ntioned the
Institute in accounting for the prosperity and good morals of the
refugees.[4] Unfortunately, however, after the year 1855 when the
school reached its zenith, it began to decline on account of bad
feeling probably resulting from a divided management.

[Footnote 1: Henson, _Life of Josiah Henson_, pp. 73, 74.]

[Footnote 2: Henson, _Life of Josiah Henson_, p. 115.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 117.]

[Footnote 4: Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 309; and Coffin,
_Reminiscences_, pp. 249, 250.]

Studying these facts concerning the manual labor system of education,
the student of education sees that it was not generally successful.
This may be accounted for in various ways. One might say that colored
people were not desired in the higher pursuits of labor and that their
preparation for such vocations never received the support of the rank
and file of the Negroes of the North. 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. At first
they proceeded on the presumption that one could obtain a classical
education while learning a trade and at the same time earn sufficient
to support himself at school. Some of the managers of industrial
schools have not yet learned that students cannot produce articles for
market. The