For the Christian Recorder.
EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH.
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BY << HENRY OSSIAN>> FLIPPER.
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2ND. LIEUT., 10TH CAV'Y., U.S. ARMY.
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MR. EDITOR: - The deplorable condition of our schools South, emboldens me to
write you upon this subject of such vital importance to us. I refer especially
to a growing desire, to remove all white teachers and till their places with
colored ones. Please understand at the outset, that I am “primarily and
principally” in favor of having colored teachers wherever they are competent,
but that we should have them now competent or incompetent I deem not only impolitic
but likely to be “fraught” with an infinite deal of evil.”
There are many northern teachers, who are eminently capable, earnestly willing,
and zealously yearning to educate us - us the needy and - shall I say ungrateful
and unwise objects of their philanthropy. Gratitude alone should induce us to
accept their generous offers.
We need our young men, and our young women in the schools, the colleges, the
trades, and the professions, fitting themselves for those positions in life
which we must attain to, before we can ever, ever hope to be a people, until
we have educated ministers in al our churches, able instructors in all our schools,
capable engineers, building up and beautifying our country, as well as cultivating
our tastes, thoroughly efficient physicians, administering to our sick; learned
lawyers, meeting out justice, and securing to us, all the advantages of the
laws of our free government; skillful soldiers, ready at a moment's warning
to march to the altar of our existence, to secure our being, or perish on the
sacrificial pile; practical geologists, and minerologists, disclosing to us
the wealth of the inner world; and others “well up” in all the learned
sciences. Until we do posses this wealth of learning, we are, and ever will
remain in a condition inferior to that of the whites. It certainly is an honor,
that prophecies auspiciously for the race, to have a graduate at Columbia College,
and at Brown, and another at West Point. And it is as certainly a disgrace,
that the number of such graduates at each, is not over one. We all admit this
fact, and were we more wise, I am sure we would encourage this volunteer instruction
proffered us, by our friends North.
As it is now, our youth acquire a rudimentary education, quite sufficient to
enable them to teach the young, and they leave school for that purpose. They
begin teaching, with perhaps a pure purpose, and declare to elevate, but almost
invariably forget such noble aspirations, and become indifferent, and mercenary.
I do not speak of those who teach that they themselves may procure learning,
but of that great majority, who teach because they can't (?) do anything else.
They teach long enough to acquire a dislike for school and study, and, becoming
“wise in their own conceit,” go down. Mr. Editor, our youth in the
South are falling, and this is one, if not the sole cause. I do no speak from
heresay information, but from actual, and absolute knowledge of the facts. Alas!
but too many of my own former classmates and comrades, have thus disgraced themselves.
Of a large class that entered the preparatory school, in 1868, only two have
graduated. The others are I scarcely know where. One walks the street of Atlanta,
hands in pockets, gambling whenever able, and supported, the while by a widowed,
and aged mother. Another, a corrupter of female virtue, driven from a lucrative
business, but, alas! not from society, seeks to recover his fortunes by instructing
the young in an obscure country town. Another still, though industrious and
able to command a small income is steadily wasting that, and his own soul in
riotous living, unknown and unloved save by his own infamous associates. But
I must refrain, the picture grows too horrowing.
This sad condition of our young men, is not limited to my own class, but to
nearly every other in our schools.
There are many also, who have acquired, though never in a regular school a good
common English education. Many of them too, are thus falling. Some have sown
their wild oats, and have reaped, “nothing but leaves.”
Others unable to continue their dissipations, seek to obtain means by teaching.
It is the class that are clamoring for colored teachers, or rather Mr. Editor,
for opportunities to gratify their own personal ends and laziness, and this
is the key to what follows.
What surprises me, is the almost universal support and countenance which even
the Bourbon Democrats give to this removal movement. It is the most expedient
and effectual method of delaying our acquirement of a higher education. It is
the making of a status quo and the status quo of a nation is its death. It is
the putting of “The negro where we want him” the death knell of
“African Evangelization” by Africo-American missionaries. Shall
we submit or follow the example of a Scarborough or Quarles, educate ourselves
to the highest point, and then instruct? The query is plain and there is but
one reply. The evil is discovered, and there is but one remedy. We must keep
our young men and our young women in school; till they graduate and become not
only competent instructors of youth, but polished ladies and gentlemen, recognizing
as they advance in years and learning, that the more they learn the less they
know.
After hastily procuring the above, Mr. Editor, I saw in your issue for ... whites
alone, were employed to teach there. A pay school was opened with two hundred
and fifty scholars, and they were nearly all children of African Methodist parents.
The members of the Congregational Church do not number a hundred. The “yankee
teachers” are not half of them congregationalists.
It is wholly false that the Atlanta University is sectarian. Revs. M. Edward
Bryant and E.P. Lewis of the A.M.E. connection were pupils there. Misses Laney,
Jones, and hosts of others, all Presbyterians, were pupils there, Miss Turner,
the Finches, my brother, and myself were pupils, there, and we are Methodists,
except myself, who am inclined to the Episcopal Church. When the A.M.E. Conference
was last held in Atlanta one of its committees declared this university purely
non-sectarian. Whites (southern) were put in Hayne Street School at the instigation
of the above mentioned Baptist ministers. African Methodists never favored southern
whites, for instructors of their youth. Southern whites are not now, and never
have taught even a letter in the Storrs School. There are now four northern
and two colored teachers, one of the latter being an African Methodist. At the
examination, all the colored applicants failed, and there were no whites. Mr.
Ware and Mr. Francis by their efforts, made so plain the proficiency of two
of them, that the Board of Education elected them, by a unanimous vote. Their
failure on examination is justly attributed to non-preparation as no time had
been given. Both were regular graduates, one in one of our best colleges in
the West.
My time is limited, but the article of “An Exile” was so false and
so likely to create false impressions, I felt called upon to reply to it. If
“An Exile” wants more information, let him address me at Atlanta.
Atlanta, Ga.,
Oct., 1877.