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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Negro Community - 43. Institutions - 4. The Negro School and Negro Education
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Chapter 43. Institutions 949
Teacher Associations, and these have been of material advantage to both
parents and teachers.®
There is a clear tendency to avoid civics and other social sciences In the
Southern Negro public schools. Theyare not taught to any extent in the white
schools, but a special effort is made to prevent Negroes from thinking about
the duties and privileges of citizenship. In some places there are different
school books for Negroes and whites, especially in those fields that border
on the social. Where white students are taught the Constitution and the
structure of governments, Negroes arc given courses in “character build-
ing,” by which is meant courtesy, humility, self-control, satisfaction with
the poorer things of life, and all the traits which mark a “good nigger” in
the eyes of the Southern whites. The content of the courses for Negroes
throughout the South, except at the colleges with a tradition dating back
to the “classical” influence of the New England “carpetbagger,” is molded
by the caste system at every turn. For example: a leaflet sent out by a
privately controlled and privately supported North Carolina “Institute”
—
something meant to be a cross between a technical high school and a tech-
nical college—describes its course of study as follows:
While the school gives a thorough English Education, it must be remembered that
it is strictly moral, religious and industrial. P^very boy and girl is taught practical
Politeness, F’arming, Housekeeping, Laundry, Dressmaking, Printing, Cooking, Brick-
masonry, Plastering, and Automobile Mechanics. Students are taught self-reliance, race
pride, independent man and womanhood. They are encouraged to remain at their
homes in the South, to buy land, assist their fathers and mothers and to educate
their fellows.
To repeat; this is the course of study at a privately supported school at
almost the college level. It is probably an exceptionally poor school, but
it illustrates what does exist. Publicly supported elementary schools for
Negroes in the South put out no such statements regarding courses of study.
There is a strong element of the vocational in the education of Southern
Negroes. Rural boys are given courses in agriculture j
urban boys are given
courses in the manual artsj and girls are given courses in home economics.
Since little money is made available to teach such courses —and adequate
teaching of them requires a good deal of expensive equipment—and since
the teachers are often inadequately trained, the courses are usually on a low
level. The range of these courses, too, is restricted: for the most part,
Negroes are taught only how to be farmers, semi-skilled workers and
* While rural Negro teachers are integrated into the community, they are usually not
active in it and belong to few civic organizations other than the P.T.A. (Charles S. Johnson,
*‘The Negro Public Schools,” pp. 100-101.)
**
Negroes receive little of the money made available for vocational education by the
federal government, since the state legislatures misappropriate the fundSr See Chapter 15 »
Section 5
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