Education of the Negro | Page 7

before it can in any degree be relaxed.
Why attempt it? Why not let things drift as they are? Why attempt to
civilize the race within our doors, while there are so many distant and
alien races to whom we ought to turn our civilizing attention? The
answer is simple and does not need elaboration. A growing ignorant
mass in our body politic, inevitably cherishing bitterness of feeling, is
an increasing peril to the public.
In order to remove this peril, by transforming the negro into an
industrial, law-abiding citizen, identified with the prosperity of his
country, the cordial assistance of the Southern white population is
absolutely essential. It can only be accomplished by regarding him as a
man, with the natural right to the development of his capacity and to
contentment in a secure social state. The effort for his elevation must be
fundamental. The opportunity of the common school must be universal,
and attendance in it compulsory. Beyond this, training in the decencies
of life, in conduct, and in all the industries, must be offered in such
industrial institutions as that of Tuskegee. For the exceptional cases a
higher education can be easily provided for those who show themselves
worthy of it, but not offered as an indiscriminate panacea.
The question at once arises as to the kind of teachers for these schools
of various grades. It is one of the most difficult in the whole problem.

As a rule, there is little gain, either in instruction or in elevation of
character, if the teacher is not the superior of the taught. The learners
must respect the attainments and the authority of the teacher. It is a too
frequent fault of our common-school system that, owing to inadequate
pay and ignorant selections, the teachers are not competent to their
responsible task. The highest skill and attainment are needed to evoke
the powers of the common mind, even in a community called
enlightened. Much more are they needed when the community is only
slightly developed mentally and morally. The process of educating
teachers of this race, fit to promote its elevation, must be a slow one.
Teachers of various industries, such as agriculture and the mechanic
arts, will be more readily trained than teachers of the rudiments of
learning in the common schools. It is a very grave question whether,
with some exceptions, the school and moral training of the race should
not be for a considerable time to come in the control of the white race.
But it must be kept in mind that instructors cheap in character,
attainments, and breeding will do more harm than good. If we give
ourselves to this work, we must give of our best.
Without the cordial concurrence in this effort of all parties, black and
white, local and national, it will not be fruitful in fundamental and
permanent good. Each race must accept the present situation and build
on it. To this end it is indispensable that one great evil, which was
inherent in the reconstruction measures and is still persisted in, shall be
eliminated. The party allegiance of the negro was bid for by the
temptation of office and position for which he was in no sense fit. No
permanent, righteous adjustment of relations can come till this policy is
wholly abandoned. Politicians must cease to make the negro a pawn in
the game of politics.
Let us admit that we have made a mistake. We seem to have expected
that we could accomplish suddenly and by artificial Contrivances a
development which historically has always taken a long time. Without
abatement of effort or loss of patience, let us put ourselves in the
common-sense, the scientific, the historic line. It is a gigantic task, only
to be accomplished by long labor in accord with the Divine purpose.

"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust; Thou madest man, he knows not
why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him; thou
art just.
"Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To
pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood.
"That nothing walks with aimless feet, That not one life shall be
destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile
complete."


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