Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 72.djvu/463

 scholar (and there will be about one in thirty) should be given an opportunity at the higher schools of becoming teachers, preachers, doctors, shoemakers, wheelwrights, etc. They should also be fitted to fill the better positions in manufacturing and mining establishments. Before entering these higher institutions the pupil should be made to pass satisfactory matriculation examinations and it should be shown that he is of good character.

Such schools as Hampton and Tuskegee may be established in each of the southern states. In them industrial education should be especially emphasized, and the training of preachers, doctors and teachers (who wish to teach in the lower schools) should be provided for. These schools will be for the colored people what the universities are for the white people. They may be supported through taxation of the negro property and through the munificence of philanthropists interested in the colored race. About one fifteenth of the school money expended now is derived from taxation of negro property. Whether there is a necessity of having colored lawyers for the colored race is a question. There are already institutions in which an exceptionally clever negro may get a legal education. Any legal question may be settled by white lawyers, who for a long time to come will be more skilful in law and consequently the better able to represent their clients in the courts than colored lawyers. Further, I believe the negroes prefer to have their disputes settled by white people. But the teaching of the colored children and in most cases the care of the sick will be left to the colored people.

Whatever education a colored man possesses has been given to him by the people of the south; the present system for his education is due to the people among whom he lives, and this guiding influence must of necessity always be felt.

As shown below, the south is now spending annually at least $4,000,000 towards the education of the colored race. This money has been spent through the direction of the superintendent of public instruction in each state, and its disbursement has been supervised by the superintendents of common schools in the various counties and cities. These men have almost invariably exercised their duties with zeal and honesty. It seems desirable that these officers have charge of the funds for the education of both white and colored children as hitherto has been the case. Their salaries may be somewhat increased so that additional help in the way of secretaries and stenographers may be procured. Thus the expenses for the management of the fund for the education of colored children will be a minimum. The state superintendent should make annual reports of all moneys expended to some head man at Washington.

The office of the Commissioner of Education at Washington has