If left to themselves men usually select intuitively the course of
preparation best suited to their tastes and capacities. But the
colored youth of the South have been allured and seduced from their
natural inclination by the premiums placed upon theological, classical
and professional training for the purpose of sustaining the reputation
and continuance of "colleges" and their professorships.

I do not hesitate to say that if the vast sums of money already
expended and now being spent in the equipment and maintenance of
colleges and universities for the so called "higher education" of
colored youth had been expended in the establishment and maintenance
of primary schools and schools of applied science, the race would have
profited vastly more than it has, both mentally and materially, while
the results would have operated far more advantageously to the State,
and satisfactorily to the munificent benefactors.

Since writing the above, I find in a very recent number of

Judge Tourgèe's magazine, _The Continent_, the following reflections
upon the subject, contributed to that excellent periodical by Prof.
George F. Magoun of Iowa College. Mr. Magoun says:

May I offer one suggestion which observation a few years
since among the freedmen and much reflection, with
comparisons made in foreign countries, have impressed upon
me? It is this, that the key of the future for the black men
of the South is _industrial_ education. The laboring men of
other lands cannot hold their own in skilled labor save as
they receive such education, and this of a constantly
advancing type. The English House of Commons moved two years