group-leaders of the Negro people--the physicians and clergymen, the
trained fathers and mothers, the influential and forceful men about him of
all kinds; here it is, if at all, that the culture of the surrounding
world trickles through and is handed on by the graduates of the higher
schools. Can such culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we
afford to ignore it? Do you think that if the leaders of thought among
Negroes are not trained and educated thinkers, that they will have no
leaders? On the contrary a hundred half-trained demagogues will still hold
the places they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous
busy-bodies will multiply. You have no choice; either you must help
furnish this race from within its own ranks with thoughtful men of trained
leadership, or you must suffer the evil consequences of a headless
misguided rabble.

I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black
boys, and for white boys, too. I believe that next to the founding of
Negro colleges the most valuable addition to Negro education since the
war, has been industrial training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist
that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is
to make carpenters men; there are two means of making the carpenter a man,
each equally important: the first is to give the group and community in
which he works, liberally trained teachers and leaders to teach him and
his family what life means; the second is to give him sufficient
intelligence and technical skill to make him an efficient workman; the
first object demands the Negro college and college-bred men--not a
quantity of such colleges, but a few of excellent quality; not too many
college-bred men, but enough to leaven the lump, to inspire the masses, to
raise the Talented Tenth to leadership; the second object demands a good
system of common schools, well-taught, conveniently located and properly
equipped.