But while the work was thus extending, the question came to be asked, even by intelligent and far-seeing people, Is not industrial education for negroes a craze? The majority were convinced that industrial training in this case needed to go hand-in-hand with book-learning. It was thought that men should understand farming and divers handicrafts, and that women should possess such accomplishments as cooking, sewing and dressmaking, and other domestic matters. Other friends of the negro, who in the main agreed with this policy, still thought that there was danger of its being pushed too far, in which case the movement might even develop into a craze, and then it was almost certain that the outcome would be "a less extended and thorough mental and moral culture." In an open letter in the _Century Magazine_ for 1889, Mr S. W. Powell referred to such objections:-- "The proposed change implies too great a concession to the widely prevalent opinion that the negro is, and in the nature of the case must be, better fitted for manual than for mental labour. They argue also that the new departure tends to foster materialistic notions of the value of education, the main object of which should be the ennoblement of the worker rather than the production of more cotton, sugar, coal, iron or lumber.... Then, again, the surprising success in some schools, and notably in one, in mastering the more advanced branches is profoundly affecting the opinions of many of the most influential people in the South as to the capacity of the negro, and to do anything which would make the work in these brigade schools less extensive, or less thorough, will push him and his friends off this hard-won vantage-ground." Still further, we are exhorted to remember that "leaders qualified to hold their own in the sharp competition of professional life are a great, if not the greatest, need of the coloured race in this country. Over wide areas most of their clergy are illiterate, immoral, self-seeking, bitter sectarians, and the most determined opponents of every kind of improvement. So, too, the lack of lawyers, editors and physicians of sufficiently broad and thorough training to be able to defend their weaker brethren against designers or incapable advisers is a very discouraging feature of the situation. The negroes do not, as a rule, seek the leadership or counsel of competent and honest whites in matters of religion or of business, hence the greater need of well-qualified men of their own race."