CONCERNING OPPORTUNITY-EQUAL, UNEQUAL, In an address at a largely attended conference of the people of his race, the principal of Tuskegee said, "I am asking what I have always asked for my race-no special privileges or opportunity not given to other American citizens just an equal chance in the struggle for manhood and citizenship that other Americans enjoy. I cannot in honor ask for more. We should not in justice receive less." Thus a representative of the Negro race proclaims for his people what the American Missionary Association has been teaching, preaching and working for without cessation during sixty years. Will the American Negro ever attain this; "the opportunity that other Americans enjoy"; a square deal in the struggle for manhood, a full chance to make the most of one's self in whatever calling or relation in life irrespective of race or color? "Equal opportunity!" Millions do not know the meaning of the word. They never have had or have seen anything that may be dignified with the meaning of opportunity. "Other Americans" have had the chance to make the most of themselves save the relatively few in the Southern states where educational privileges have been no part of their inheritance. But ignorance has no opportunity. Opportunity comes only to those who are prepared to meet it. A sheer struggle for existence, the getting food to sustain life, the getting clothing enough to protect the body by human clods with eyes upon the ground makes opportunity impossible. Millions of the Negro people are so conditioned by their inheritance of ignorance and by the limitations of their existence that they have no chance, and never will have. What the Negro who has had his opportunity and has seized it, wants for his needy people, we have been sounding out for half a century, namely that the birth-right of man, is equality of opportunity. No country on the face of the earth affords this to the same degree as does that of the United States, but the Negro people in their best estate have this only in restricted lines. If one has brains enough and they are active enough, one has an equal opportunity with white men of like brains. in many ways and in certain directions. But the fullness of opportunity in whatever direction for these who have attained so much has not yet come. Discriminated against they are saying with Paul, "I count not myself to have attained, but I follow after." Some day, they or their children will arrive, let us hope. Meanwhile, Russians with white skins get through Ellis Island, and proceed to destroy-so far as their deviltry is able—the freest government in all the world with the most equal opportunities for at least white people to advance in worthy life; and one of their accursed works is the endeavor to bedevil ignorant Negroes to become altogether such as themselves. With the colored race restrictions excepted, those who know what opportunity means and have wisdom to act upon their knowledge, can find the avenues to the real significances of life in all directions so open and so free that Senator Ingalls felt that he could assert this without qualification: "Master of human destities am I. Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait. Save death. But those who doubt or hesitate, I answer not, and I return no more." When, however, we come down to cold solid prose we know that opportunity does not "knock unbidden at every gate." Millions "condemned to failure, penury, and woe" by reason of race, color and inheritance, incapable of realizing what opportunity means, hear no knock at their gates. Therefore, in the interest of a square deal and a man's full chance in life, we say educate, and again educate, and again educate; educate for intelligence, educate for knowledge, educate for opportunity. We say, schools, elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges; all schools for opportunity. Moreover, the poet was soaring away from practical facts when he gives one but a single chance to take opportunity by the forelock. The examples in the attainment of colored youth are uncounted to whom as the heirs of slavery opportunity never appeared, but who afar off heard of it, and were suffciently wise and alert to get out into some school where it would be sure to come, and where they could have a second chance. It was at Marengo-was it not? where the officers of Napoleon's staff in great dismay said, "Sire, the day is lost .There is no hope." "What time is it?" said Napoleon." Three o'clock." "Well, this battle is lost, but there is time enough to win a second one," and the victory which is inscribed upon the Arch de Triomphe that faces from its commanding height the finest avenue in the world, bids all belated ones if they have lost their birthwright opportunity, to make a great fight for their second chance. A. F. B. THE STORY OF A DAY AT BRICKS, NORTH CAROLINA HE industrial work of the Joseph Keasbey Brick School differs very greatly from that of similar institutions in that practically all of the necessary work BRICK SCHOOL, BRICKS, N. C. which is involved in the maintenance of this institution is performed by student labor. If you would spend a day viewing its industrial features. you would begin early in the morning at five o'clock, and visit a building which was formerly the school laundry, but since the destruction of the school's dining hall by fire it has served both as a dining room and a kitchen. Here you will meet student girls who have arisen at an early hour to prepare breakfast for the boarding students and, teachers. These you will learn through inquiry, attend the day school, and are relieved from work at 7:00 A .M. by girls who remain in the kitchen until 5:30 P. M., and who attend night school. You will also discover that the matron of the dining hall has been absent from the school for three months on account of the illness of her mother, and that the din ing room and kitchen are under the supervision of a student who performs her task most creditably. Before breakfast you would also take a short walk to the school barn and visit the boys whose duties are to milk the cows and feed the horses. The horses are to be used later in the day by student boys who do extensive farming under the supervision of the farm manager from 7:00 A. M. until 5:30 P. M., and who attend night school. Immediately after breakfast would be your most opportune time to visit the manual training shop, because the manual training teacher, with his large classes, which begins begins with the fourth grade and extends to the twelfth, has little time to attend to visitors during school periods. At the shop you would be surprised to see the handsome campus settees which are being made by the classes out of dirty, rough lumber, obtained at a very low price from the county bridge builders who have recently constructed a large bridge near the school. The lower classes do the cleaning and dressing of the lumber and the more advanced classes complete the making of the settees. After school begins you would be interested to visit the agricultural classes which are studying the elementary principles of agriculture, or go with them to see the students do practical work in their Spring garden. If you should ask concerning the disposal of the garden products you would learn that during the past Summer the school dining room was furnished with nearly all of its vegetables from the garden planted by the classes. The sewing department would then be the next place of interest as it is just in front of the agriculture class-room on the third floor of the Administration Building. The sewing room is a well lighted room. There you will see the girls sewing on various grades of work according to their stage of development along that line. The teacher of the department instructs the girls to make their own clothes and through the students the teachers of the school and others in the community are being served by this department. You will not find a more cheerful class room anywhere, neither will you find work more interesting, but the sewing teacher apologizes because she has so few chairs and so many students; some classes having as many as thirty girls. The sewing classes begin with the fourth grade, and extend through the twelfth grade. Sewing class periods alternate with the Domestic Science periods. The Domestic Science class room is on the second floor of the Administration Building at the foot of the stairway leading down from the sewing room, and most naturally you would stop there since it is near lunch time, and you see the day students who in many cases walk six miles daily to and from school, waiting to get a lunch-a sandwich of some kind, and something sweet which the cooking classes have prepared. Perhaps you would like to have a piece of raisin ginger-bread yourself? I know that you would be most interested to see some of the equipment which was added recently to help accomodate. the large classes. The girls of the eighth grade painted the old tables and old wash stands white, which now hold new utensils. The new utensils were bought recently with money which was received from the sale of lunch es. After dinner you anticipate an afternoon with the academic classes, but some interested person will ask, "Have you visited the laundry?" and you will probably reply, "Yes, I ate а delicious breakfast there this morning;" for the laundry is used as a dining room and kitchen and you saw no signs of laundry work near that building except the white clothes at the side. I am sure that you would gladly have assistance in your search for the laundry, because a stranger entering Benedict Hall, the girls' dormitory, would hardly believe that a temporary laundry is installed in its basement. However, there you will sit for hours just to see for yourself how clothes which sent to this place with its plain damp dirt floor and lack of facilities for boiling, leave looking as clean as they do. Most of the laundry work is done by girls who work from 7:00 A. M. to 5:30 P. M., and who attend night school. The remainder is done by day school boarding students who work from one to three hours every day to help support themselves while in school. As you climb the steps leading from the dim basement laundry you will hear the ringing of the 5:30 bell which ends the industrial work of most of the students of the institution. The day has been a full and busy one, and you will go away to think about the things which you have seen. You will, I am sure fully realize that the Joseph Keasby Brick School is doing much to increase the efficiency of its student body through its industrial features. "The only hope of the mass is the development of able individuals. Withdraw ten thousand best minds from any country, and you would atrophy the nation." MISSIONARY LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH Trinity School We are back again in learning in northern day even as Athens was the centre of Do you know the story of the sculptor who carved a beautiful angel from the marble and when asked how he could create such an exquisite thing replied that the angel was already in the rock and he had merely released it. That is the story of our work. There is an angel in every one of our boys and girls; we have seen it with the sculptor's vision and it is with exceeding great joy that we hack away day after day at the stony prison of sin and ignorance and watch the lines of beauty appear one by one until a lovely character steps forth, or a remarkable intellect. Moreover, "whatsoever ye have done to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' God puts himself in the place of his child and we are helping to set him free from the burden of evil and wretchedness which must oppress his soul. They are his children, the children, the heirs of all the ages, whom we are Dear Friends, let me beg you not only to continue your gifts to this wonderfully productive A. M. A. work, but to pray more ardently for the broadening of mind of the Caucasian race that shall see the great possibilities in these other promising races. Give of your sympathy, your staunch unfailing faith, your time, |