Comparing Cooper And Du Bois Ideas Of A Liberal Arts Education

Cooper also advocated for educating adults because she planed to make them literate and through literacy they could move from unskilled labour into skilled labour positions, which would improve their social advancement in society. Cooper’s ideas were closely tied to Du Bois’ ideas of a liberal arts education because she believed that a liberal arts education was a tool for self-improvement and social change among the Black community. Cooper believed that when adults pursued a liberal arts education they had potential to undermine the oppressive white power structure in the Jim Crow South and it was possible that they would be able to rupture the dominant ideas and promote an alternative system of ideas and values. Cooper believed that a liberal
arts education was important for Black adults because it gave them a chance to attain an education that they were constantly denied and believed that these adults would become political activists against Jim Crow laws, which would change the system and advance Black social mobility. Nannie Burroughs founded the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C.
and advocated for an industrial education for Black women that would train women to compete in the workforce and would raise their social mobility by ending their poverty and making them self-reliant. Her vision of the trade school was to promote the development of womanhood through making women alert in action, modest in deportment, and industrious, which would allow women to secure employment by specializing in one task and advancing in their field. Burroughs believed that women were severely marginalized by the Jim Crow system as they were not allowed to vote and were barred form obtaining jobs in political offices, and they should instead pursue jobs they were allowed entry into like industrial jobs and domestic work. Therefore, Burroughs work demonstrates that due to the various problems that Blacks faced it formed Blacks scholars’ beliefs that different forms of education would suffice the needs of Black like in the example of Black women it was believed that an industrial education would suit the needs of Black women as it would allow them to obtain jobs in industries where they would make money and raise their economic status and make them
independent. Burroughs believed an industrial education would allow women graduates to become highly employable, which would raise their social mobility because they would become financially independent. Burroughs did not attack the domestic work of women, but praised it and advocated for the professionalization of domestic work because it would serve women well in the economic sphere and would serve their families and communities in the private sphere. Burroughs ideas were similar to Washington’s because she believed that an industrial education would develop skills among students that would allow them to enter the workforce where they would be able to make money and end the poverty they faced in Black communities. Burroughs work demonstrates that the Jim Crow system marginalized women and because the Jim Crow system was so complex and effected Blacks in variety of ways it led Black scholars like Burroughs believe that the only way to fix the problems women faced were for women to obtain and industrial education as it would suffice their needs in obtaining freedom from relying on men as it would raise their economic status and make them independent. The debate among Black scholars about what type of education Blacks needed to follow in order to raise their social mobility was due to the fact that Jim Crow laws effected Blacks politically, socially, and economically which made scholars believe that even though Blacks needed to be universally educated they needed different forms of education to suffice their different needs.
Blacks scholars believed that in the case of poverty in Black communities that was created through Jim Crow laws like segregation that did not allocate sufficient resources to build Black institutions and sharecropping that put Blacks in debit to White property owners that the problem of poverty could be solved by industrial education as it would allow Blacks to obtain a job and earn money, which would raise them out of poverty. In the case of Jim Crow laws effecting Blacks political rights through laws like the grandfather clause, Black scholars believed that Blacks would need to obtain a liberal arts education as it would give them political skills to challenge the existing Jim Crow laws that politically disenfranchised
Blacks.