They saw then, as they often
do now, the seeming impracticability of preparing themselves for
occupations which they apparently had no chance to follow. Moreover,
bright freedmen were not at first attracted to mechanical occupations.
Ambitious Negroes who triumphed over slavery and made their way to the
North for educational advantages hoped to enter the higher walks of
life. Only a few of the race had the foresight of the advocates of
industrial training. The majority of the enlightened class desired
that they be no longer considered as "persons occupying a menial
position, but as capable of the highest development of man."[1]
Furthermore, bitterly as some white men hated slavery, and deeply as
they seemingly sympathized with the oppressed, they were loath to
support a policy which they believed was fatal to their economic
interests.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention_,
etc., p. 25.]
[Footnote 2: _The Fifth Report of the American Antislavery Society_,
p. 115; Douglass, _The Life and Times of_, p. 248.]
The chief reason for the failure of the new educational policy was
that the managers of the manual labor schools made the mistakes often
committed by promoters of industrial education of our day.
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