* *

tion of the instructor, is required to deduce, unaided, the principles and conclusions which he is to use as a practicing lawyer. As to the actual ability of the student to deal with the material in the manner in which he is required to deal with it, the testimony of a man who has administered the system and has had, therefore, an opportunity of observing the working thereof in this particular, should have great weight. Fortunately, are we able to produce as a witness on this point a man who, though at the time he gave his testimony was on the bench of the Massachusetts supreme court, had, prior to that time, qualified himself to speak of this system in its working operation by administering the same as a teacher. In the address, to which I have before referred, Mr. Justice Holmes says: 'With some misgivings I plunged a class of beginners straight into Mr. Ames's collection of cases. The result was better than I even hoped it would be. After a week or two, when the first confusing novelty was over, I found that my class examined the questions proposed with an accuracy of view which they never could have learned from text-books and which often exceeded that to be found in the text-books. * My experience as a judge has confirmed the belief I formed as a professor.' The testimony of this disinterested witness, so well known both to the American and English bar as a distinguished writer and judge, should certainly outweigh merely theoretical objections. "It seems hardly necessary to notice at the present day, when discipline is regarded as a part of legal education, and when, therefore, a student is supposed to be better prepared to grapple with problems because of previous study, the objection that, as a student is a beginner as to every new topic, the case system should not be used by him at any time during his course, but that the work involved therein should be done by him after he has become a lawyer.

*

"It has been objected to the case system that it proceeds on the theory that the law is an exact science, and those urging this objection assert strenuously that such is not the case. With the assertion that law is not an exact science I think all will agree, but that there is any dependence in teaching law by cases and its being an exact science I fail to see. That law is a science is claimed by the advocates of the case system, and, I trust, not denied by its opponents. But it is an applied science, depending for its exactness upon human reasoning, and is not, therefore, one of the exact sciences; yet, I trust, for all that, not the less worthy of scientific study.

"The objection that the case system proceeds upon the study of old cases to the exclusion of modern cases is based on a delusion which can be cleared up by a casual examination of the various selections of cases used by the student. That the student is required to consult old as well as modern authorities is true. He is required to do so in order that he may know something of the growth and development of the law, and thereby the more thoroughly prepare himself to deal with the problems arising from our present complex civilization.

"The objection has been raised to the case system that only the unsettled points of law are treated thereunder. This, of course, is simply a statement of fact, and, as in the case of the delusion I have just referred to, can be readily removed by an examination of the material which is placed in the hands of the student. Another objection which has been raised to the system is that it requires more time than the text-book system in which to cover the field of law. If this statement is to be taken as meaning that more topics can be touched upon in a given length of time under the text-book system than are considered in the same time under the case system, the statement is true. But if the statement is to be taken as meaning that in the same length of time more law can be mastered under the text-book system than under the case system, the assumption begs the entire question, and is most emphatically denied. The advocates of the case system believe that the system produces a lawyer more quickly than the text-book system, for the reason that, in their opinion, the powers of analysis, discrimination, and judgment which have been acquired by the study of cases by the student before graduation must be acquired by the student of the textbook system after he has ceased to be a student and has become a practicing lawyer. "The objection to the case system that it logically demands the examination and

discussion of every case of record, case by case, loses sight of the fact that, according to the best thought of the day, while the adjudged cases are numerous, the controlling principles are comparatively few.

for

"It is unnecessary to consider whether law can be taught exclusively by cases, the reason that I know of no teacher who has made the attempt. Speaking for the Columbia College Law School, with which I have the honor to be connected, I may say that in all of the courses where the case system of instruction is followed-and it is practically the system by which all the instruction in private or municipal law is given-text-books are used and oral instruction is given. The distinctive feature of the case system is not the exclusive use of cases, but that the reported cases are made the basis of instruction, where in other schools they are referred to, if at all, by way of illustration only, and that text-books, which in most schools are made the basis of instruction, are used for purposes of reference and collateral reading, and to enable students to compare their own generalizations with those of the authors of standard works.

"One occasionally, but seldom in this day of advanced thought and education, hears the objection raised to the case system that it does not make the study of law easy for the student, and partaking of this objection is the suggestion that the province of the teacher is to teach. Of course, these objections raise squarely the question as to the burden that should be put upon a pupil and of the work that should be done by a teacher. We admit that the system does not proceed on the idea of 'the law made easy.' We believe the law to be a difficult science, which can be made easy only at the expense of thoroughness and, therefore, at the expense of the student. We believe that the information which the student receives should be the result of thought and effort on his part. As Mr. Gray has well expressed it, 'The greatest teacher the world has ever known was fond of comparing himself to a midwife. His task, he said, was to aid the scholar to bring forth his own ideas. He, to-day, will be the most successful teacher who can best exercise this obstetrical function. And in law no better way has yet been devised to make the student work for himself than to give him a series of cases on a topic and to compel him to discover the principles which they have settled and the process by which they have been evolved.' Of course, this represents a difference of ideas, and each person will choose that one of the two which more strongly appeals to his experience and

common sense.

"To summarize: The reasons that I would urge for the adoption of the case system of instruction are, first, that law, like other applied sciences, should be studied in its application if one is to acquire a working knowledge thereof; second, that this is entirely feasible, for the reason that while the adjudged cases are numerous the principles controlling them are comparatively few; third, that it is by the study of cases that one is to acquire the power of legal reasoning, discrimination, and judgment, qualities indispensable to the practicing lawyer; fourth, that the study of cases best develops the power to analyze and to state clearly and concisely a complicated state of facts, a power which, in no small degree, distinguishes the good from the poor or indifferent lawyer; fifth, that the system, because of the study of fundamental principles, avoids the danger of producing a mere case lawyer, while it furnishes, because the principles are studied in their application to facts, an effectual preventive of any tendency to mere academic learning; sixth, that the student, by the study of cases, not only follows the law in its growth and development, but thereby acquires the habit of legal thought which can be acquired only by the study of cases, and which must be acquired by him either as a student or after he has become a practitioner, if he is to attain any success as a lawyer; seventh, that it is best adapted to exciting and holding the interest of the student, and is therefore best adapted to making a lasting impression upon his mind; eighth, that it is a method distinctly productive of individuality in teaching and of a scientific spirit of investigation, independence, and self-reliance on the part of the student.

"So far I have considered methods only in the abstract, entirely eliminati

what, in practice, can not be eliminated, namely, the personal equation. I am free to say that, in my opinion, the case system requires a higher order of intelligence on the part of the pupil than is required under the text-book system, but it does not require a higher order of intelligence than should be possessed by anyone aspiring to become a lawyer. Not only must the personal equation be considered with reference to the pupil, but the personality of the teacher is of the greatest importance in any system of education. I fully appreciate that what is meat for one may be pe sen for another. Any given teacher, because of his peculiarities, might succeed wild a method inferior to another under which he would fail, and for this reason, @ey instructor in law in Columbia College has, and I hope always will have, absoFoods 2 of Chece in his methods of teaching. But, from this point of view, an Cat which can be fairly urged in favor of the case system is that the method 2) velved therein is so flexible that two men may use it as a basis of to sit de tivi, and the teaching of the one hardly suggest the teaching of the other. 1syve entirely, however, with the statement made by Professor McClain before Podaja last year, that Each successful teacher has his own peculiarities growing vir al dia personal relation with his surroundings, and any attempt on the one hand revogy the particular method of another, or, on the other hand, to put a trade-mark apsam pedilar ways of teaching, will necessarily prove abortive.'

Gardell's definition of a university was a pine table, with Mark Hopkins at one end and the student at the other; but it was Mark Hopkins and the personality of Mark Hopkins, which could not be transmitted to another, and not the table, that acitadfod Gardeld. Rugby had its Arnold, but Arnold died, and with him his per

CHAPTER VIII.

EDUCATION OF THE COLORED RACE IN INDUSTRY.*

The financial history of the larger institutions for the education of the colored race is epitomized in the case of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute of Alabama. That institution, on the 4th of July, 1881, started in the world without a dollar except an annual appropriation of $2,000 from the State for tuition of State students. During the thirteen years that have elapsed since that date the institution has received $421,956 in cash, derived from the following sources:

The State of Alabama, about 9 per cent, or ....

The Peabody fund, about 1 per cent, or

The John F. Slater fund, about 4 per cent, or

The students, about 12 per cent, or.

Gifts, about 74 per cent, or...

Total for the thirteen years..

$37,000

5, 163

15,500

51, 451

312, 842

421, 956

Of the above amount about 44 per cent, or $187,613, was paid for student labor between 1881 and 1894.

Reduced to its essential element, the whole matter is "student labor," paid for by benevolent people and done in buildings and fields, provided by these same kindhearted persons for the purpose of enabling the negro youth to acquire an education without loss of self-respect. Indeed it may be said that the necessitous condition of the negro and the idea of self-helpfulness are the magic notes that have drawn so many millions from, more especially, the North, to effect his education. But this, so to speak, meidental idea of manual labor in exchange for an education rapidly became the general principle, that the education of the negro is to be best effected through systematically teaching him to labor. Thus "student labor" is no longer at this epoch of the education of the colored race a means to an end, but is an end, if not the end. The same phenomenon may be observed in older and more stratified societies than our own, and it is the wish of the Commissioner to have presented the character of the technical equipment and course of instruction of the institutions interested in the effort to teach the negro the dignity of labor.2

In applying to the negro in America a course of trade instruction such as has never been in general systematically or successfully operated in schools for the whites in this country, it is a question how far methods that in the past have failed, or the newer so-called "manual-training" methods are applicable to the colored race. Unmistakably there is abroad at the present time an idea that in regard to

Students must pay in advance $5 a month for board.

The school endeavors to give each

pupil $5 worth of work monthly, which in most cases able-bodied persons can earu.-Catalogue Hamp. ton Institute, p. 58.

2 The object of this institution is, "First, to teach the dignity of labor."-Many catalogues.

The New York trade schools are not an exception, for their work is completely divorced from mental training.

By Mr. Wellford Addis, specialist in the Bureau.

1019

the mental training of the negro there must be "appreciated one important and farreaching fact—a fact that has been too generally overlooked by those charged with the education of the negro-namely, that the curriculum and methods employed in the instruction of the white race need essential modification and adaptation in their application to negro schools," for in the education of the negro, it is necessary to have a “practical knowledge of his peculiar intellectual difficulties and a sympathetic appreciation of his moral weaknesses." Now, if we substitute for the "intellectual difficulties" and "moral weaknesses" to be considered in the mental training of the negro the hereditary aptitudes for certain kinds of labor possessed by him, the conclusions of an official of the last census will bear upon the line of least resistance for imparting the idea of the dignity of labor or self-helpfulness. These conclusions are

"The proportion of the negroes in the cities [of 8,000 population or more] has in every case been less than that of whites, though their proportionate increase has been greater than that of the whites. This gain is, however, very slight, and is probably not significant. While the negro is extremely gregarious, and is by that instinet drawn toward the great centers of population, on the other hand he is not fitted either by nature or education for those vocations for the pursuit of which men collect in cities; that is, for manufactures and commerce. The inclinations of this race, drawn from its inheritance, tend to keep it wedded to the soil, and the probabilities are that as cities increase in the United States in number and size and with them manufactures and commerce develop, the great body of the negroes will continue to remain aloof from them and cultivate the soil, as heretofore."2

Whether hereditary inclination, early association, or social antagonism will keep the negro wedded to industrial isolation as a small farmer, it is undoubtedly a fact that his longings are away from the farm, as are those of the youth of the white race, and probably for the same reasons; both having seen so much of its worst side before experience had taught them to recognize the better. This tendency away from the farm has been ascribed to the quickening of the intellectual operations and the birth of high aspirations due to an elementary education, but instead of counteracting it by agricultural instruction, in the case of the negro the greatest weight is being put upon industrial instruction, as will appear in the sequel, for which vocation the negro “is not fitted either by nature or education," according to the authority quoted above.

Taking the negro in his present industrial condition as more at home on the soil than in the alleys and back streets of cities and towns, it will be best to examine into the character of the instruction which is intended to fit him for his ancestral vocation, then into that which fits him for village or cross-roads industries and those of the shop or foundry.

Before presenting these topics, however, the recent establishment of the Shorter University at Arkadelphia, Ark., requires mention. This institution, as yet a university only in plan, owes its existence to the policy of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to establish schools in every State where its membership is very large. The progress of the school under its original name of Bethel Institute is due to the active service of the ministers and members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Arkansas, who have given labor and money to promote "liberal learning" within its territory among the colored race. The prospectus is quite guarded in its reference to industrial education, the new university "aiming to give ample preparation to young men and young women for personal success and usefulness, and endeavoring to correct the effects of too great specialization on the one hand and extreme diffusion on the other." 3

1 Report of Commission of Visitation to Tuscaloosa Institute for Training Colored Ministers, Third An. Rept. of Ex. Com. to Gen'l Ass. of Amer. Pres. Church, pp. 13, 14.

* Statistical Sketch of the Negroes in the United States, p. 16, by Henry Gannett, published by Slater Fund.

3 So also Fisk University.