The industrial school springing to notice in this decade, but
coming to full recognition in the decade beginning with 1895,
was the proffered answer to this combined educational and
economic crisis, and an answer of singular wisdom and time-
liness. From the very first in nearly all the schools some
attention had been given to training in handiwork, but now
was this training first raised to a dignity that brought it in
direct touch with the South's magnificent industrial develop-
ment, and given an emphasis which reminded black folk that
before the Temple of Knowledge swing the Gates of Toil.
Yet after all they are but gates, and when turning our eyes
from the temporary and the contingent in the Negro problem
to the broader question of the permanent uplifting and civili-
zation of black men in America, we have a right to inquire,
as this enthusiasm for material advancement mounts to its
height, if after all the industrial school is the final and suffi-
cient answer in the training of the Negro race; and to ask
gently, but in all sincerity, the ever-recurring query of the
ages, Is not life more than meat, and the body more than
raiment? And men ask this to-day all the more eagerly be-
cause of sinister signs in recent educational movements.
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