Difficulties, complications, and limitations connected with the education of the negro

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THE TRUSTEES OF THE JOHN F. SLATER FUND
Occasional Papers, No. 5

DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION

OF THE NEGRO

BY

J. L. M. CURRY, LL. D.

Secretary of the Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund

BALTIMORE

PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES
1895

Price 25 Cents

THE TRUSTEES OF THE JOHN F. SLATER FUND

Occasional Papers, No. 5

DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS
- CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION
OF THE NEGRO

BY

J. L. M. CURRY, LL. D.

Secretary of the Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund

BALTIMORE

PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES

1895

F ^ iTfe

MEMBERS OF THE BOARD.

Appointed.

1882. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio. *1893.

1882. Morrison R. Waite, of the District of Columbia. *]888.

1882. William E. DoroE, of New York. *1883.

1882. Phillips Brooks, of Massachusetts. tl889.

1882. Daniel C. Gilman, of Maryland.

1882. John A. Stewart, of New York.

1882. Alfred H. Colquitt, of Georgia. ■*1894.

1882. Morris K. Jesup, of New York.

1882. James P. Boyce, of Kentucky. ^ISSS.

1882. William A. Slater, of Connecticut.

Klecleil.

1883. William E. Dodge, Jr., of New York.

1888. Melville W. Fuller, of the District of Columbia.

1889. John A. Broadus, of Kentucky. ■»1895.
1889. Henry C. Potter, of New York.

1891. J. L. M. Curry, of the District of Columbia.

1894. WiLLiA.M J. Northen, of Georgia.

1894. Ellison Capers, of South Carolina. tl895.

1894. C. B. Galloway, of Mississippi.

1895. .\lexander E. Orr, of New York.

From 1882 to 1891, the General Agent of the Trust was Rev. A. G. Hay-
good, D. D., of Georgia, who resigned the office when he became a Bishop
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Since 1891, the duties of a
General Agent have been discharged by Dr. J. L. M. Curry, of Washington,
D. C, Chairman of the Educational Committee.

Died in ofl5ce. t Resigned.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

The Trustees of the John K. Shiter Fund propose to puMisli from time to
time pa{)ers that rehite to the education of the colored race. These papers
are designed to furnish information to those who are concerned in the ad-
ministration of schools, and also to those who hv their oflicial stations are
called upon to act or to advise in respect to the care of such institutions.

The Trustees helieve that the experimental period in the education of
the blacks is drawing to a close. Certain principles that were doubted thirty
years ago now appear to be generally recognized as sound. In the next
thirty years better systems will undoubtedly prevail, and the aid of the
separate States is likely to be more and more freely bestowed. There will
also be abundant room for continued generosity on the part of individuals
and associations. It is to encourage and assist the workers and the tliinkers
that these papers will be published.

Each paper, excepting the first number (made up chieHy of official docu-
ments), will be the utterance of the writer whose name is attached to it,
the Trustees disclaiming in advance all responsibility for the statement of
facta and opinions.

DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITA-
TIONS CONNbXTED WITH THE EDU-
CATION OF THE NEGRO.

Inteoduction.

Civilization certainly, Christianity probably, has encoun-
tered no problem which surpasses in magnitude or complexity
the Negro problem. For its solution political remedies, very
drastic, have been tried, but have failed utterly. Educational
agencies have been very beneficial as a stimulus to self-govern-
ment and are increasingly hopeful and worthy of wider appli-
cation, but they do not cure social diseases, moral ills. Much
has been written of evolution of man, of human society ; and
history shows marvellous jirogress in some races, in some
countries, in the bettering of habits and institutions, but this
progress is not found, in any equal degree, in the negro race
in his native land. AVhat has occurred in the United States
has been from external causes. Usually, human development
has come from voluntary energy, from self-evolved organiza-
tions of higher and higher efficiency, from conditions which
are principally the handiwork of man himself. With the
negro, whatever progress has marked his life as a race in this
country has come from without. The great ethical and politi-
cal revolutions of enlightened nations, through the efforts of
successive generations, have not been seen in his history.

When, on March 4, 1882, our large-hearted and broad-
minded Founder established this Trust, he had a noble end in

5

(5 DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS

view. For near thirteen years the Trustees have kept the object
steadily before them, with varying results. Ex|>ectations have
not always been realized. If any want of highest success has
attende<l our etforts, this is not an uiu-onipanioued experience.
As was to have been foreseen, in working out a novel and
great problem, difficulties have arisen. Some are inherent and
pertain to the education of the negro, however and by whom-
soever undertaken, and some are peculiar to the Trust. Some
are remedial. In this, as in all other experiments, it is better
to ascertain and comprehend the difficulties so as to adopt and
adjust the jn'oper measures for disjilacing or overcoming them.
A general needs to know' the strength and character of the op-
posing force. A physician cannot prescribe intelligently until
he knows the condition of his patient.
Income limitt-ii. Tlic iiicomc of tliG Fuud is limited in amount, and the
means of accomplishing "the general object" of the Trust are
indicated in Mr. Slater's letter and conversations and by the
repeatedly declared policy of the Board — as teacher training
and industrial training. He specified "the training of teach-
ers from among the people requiring to be taught and the
' encouragement of such institutions as are most effectually
useful in promoting this training of teachers.'" No one, in
the least degree familiar with the subject, can deny or doubt
that the essential need of the race is a higher and better qual-
ified class of teachers. The Fund does not establish nor con-
trol schools, nor ap[)oint teachers. It co-operates with schools
established by States, by religious denominations and by in-
dividuals. Mr. Slater did not purpose "to bestow charity
upon the destitute, to encourage a few exceptional individuals,
to build churches, school-houses or asylums." (Occasional
Papers, Xo. 1, p. 14.) Aided schools may accept money to
carry out the specific purposes of the Trust, but they often
have other and ])rescribed objects, and hence what the Trus-
tees seek is naturally, j)erhaps unavoidably, subordinated to
what are the predetermined and unchangeable ends of some
of these schools.

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 7

i|tecedeuus
le Netjro.

oose m o r
racter.

ong ideii.s
eligioii.

o' The most obvious hindrance in the way of the education
of the negro has so often been presented and discussed —
his origin, history, environments — that it seems superfluous
to treat it anew. His political status, sudden and unparalleled,
complicated by antecedent condition, excited false hopes and
encouraged the notion of i-eaching per saltum, without the use
of the agencies of time, labor, industry, discipline, what the
dominant race had attained after centuries of toil and trial
and sacrifice. Education, property, habits of thrift and self-
control, higher achievements of civilization, are not extempor-
ized nor created by magic or legislation. Behind the Caucasian
lie centuries of the educating, uplifting influence of civilization,
of the institutions of family, society, the Churches, the State,
and the salutary effects of heredity. Behind the negro are
centuries of ignorance, barbarism, slavery, superstition, idol-
atry, fetichism, and the transmissible consequences of heredity.

ai Nothing valuable or permanent in human life has been
secured without the substratum of moral character, of religious
motive, in the individual, the family, the community. In this
matter the negro should be judged charitably, for his aboriginal
people were nut far removed from the savage state, where they
knew neither house nor home and had not enjoyed any religi-
ous training. Their condition as slaves debarred them the
advantage of regular, continuous, systematic instruction. The
negro began his life of freedom and citizenship with natural
weaknesses uncorrected, with loose notions of piety and mo-
rality and with strong racial peculiarities and proclivities,
and has not outgrown the feebleness of the moral sense which
is common to all primitive races. One religious organization,
which has acted with great liberality, and generally with great
wisdom, in its missionary and educational work among the

..!• negroes, says: "Of the paganism in the South, Dr. Behrends
has well said that the note of paganism is its separation of
worship from virtue, of religion from morals. This is the
characteristic fjict of the religion of the negro." The " Planta-
tion Missionary" of this year, a journal edited and published

8 DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS

for the improvement of the '* black belt" of Alabama, says,
"five millions of negroes are .still illiterate, and multitudes of
them idle, bestial anil degraded, with flight ideas of purity or
thrift." The diseipline of virtue, the incorporation of creed
intt) personal life, is largely wanting, and hence physical and
hysterical demonstrations, excited sensibilities, uncontrolled
emotions, transient outbursts of ardor, have been confounded
with the graces of the Spirit and of faith based on knowledge.
Contradiction, negation, paradox and eccentricity are charac-
teristics of the ignorant and superstitious, especially when
they concern themselves with religion.
Poverty auci The ccouomic couditiou is a most serious drawback to
.i.riftiossness. ^^^^^^^j ^^^^ ^^^.^^ progress. Want of thrift, of frugality,

of foresight, of skill, of right notions of consumption and of
proper habits of acquiring and holding property, has made
the race the victim and prey of usurers and extortioners. The
negro rarely accumulates, for he does not keep his savings, nor
put them in permanent and secure investments. He seems to
be under little stimulus toward social improvement, or any
ambition except that of being able to live from day to day.
"As to poverty, eighty per cent, of the wealth of the nation is
in the North and only twenty per cent, in the South. Of this
twenty per cent, a very small share, indeed, falls to the seven
millions of negroes who constitute by fav the poorest element
of our American pcoi)le." {American Jlia.sionnry, November,
1894, p. 390.) " While it is true that a limited number of
the colored jieojjle are becoming well-to-do, it is also eciually
true that the masses of them have made but little advance in
acquiring property during their thirty years of freedom.
Millions of them are yet in real poverty and can do little
more than simply maintain physical existence." (Home Mis-
sionary Monthly, August, 1894, p. 318.) No trustworthy
statement of the property held by negroes is possible, because
but few States, in assessing property, discriminate between the
races. In Occasional Papers, No. 4, Mr. Gannett, in discuss-
ing the tendency of population toward cities, concludes that

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 9

" the negro is not fitted either by nature or education for
those vocations for the pursuit of which men collect in cities,"
and that as the inclinations of the race " tend to keep it
wedded to the soil, the probabilities are that the great body
of the negroes will continue to remain aloof from the cities
and cultivate the soil as heretofore." (Page 16.) The black
farm-laborers hire to white proprietors, work for wages or on
shares, give a lien on future earnings for food, clothing, shelter,
and the means for cultivation of the crops. The meagre
remainder, if it exist at all, is squandered in neighboring
stores for whiskey, tobacco and worthless "goods." Thus the
negro in his industrial progress is hindered by his rude and
primitive methods of farming, his wastefulness and improvi-
dence. The manner of living almost necessarily begets immor-
ality and degradation. Mr. Washington, in his useful annual
conferences, has emphasized the need of improved rural abodes
and the fatal consequences of crowding a whole family into
)ne-rooni cHbin. ouc room. Tlic Rcport already quoted from, Home Monthly,
p. 22, says : " On the great j)lautations (and the statement
might be much further extended) there has l)een but little
progress in thirty years. The majority live in one room
cabins, taheinacling in them as tenants at will." The poverty,
wretchedness, hopelessness of the present life are sometimes in
pitiable contrast to the freedom from care and anxiety, the
cheerfulness and frolicsomeness, of ante-bellum days.
False estiiuaie The avcragc status of the negro is much misunderstood
progress. j^^ somc persous. Tlie incurable tendency of opinion seems to
be to exaggerated optimism or pessimism, to eager expectancy
of impossible results or distrust or incredulity as to future
progress. It is not easy to form an accurate judgment of a
country, or of its population, or to generalize logically, from
a Pullman car window, or from snatches of conversation with
a porter or waiter, or from the testimony of one race only, or
from exceptional cases like Bruce, Price, Douglas, Washing-
ton, Revels, Payne, Simmons, etc. Individual cases do not
demonstrate a general or permanent widening of range of

10 DIFFUTLTIES, COMPLKWTIOXS, AND LIMITATIONS

mental possibilities. Thirty years may test and develop in-
stances of personal success, of individual manhood, but are
too short a time to bring a sei'vile race, as a whole, up to
equality with a race which is the heir ol' centuries of civiliza-
tion, with its upliftiniT results and accessories. It should be
cheerfully conceded that some negroes have displayed abilities
of a high order and have succeeded in official ami professional
life, in |)ulpit and literature. The fewness gives conspicuous-
ness, but does not justify an a priori assumption adverse to fu-
ture capability of the race. Practically, no negro born since
1 860 was ever a slave. More than a generation has passed since
slavery ceased in the United States. Despite some formid-
able obstacles, the negroes have been favored beyond any
other race known in the history of mankind. Freedom, citi-
zenship, suffrage, civil and political rights, educational oppor-
tunities and religious privileges, every method and function
of civilization, have been secured and fostered by Federal and
State governments, ecclesiastical organizations, munificent in-
dividual benefactions, and yet the results have not been, on the
whole, such as to inspire most sanguine expectations, or justify
conclusions of rapid development or of racial e(]uality. In
some localities there has been degeneracy rather than ascent
in the scale of manhood, relapse instead of progress. The
unusual environments should have evolved a higher and more
rapid degree of advancement. Professor Mayo-Smith, who
has made an ethnological and sociological study of the diverse
elements of our population, says, " no one can as yet })redict
what position the black race will ultimately take in the j)op-
ulation of this country." He would be a bold speculator who
ventured, from existing facts, to })redict what would be the
outcome of our experiment with African citizenship and Afri-
can development. ^Ir. Bryce, the most ])liilosophical and
painstaking of all foreign students of our institutions, in the
last edition of his great work, says : "There is no ground
for despondency to any one who remembers how hopeless the
extinction of slavery seemed sixty or even forty years ago, and

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 11

who marks tlie progress which the negroes have made since
their sudden liberation. Still less is there reason for im-
patience, for questions like this have in some countries of the
Old World required ages for their solution. The problem
which confronts the South is one of the great secular problems
of the world, presented here under a form of peculiar difficulty.
And as the present differences between the African and the Eu-.
ropean are the product of thousands of years, during which
one race was advancing in the temperate, and the other re-
maining stationary in the torrid zone, so centuries may pass
before their relations as neighbors and fellow-citizens have
been duly adjusted." It would be unjust and illogical to push
too lar the comparison and deduce inferences unfair to the
negro, but it is an interesting coincidence that Japan began
her entrance into the family of civilized nations almost con-
temporaneously with Emancipation in the United States. In
1858 I witnessed the unique reception by President Buchanan,
in the East romn of the White House, of the Commissioners
from Japan. With a rapidity without a ))reeedent, she has
taken her place as an equal and independent nation, and
her rulers demand acknowledgment at the highest courts,
and her Ministers are officially the equals of their colleagues
in every diplomatic corps. By internal development, without
extraneous assistance, Japan has reached a degree of self-
reliance, of self-control, of social organization, of respectable
civilization, fur beyond what our African citizens have
attained under physical, civic and religious conditions by no
means unfavorable. It is true that Japan for a long time had
a separate nationality, while the Freedmen have been depend-
ent wards, but the Oriental nation, without the great ethical
and pervasive and ennobling and energizing influence of
Christianity (for the propagandism of the daring Jesuit mis-
sionaries of the l(Jth century has been effiiced) has recorded
her ascents by monuments of social life and dramatic events
in history. Her mental culture and habits and marvelous
military success are witnesses of her progress and power. We

12 DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS

have been accustomed to think of the whole Orient, tluit " fifty
years of Europe were better tlian a cycle of Cathay," but
within a quarter of a century Japan has transformed social
usages and manners, arts and manufactures, and in 1889,
when we were celebrating the Centennial of our Constitution,
she adopted a Constitution, with a limited monarchy and
Parliamentary institutions.
Misapplied Much of the aid lavished upon the negro has been mis-
applied charity, and like much other alms-giving hurtful to
the recipient. Northern philanthropy, " disastrously kind,"
has often responded with liberality to appeals worse than
worthless. Vagabond mendicants have been pampered;
schools which were established without any serious need of
them have been helped; public school systems, upon which
the great mass of children, white and colored, must rely for
their education, have been underrated and injured, and
schools, of real merit and doing good work, which deserve
confidence and contributions, have had assistance, legitimately
their due, divei"ted into improper channels. Reluctantly and
by constraint of conscience, this matter is mentioned and this
voice of protest and warning raised. Dr. A. D. Mayo, of Bos-
ton, an astute and thoughtful observer, a tried iriend of the
black man, an eloquent advocate of his elevation, who for
fifteen years has traversed the South in the interests of uni-
versal education, than whom no one has a better acquaintance
with the schools of that section, bears cogent and trustworthy
testimony, to which I give my emphatic endorsement :

"It is high time that our heedless, undiscriminating, all-out-
doors habit of giving money and supplies to the great invad-
ing army of southern solicitors should come to an end. What-
ever of good has come from it is of the same nature as the
habit of miscellaneous alms giving, which our system of asso-
ciated charities is everywhere working to break up. It is
high time that we understood that the one agency on wliich the
negroes and nine-tenths of the white ])eoj)le in the Soutii must
rely for elementary instruction and training is the American

False educa-
tional position.

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 13

common school. The attempt to educate 2,000,000 of colored
and 3,000,000 of white American children in the South by
passing around the hat in the North ; sending driblets of
money and barrels of supplies to encourage anybody and every-
body to open a little useless private school ; to draw on our
Protestant Sunday schools in the North to build up among
these people the church parochial system of elementary schools,
which the clergy of these churches are denouncing ; all this,
and a great deal more that is still going on among us, with of
course the usual exceptions, has had its day and done its work.
The only reliable method of directly helping the elementary
department of southern education is that our churches and
benevolent people put themselves in touch with the common
school authorities in all the dark places, urging even their
poorer people to do more, as they can do more, than at present.
The thousand dollars from Boston that keeps alive a little
private or denominational school in a southern neighborhood,
if properly applied w'ould give two additional months, better
teaching and better housing to all the children, and unite their
people as in no other way. Let the great northern schools in
the South established for the negroes bo reasonably endowed
and worked in co-operation with the public school system of
the State, with the idea that in due time they will all pass into
the hands of the southern people, each dependent on its own
constituency for its permanent support. I believe, in many
instances, it would be the best policy to endow or aid south-
ern schools that have grown up at home and have established
themselves in the confidence of the people. While more
money should every year be given in the North for southern
education, it should not be scattered abroad, but concentrated
on strategic points for the uplifting of both races."

After the facts, hard, stubborn, unimpeachable, regreta-
ble, which have been given, we may well inquire whether
much hasty action has not prevailed in assigning to the negro
an educational position, which ancient and modern history
does not warrant. The partition of the continent of Africa by

14 DIFFU TLTIES, (XIMPLK ATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS

and anH)ny Kiutipcaii nations can lianlly be ascribed solely to
a lust for territorial aii^rundizcinent. The encrj^etio races of
the North bci^in to realize that the tropical countries — the
food and the material producing regions of the Eaith — cannot,
for all time to come, be left to the nnprogressive, uncivilized
colored race, deficient in the qualities necessary to the develop-
ment of the rich resources of the lands they possess. The
strong Powers seem unwilling to tolerate the wasting of" the
resources of the most fertile regions through the aj)parent im-
possibility, by the race in possession, of ac(^uiring the qualities
of eflfieienoy which exist elsewhere. The experiment of the
Congo Free State, one of the richest and most valuable tracts
in Africa, established and f)stered under propitious circum-
stances by the King of Belgium, seems likely to be a barren
failure and to prove that African colonization is not a prac-
ticable scheme, without State subvention, or the strong, over-
mastering hand of some suj)erior race. Jt requires no superior
insight to discover that human Evolution has come from the
energy, thrift, discipline, social and political efficiency of
peoples whose power is not the result of varying circumstances,
"of the cosmic order of things which we have no power to
control." *

The negro occupies an incongruous position in our country.
Under military necessity slaves were emancipated, and all

* Since tliis paper was prepared, Bishop TiinuT, of Georgia, a colored
preacher of intelligence and respectability, in a letter from Liberia, May 11,
1895, advises the re-opening of the African slave-traiie and says that, as a
result of such enslavement for a term of years by a civilized race, " millions
and millions of Africans, who are now running around in a state of nudity,
fighting, netromancing, masquerading and doing everything that God dis-
approves of, would be working and benefiting the world." Equally curious
and absurd is the conclusion of the Editor of the Globe Quarterly Review,
(July, 1895, New York,) a northern man, that " nothing but some sort of re-
enslavement can make the negro work, therefore he must be re-enslaved, or
driven from the land."' Could anything be more surprising than these utter-
ances by a former slave and by an abolitionist, or show more clearly " the
diflBculties, complications and limitations'' which environ the task and
the duty of "ui)lifting the lately emancipated race"?

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 15

true Americans accept the jubilant eulogium of the Poet,
when he declares our country

" A later Eden planted in the wilds,
With not an inch of earth within its bounds
But if a slave's foot press, it sets him free."

Partisanship and an altruistic sentiment led to favoritism, to
civic equality, and to bringing the negroes, for the first time
in their history, and without any previous preparation, "into
the rivalry of life on an equal footing of opportunity."
The whole country has suffered in its material develop-
ment from the hazardous experiment. The South, as a
constituent portion of the Union, is a diseased limb on the
body, is largely uncultivated, neglected, unproductive. Farm-
ing, with the low prices of products, yields little remuner-
ative return on labor or on money invested, and, except in nar-
row localities and where "trucking" obtains, is not improv-
ing agriculturally, or, if so, too slowly and locally to awaken
any hopes of early or great recovery.* Cri[)pled, disheartened
Too murii by the presence of a people, not much inferior in numbers, of
equal civil rights, and slowly capable of equal mental develop-
ment or of taking on the habits of advanced civilization,
the white people of the South are deprived of any consider-
able increase of numbers from immigration and any large
demand for small freeholds, and are largely dependent on
ignorant, undisciplined, uninventive, inefficient, unambitious
labor. Intercourse between the Slavs and the tribes of the
Ural-Altaic stock, fusion of ethnic elements, has not resulted
in deterioration, but has produced an apparently homogeneous
people, possessing a common consciousness. That the two
diverse races now in the South can ever perfectly harmonize,
while occupying the same territory, no one competent to form
an opinion believes. Mr. Bryce concludes that the negro will
stay socially distinct, as an alien element, unabsorbed and

*The last assessment of property in Virginia, 1895, shows a decrease of
$8,133,374 from last year's valuation.

c I a i tu 1' d f
him

Ilt'ul WUJ k of

16 DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS

unabsorbable. That the j)resence, in the same country, of
two distinctly marked races, havinti; the same rights and j)rivi-
leges, of UMccjual capaciities of (leveh)pnient — one long habitu-
ated to servitude, deprived of all power of initiative, of all
high ideal, without patriotism beyond a mere weak attach-
ment— is a blessing, is too absurd a proposition for serious
consideration. Whether the great resources of the South are
not destined, under existing conditions, to remain only j)artially
developed, and whether agriculture is not doomed to barrenness
of results, are economic and political questions alien to this
discussion.

As Trustees of the Slater Fund, we are confined to the

the Slater Funil. _ , , '

duty of educating the lately emancij)ated race. In Occasional
Papers. No. 3, the history of education since 1860, as derived
from the most authentic sources, was presented with care and
fulness. "The ureat work of educating the negroes is carried
on mainly by the public schools of the Southern States, sup-
ported by funds raised by public taxation, and managed and
controlled by public school officers. The work is too great to
be attempted by any other agency, unless by the National
Government; the field is too extensive, the officers too numer-
ous, the cost too burdensome." [Bureau of Education Report,
1891-92, p. 867). The American Congress deliberately and
repeatedly refused aid for the j)revention or removal of illit-
eracy, and upon the impoverished South the burden and the
duty were devolved. Bravely and with heroic self-sacrifice
have they sought to fulfil the obligation.

In the distribution of })ublic revenues, in the building of asy-
lums, in provision for public education, no discrimination has
been made against the colored ])eople. The law of Georgia,
October, 1870, establishing a public school system, expressly
states that both races shall have equal privileges. The school
system of Texas, begun under its present form in 1876, pro-
vides "absolutely equal privileges to both white and colored
children." In Florida, under the Constitution of 1868 and
the law of 1877, both races share equally in the school bene-

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 17

fits. Several laws of Arkansas provide for a school system of
equal privileges to both races. Under the school system of
North Carolina there is no discrimination for or against either
race. The school system of Louisiana was fairly started only
after the adoption of the Constitution of 1879, and equal privi-
leges are granted to white and colored children. Since 1883
equal privileges are granted in Kentucky. The school system
of West Virginia grants equal rights to the two races. The
system in Mississippi was put in operation in 1871 and grants
to both races ''equal privileges and school facilities." The
same exact and liberal justice obtains in Virginia, Alabama
and Tennessee.

In 1893-94 there were 2,702,410 negro children of school
age — from five to eighteen years — of whom 52.72 per cent.,
or 1,424,710 were enrolled as pupils. Excluding Maryland,
Kentucky and Missouri, the receipts from State and local
taxation for schools in the South were §14,397,569. It
should be borne in mind that there are fewer taxpayers in the
South, in proportion to population generally and to school
population especially, than in any other part of the United
States. In the South Central States there are only 65.9 adult
males to 100 children, while in the Western Division there
are 156.7. In South Carolina, 37 out of every 100 are of
school age; in Montana, only 18 out of 100. Consider, also,
that in the South a large proportion of the comparatively
few adults are negroes with a minimum of property. Con-
sider, further, that the number of adult males to each 100
children in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut
is twice as great as in North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. In view of such and
other equally surprising facts, it is a matter of national satis-
faction that free education has made such progress in the
South. {Buremt of Ed. Report, 1890-1, pp. 5, 1 9, 21, 24.)
Public schools It is lamentable, after all the provision which has been
!^ed impvov- j^^(|p^ i\y^^^ ^}^g schools are kept open for such a short period,
that so many teachers are incompetent, and that such a small
2

18 DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS

proportion of persons of school age attend the scliools.
This (It)es not a})ply solely to the colored children or to the
Southern States. For the whole country the average number
of days attended is only 89 for each pupil, when the })roper
schoc^l year should count about "200. While the ein-ollraent
and average attendance have increased, " what the people get
on an average is about one-half an elementary education, and
no State is now giving an educati(m in all its schools that is
equal to seven years per inhabitant for the rising generation.
Some states are giving less than three years of 200 days each."
{Annual Statement of Com. of Kd. for 1894, p. 18.) It is an
obligation of patriotism to support and improve these State-
manage<l schools, because they are among the best teachers of
the duties of citizenship and the most potent agency for mould-
ing and unifying and binding heterogeneous elements of
nationality into compactness, unity and homogeneity. We
must keej) thcin efficient if we wish them to retain public con-
fidence.
Work of iic- In No. 3 of Occasional Papers was described what had
uouiinanonai j^^^j^ undertaken and accomplished by different religious de-
nominations. The information was furnished by themselves,
and full credit was given for their patriotic and Christian work.
These schools are of higher grades in name and general pur-
})ose and instruction than the public schools, but unfortunately
most of them are handicapped by high-sounding and deceptive
names and impossible courses of stutly. There are 25 nominal
" Universities" and " Colleges," which embrace primary, secon-
dary, normal and professional grades of instruction. These re-
port, as engaged in "Collegiate" studies, about 1,000 students.
The work done is in some instances excellent ; in other cases, it
is as defective as one could well imagine it to be. This misfor-
tune is not confined to colored schools. The last accessible
report from the Bureau of Education gives twenty-two schools
of theology and five each of schools of law and of medicine,
and in the study of law and medicine there has, in the last few
years, been a rapid increase of students.

hi.oN

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 19

A noticeable feature of tlie schools organized by religious
associations is the provision made for industrial education.
In the special colored schools established or aided by the
State, of higher order than the public schools, such as those
in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas, manual training
is required for Iwth sexes. As few white schools of the South
are provided with this necessary adjunct of education, it would
be unjust to criticize too severely what is being done, along
industrial lines, in colored schools. It is rather a matter for
rejoicing that the schools have even been started in this most
hopeful direction, and especially as the long-wished-for indus-
trial development seems to be dawning on the South. What-
ever may be our speculative opinions as to the progress and
development of which the negro may be ultimately capable,
there can hardly be a well-grounded opposition to the opinion
that the hope for the race, in the South, is to be found, not so
much in the high courses of University instruction, or in
schools of Technology, as in handicraft instruction. This
instruction, by whatever name called, encourages us, in its
results, to continued and liberal effort. AVhat such schools
as Hampton, the Spelman, Claflin, Tuskegee, Tougaloo and
others have done is the demonstration of the feasibility and
the value of industrial and mechanical training.* The general
instruction heretofore given in the schools, it is feared, has
been too exclusively intellectual, too little of that kind which
produces intelligent and skilled workmen, and therefore not
thoroughly adapted to racial development, nor to fitting for the
practical duties of life. Perhaps it has not been philosophical
nor practical, but too empirical and illusory in fitting a man

* Principal Washington, of Tuskegee Institute, as the representative of
his race, made an address at tiie opening of the great Atlanta Exposition,
which elicited high commendation from President Cleveland and the press
of the country for its practical wisdom and its broad, catholic and patriotic
sentiments. The Negro Building with its interesting exhibits shows what
progress has been made I'V the race in thirty years and excites strong liopes
for the future. The special work displayed by the schools of Hampton
and Tuskegee received honorable recognition from the Jury of Awards.

20 DIFFICULTIES, COMPLICATIONS, AND LBIITATIONS

for " tln' contlitions in which he will l)e compelled to earn his
liveliluxx] ami unfold his possil)ilities." The effort has been to
fit an adult's elothinii; to a child, to take the highest courses
of instruction and a]>ply them to untutored minds. INIisguided
statesmanship and philanthroj)y have opened "high schools
and Universities and offered courses in Greek and Latin
and Hebrew, in theology and philosophy, to those who need
the rudiments of educiition and instruction in hand-craft."
This industrial training is a helpful accompaniment to mental
training, and both should be based on strong moral character.
It has been charged that the negroes have had too strong an
inclination to become preachers or teachers, but this may be in
part due to the fact that their education has been ill adjusted
to their needs and surroundings, and that when the pupils
leave school they do so without having been prepared for the
competition which awaits them in the struggle for a higher
life.
Nc^'io cdiKii- Whatever may l)e the discouragements and difficulties, and
irr°ntTiieXi'tl'i! howevcr insufficient may be tne school attendance, it is a
cheering fact that the schools for the negroes do not encounter
the pi'ejudices which were too common a few years ago. In
fact, there may almost be said to be coming a time when soon
there will be a sustaining public opinion. The struggle of
man to throw off fetters and rise into true manhood and save
souls from bondage is a most instructive and thrilling spec-
tacle, awakening sympathetic enthusiasm on the part of all
who love what is noble. From a luaga/ine for November, I
quote what a teacher says : " We are engaged in a life and
death struggle to secure protection of life and property against
mob violence and lynch law." An official paper of a strong
religious organization charges that " incendiary fires and acts
of vandalism were instigated solely by ])rejudice against the
education of the negroes. If those who go South to teach are
<jbliged to take their lives in their hands and to live in con-
stant fear of personal violence, it will render work, already
difficult, exceedingly trying." Having gathered testimony

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 21

from many of the leading colored schools of the South iu
answer to these direct questions — " Is there any opposition
from the white race to your work in educating the negroes ?
If so, does that opposition imperil person or property ? " — I
group it into a condensed statement :

1. CONGREGATIONALISTS.

Storrs School, Atlanta, says : " There is no aggressive opposition to our
work among the negroes." Pisk University, Nashville: "There is no
special manifestation of open opposition to our work, on the part of the
white people ; indeed, the better citizens have a good degree of sympathy
with our work and take a genuine pride in the University." Talladega
College, Ala.: "I do not know of any opposition from the white race to
our work. . . . We have more opposition from the very people for whom
we are especially laboring than from the other race." By act of incorpora-
tion, February 28, 1S80, the College may hold, purchase, dispose of and
convey property to such an amount as the business of the College requires,
and so long as the property, real or personal, is used for purposes of educa-
tion, it is exempt from taxation of any kind. Knoxville College : " No
opposition from the white race disturbs us." Beach Institute, Savannah,
Ga. : "There seems to be here no active opposition to our work in educa-
ting the negroes." Straight University, New Orleans: " There is no oppo-
sition from the white race." Ballard Normal School, Macon, Ga. : " We
meet now with no opposition from the whites."

2. Methodists.

Prom Philander Smith College, Little Rock, Ark. : " No opposition that
amounts to anything " Cookman Institute, Jacksonville, Florida: "There
is no active opposition from the white race to our work, as far as I know."
Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina: "There is no opposition
to it on the part of the white race." Central Tennessee College, Nashville,
Tenn. : "On the part of the intelligent whites there is none; on the con-
trary, they have nearly always spoken well of it and seem to rejoice that
their former slaves and their children are being educated. Having been
here over twenty-seven years, I feel quite safe." Bennett College, Greens-
boro, North Carolina, gives an emphatic negative to both questions. New
Orleans University : " No opposition from wliite people to our work."

3. Presbyterians.

Kroui Biddle University, Charlotte, North Carolina: "No opposition
from the white race ; on the contrary, very pleasant neighbors."

l'lFFR'Ui;riES, roMPLK'ATlONS, AND J.IMITATIONS

4. Baptists.

Bishop College, Marshall, Texas: "We have experienced opposition
I'rom certain chisses of white people to the extent of threats and assaults,
yet snch have come from those who were entirely unacquainted with the
real work being done, and 1 think that, now, sentiment is changing."
Leland University, New (-)rleans, La.: "There is not to my knowledge,
nor ever has been, since I came in 1887, any opposition from the white
race to our work." Spelraan Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia : " We are not
aware of any oppt)sitiou from the white race to our work." Shaw Uni-
versity, Kaleigh, North Carolina: "It gives us pleasure to say the feeling
for our work among the whites seems of the kindest nature and everything
is helpful." Roger Williams University, Nashville, Tenn. : "No oppo-
sition meets us from any sources; on the contrary we are generally treated
with entire courte.^v" Selma University, Alabama: "There is no oppo-
sition to ovir work from the white race. So far as I know they wish us
success."

5. NOX-DENO-MINATIONAL SCHOOLS.

Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Alabama: " 1 am glad to state
that there is practically no opposition on the part of the whites to our
work ; on the contrary, there are many evidences of their hearty approval."
Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute, Va. : "This .school meets no
opposition to the work from the white race, and, with occasional individual
exceptions, has never met any, but receives for itself and its graduate
teachers a great amount of practical sympathy, and is glad of this and
every opportunity to acknowledge it."

Conclusions.
T.

It follows that in addition to thorough and intelligent
training in the di.scipline of character and virtue, there should
be given rigid and continuous attention to domestic and social
life, to the refinements and comforts and economies of home.

II.

Taught in the economies of wise consumption, the race
should he trained to acquire habits of thrift, of saving earn-

CONNECTED WITH THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 23

ings, of avoiding waste, of accumulating property, of having
a stake in good government, in progressive civilization.

III.

Besides the rudiments of a good and useful education, there
is imperative need of manual training, of the proper cultiva-
tion of those faculties or mental qualities of observation, of
aiming at and reaching a successful end, and of such facility
and skill in tools, in practical industries, as will ensure
remunerative employment and give the power which comes
from intelligent work.

IV.

Clearer and juster ideas of education, moral and intellectual,
obtained in cleaner home life and through respected and capa-
ble teachers in schools and churches. Ultimate and only sure
reliance for the education of the race is to be found in the
public schools, organized, controlled, and liberally supported
by the State.

V.

Between the races occupying the same territory, possessing
under the law equal civil rights and privileges, speculative
and unattainable standards should be avoided, and questions
should be met as they arise, not by Utopian and partial solu-
tions, but by the impartial application of the tests of justice,
right, honor, humanity and Christianity.

Vi^

JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTEKS,
BALTIMOBE.

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