American.
twelve and three-tenths per cent of these were encumbered.
Corresponding figures for whites were thirty-nine and four-
tenths and twenty-eight and seven-tenths per cent, showing a
much greater proportion of free holdings among the colored
than among whites. This shows that the Negro is learning to
economize. Booker T. Washington, in speaking of one of the
graduates of the Tuskegee Industrial School says: "Return-
ing to his country home, he taught them how to save money,
how to sacrifice to live on bread and potatoes until they
could get out of debt, begin buying a home and stop mort-
gaging." This young man, educated in the industrial school,
lived in a model cottage on a model farm in the midst of his
people and taught them by precept and example to live
higher, nobler, more intelligent, more useful and more virtu-
ous lives.
The Negro is learning to use, economize, and possess the
material resources that surround him. He needs intellectual
and moral light to guide and to elevate him in his work; but
the material world must furnish the resources for his devel-
opment. For centuries, he lived in Africa surrounded by the
richest of natural gifts; but being unable to develop these
resources, he remained a savage. So the American Indian
had at his command the fertile soil, the salubrious climate,
the navigable rivers, the rich mineral deposit-the unlimited
resources of the American Continent, and still he remained a
savage, because he had not the inherent power to develop
them. Now the Negro has not only all these resources at his
command, but also a superior race to show him how to use
them. The problem is, How can he make this modern civili-
zation his own? The answer is, By means of industrial edu-
cation in connection with his intellectual and moral training.
Maryville has a public school for Negro children with
funds sufficient to run the school for five months each year,
but arrangements have been made with the Freedmen's Normal
Institute by which all the Negro children between the ages of
six and twenty-one years may attend school for nine months
cach year. This arrangement gives them opportunity for
nearly double the amount of schooling given by the old plan,
and also affords them much better teachers.
The Negro school population of Maryville is two hundred
|
16
Development of Personality
and one, one hundred and eight of whom attend school. The
following table shows the enrollment for the first five months
of the school year 1899-1900:
SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BY AGE AND SEX.
6 to 10 years,
10 to 15 years,
Over 15 years,
Totals,
¡
August,
September,
October,
November,
December,
Males.
24
12
4
40
Females. Totals.
40
64
20
32
8
12
68
PER CENT. OF ATTENDANCE.
108
Males. Females. Average.
88.88
97.43
93.15
66
92
79
77
80
78
81
86
83
84.04
83.77
86.31
These figures show that only 53.7 per cent. of the Negro
school population of Maryville are enrolled in the schools, and
that only 40 per cent of the children of school age are in
actual attendance each day. This is a better record than is
that of the Farmville, Virginia, Negroes, as given by Prof.
DuBois. He gives the enrollment as 46 per cent. of the school
population between the ages of six and twenty in that town.
The principal of the Freedmen's Normal Institute of Mary-
ville says that the great need of his school is an industrial
department.
If the two towns mentioned may be considered as repre-
senting the Negro's condition, it appears that about one-half
of the Negro scholastic population are in school. And while
a better condition of affairs should obtain, yet the present
condition is infinitely better than it was during the days of
slavery when the slaves were not taught at all; for the educa-
tion of young Negroes is transforming their homes. After a
few years of instruction, the children usually manage, arrange
and direct the affairs of the family.
The Church is the center of the most highly developed
group life of the Negro. It furnishes him religious, intellect-
$
in the Afro-Americvn.
ual and social training. Negroes spend much of their time in
the church. In the town of Maryville, there are two colored
church edifices-the A. M. E. Zion and the Second Presby-
terian.
The A. M. E. Zion organization owns a good frame build-
It
ing 45x65 feet, with a seating capacity of four hundred.
has a small reed organ valued at a hundred dollars, and a
parsonage valued at five hundred dollars. The first story of
the parsonage contains a sitting room, a dining room,
kitchen and a bedroom; the second story, a study and a bed
room. The following table shows the membership of the
church by sex and age:
8
THE A. M. E. ZION CHURCH.
Members.
Males.
Under 20 years of age,
20 to 30 years,
19
30 to 40 years,
14
22
40 to 50 years,
Over 50 years,
8
15
Totals,
81
134
This church's minister is a young man of twenty-nine
years; he is a graduate of Livingston's College, Salisbury,
North Carolina, and has spent one year in the theological
seminary.
12
15
11
8
7
35
Members.
Under 20 years of age,
20 to 30 years,
30 to 40 years,
40 to 50 years,
50 years and over.
Totals,
The Second Presbyterian church owns a good frame build-
ing, 35x50x18 feet; its auditorium seats about three hundred
people. It owns a small reed organ. Beneath the auditorium
is a basement divided into two rooms for school purposes.
This gives the pastor and his family an opportunity to conduct
a school in connection with his pastoral work. The following
table shows the membership of this church by sex and age:
THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
Coco m∞
Males. Females. Totals.
6
14
Females. Totals.
18
30
22
37
30
3
3
17
8
34
4974∞
19
10
33
10
7
16
76
8
42
At present the pulpit is vacant. Their former pastor was
4
C
*
18
Development of Personality
a graduate of Lincoln University and of the Western Theolog-
ical Seminary, Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
The pastors of these two churches say that the church
forms the chief social group for the Maryville Negro. Prof.
DuBois says, "The most highly developed and characteristic
expression of Negro group life in Farmville, Virginia, and
throughout the Union, is the Negro Church." Judging from
these and similar investigations, it appears that the group of
experiences occasioned by the church life of the Negro is an
important factor in his personal development. And while it
may be true that many of the reported conversions are crude
and many of their social acts coarse, yet such religious influ-
ences are far better than no efforts to guide and curb an unde-
veloped people. This influence of Christian example is elevat-
ing and purifying the Negro's social life. The result is that
many of the race are developing strong social, intellectual and
spiritual characters; such development is the hope of the race.
Emancipation enabled the Negro to construct and carry
on civil society; he is learning the art of self restraint, of
purity, of honesty, and of morality. A large majority of the
race have not yet developed these virtues, but the leaders of
the race possess them, and so these good traits must ultimately
prevail, for those persons that neglect to cultivate them must
necessarily perish because of their vices.
Just in so far as the Negro is industrially, intellectually
and morally prepared, he will take his rightful part in the
responsibilities and privileges of the state. As fast as he can
acquire property, attain skill in work, develop intelligence and
character, he will increase his influence in the state. The
wiser men of the race are concerned more about being pre-
pared for political rights than they are about the exercise
of such rights; for the latter must follow the former. Booker
T. Washington says, "It is right and important that all the
it
privileges of the Constitution should be ours; but is vastly
more important to us that we be prepared for the exercise of
those privileges."
To sum up:
The Negro is engaged chiefly in agriculture or personal
service; he has made little progress in manufacture, transport-
ation or trade. He is, however, making good progress in
;
i

**
in the Afro-American.
acquiring property, especially farms and homes. He is devel-
oping a definite personality. He is overcoming the evil
influences of slavery. The industrial schools are the leaders
in this great work. Industrial, intellectual and Christian
training is making his character broader, deeper, and higher.
Manual training alone will not develop him. Professional life
must necessarily be limited until the masses have obtained
substantial industrial training and sufficient amount of
property to support the professions. As fast as the Negro
does this, there is no reason why he may not continue to
develop and enlarge his personality.
:
19



UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ONLIN
3 9015 02701 1686
DO NOT REMOVE
OR
MUTILATE CARD
}

Jawat
NE