Education of the Negro | Page 4

slow to change. In
Africa there has been no progress in organization, government, art.
No negro tribe has ever invented a written language. In his exhaustive
work on the History of Mankind, Professor Frederick Ratzel, having
studied thoroughly the negro belt of Africa, says "of writing properly so
called, neither do the modern negroes show any trace, nor have traces
of older writing been found in negro countries."
From this outline review we come back to the situation in the United
States, where a great mass of negroes--possibly over nine millions of
many shades of colors--is for the first time brought into contact with
Christian civilization. This mass is here to make or mar our national
life, and the problem of its destiny has to be met with our own. What
can we do, what ought we to do, for his own good and for our peace
and national welfare?
In the first place, it is impossible to escape the profound impression
that we have made a mistake in our estimate of his evolution as a race,
in attempting to apply to him the same treatment for the development
of character that we would apply to a race more highly organized. Has
he developed the race consciousness, the race soul, as I said before, a
collective soul, which so strongly marks other races more or less
civilized according to our standards? Do we find in him, as a mass
(individuals always excepted), that slow deposit of training and
education called "character," any firm basis of order, initiative of action,

the capacity of going alone, any sure foundation of morality? It has
been said that a race may attain a good degree of standing in the world
without the refinement of culture, but never without virtue, either in the
Roman or the modern meaning of that word.
The African, now the American negro, has come in the United States
into a more favorable position for development than he has ever before
had offered. He has come to it through hardship, and his severe
apprenticeship is not ended. It is possible that the historians centuries
hence, looking back over the rough road that all races have traveled in
their evolution, may reckon slavery and the forced transportation to the
new world a necessary step in the training of the negro. We do not
know. The ways of Providence are not measurable by our foot rules.
We see that slavery was unjust, uneconomic, and the worst training for
citizenship in such a government as ours. It stifled a number of germs
that might have produced a better development, such as individuality,
responsibility, and thrift,--germs absolutely necessary to the well-being
of a race. It laid no foundation of morality, but in place of morality saw
cultivated a superstitious, emotional, hysterical religion. It is true that it
taught a savage race subordination and obedience. Nor did it stifle
certain inherent temperamental virtues, faithfulness, often highly
developed, and frequently cheerfulness and philosophic contentment in
a situation that would have broken the spirit of a more sensitive race. In
short, under all the disadvantages of slavery the race showed certain
fine traits, qualities of humor and good humor, and capacity for
devotion, which were abundantly testified to by southerners during the
progress of the Civil War. It has, as a race, traits wholly distinct from
those of the whites, which are not only interesting, but might be a
valuable contribution to a cosmopolitan civilization; gifts also, such as
the love of music, and temperamental gayety, mixed with a note of
sadness, as in the Hungarians.
But slavery brought about one result, and that the most difficult in the
development of a race from savagery, and especially a tropical race, a
race that has always been idle in the luxuriance of a nature that supplied
its physical needs with little labor. It taught the negro to work, it
transformed him, by compulsion it is true, into an industrial being, and

held him in the habit of industry for several generations. Perhaps only
force could do this, for it was a radical transformation. I am glad to see
that this result of slavery is recognized by Mr. Booker Washington, the
ablest and most clear-sighted leader the negro race has ever had.
But something more was done under this pressure, something more
than creation of a habit of physical exertion to productive ends. Skill
was developed. Skilled labor, which needs brains, was carried to a high
degree of performance. On almost all the Southern plantations, and in
the cities also, negro mechanics were bred, excellent blacksmiths, good
carpenters, and house-builders capable of executing plans of high
architectural merit. Everywhere were negroes skilled in trades, and
competent in various mechanical industries.
The opportunity and the disposition to labor make the basis of all