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NORTH BADIN, N. C.
EDUCATION AND EFFICIENCY
By Prof. E. G. Harris
Principal Badin Colored School
F there is anything essential to make the Negro
or any other race efficient as laborers, it is mental
preparedness and strong moral habits. The rea
sons for this assertion are apparent.
First, let us consider the general mental attitude of the
untrained worker. He is superstitious. He believes that
his employer is robbing him when he desires him to do ten
hours’ work for ten hours’ pay. rie watches his foreman
with doubts and fears, and only works when the foreman
is present and has a watchful eye over him. In other words,
he hands his employer what he expects to receive—a dirty
deal.
He has no regularity. He believes he should work only
when he needs something. For instance, if it takes ten
a home or starts j, bank account, or both. When he buys
he expects his money’s worth, and does not buy cheap cloth
ing with the idea that he is saving. He is not content to
live in a poor house, or rented house, but wants a home
which he can call his own.
The way by which a worker becomes trained or educated
is through the instrumentality of the great social forces that
are within his reach in his community. These are the
churches, schools, societies, lodges, business and social or
ganizations—all of which we have strongly represented in
NORTH BADIN.
Our white friends are aware of the f?ct that if the Ne
groes of this beautiful city are given the opportunity for
preparedness, that the Tallassee Power Company can rely
-P Jlr J(^
A GROWING SCHOOL
dollars to satisfy his family and himself for one week, and
he earns five dollars a day, he believes in working two days
that week and laying off the rest of the week. On jobs
where regularity is indispensable, it takes a police force
equal to a United States Army to keep things going.
He has no knowledge of economics, and no desire to ac
cumulate. He buys a two-dollar hat which will last only
two months, when a four-dollar hat would last a year. This
demonstrates his idea of saving. He buys cheap things, and
lives in poor houses, his needs being small. This ignorance
and superstition is within itself his greatest handicap, and
often leads to dishonesty and crime.
On the other hand let us notice the mental attitude of the
trained, or intelligent, or educated worker. He is not super
stitious. He takes his employer as a partner and not as a
lord, with the knowledge that cs he makes more for his
employer he makes more for himself. He expects no robbery
of his rightful earnings. He gives his employer honest work,
and can be trusted to do his duty in the absence of a fore
man. He needs no bosses; he only needs a knowledge of
what his employer wants done.
He is not satisfied to make just enough to live on. but
w^.nts something to put away as a saving. He either buys
upon them as honest laborers. There are some who oppose
education for Negroes on the ground that they are not
large taxpayers. But the officials of this Company know that
the laborer and the consumer pay their proportion of the
tax on capital, which tax runs the schools. The Negro is
the laborer and a very large consumer; he produces alu
minum yearly, and it is his toil and muscle that make the
school fund. Out of the inexhaustible storehouse of his own
labor, he draws his quota of the appropriations for schools.
It is not every company employing Negro laborers, however,
which accepts this view of Negro education for efficiency.
During the summer of 1917, the desire of the Company to
promote the welfare of its workers was expressed in the
establishment of a good school. It was opened in two well-
equipped buildings, with two teachers. In 1918, another
building was erected on the school grounds, and six teach
ers were employed, including a teacher of domestic art, and
a night school was opened for the workers. Meanwhile, the
new brick building, which is to be an exact duplicate of the
school for white children, was begun, but was interfered
with because of shortage of material due to the war