Education of the Negro | Page 6

to ten thousand negroes increased
between 1880 and 1890 twenty-nine per cent., while the white
prisoners to ten thousand whites increased only eight per cent." "In the
States where slavery was never established, the white prisoners
increased seven per cent. faster than the white population, while the
negro prisoners no less than thirty-nine per cent. faster than the negro
population. Thus the increase of negro criminality, so far as it is
reflected in the number of prisoners, exceeded the increase of white
criminality more in the North than it did in the South."
This statement was surprising. It cannot be accounted for by color
prejudice at the North; it is related to the known shiftlessness and
irresponsibility of a great portion of the negro population. If it could be
believed that this shiftlessness is due to the late state of slavery, the
explanation would not do away with the existing conditions. Schools at
the North have for a long time been open to the negro; though color
prejudice exists, he has not been on the whole in an unfriendly
atmosphere, and willing hands have been stretched out to help him in
his ambition to rise. It is no doubt true, as has been often said lately,
that the negro at the North has been crowded out of many occupations
by more vigorous races, newly come to this country, crowded out not
only of factory industries and agricultural, but of the positions of
servants, waiters, barbers, and other minor ways of earning a living.

The general verdict is that this loss of position is due to lack of stamina
and trustworthiness. Wherever a negro has shown himself able, honest,
attentive to the moral and economic duties of a citizen, either
successful in accumulating property or filling honorably his station in
life, he has gained respect and consideration in the community in which
he is known; and this is as true at the South as at the North,
notwithstanding the race antagonism is more accentuated by reason of
the preponderance of negro population there and the more recent
presence of slavery. Upon this ugly race antagonism it is not necessary
to enlarge here in discussing the problem of education, and I will leave
it with the single observation that I have heard intelligent negroes, who
were honestly at work, accumulating property and disposed to postpone
active politics to a more convenient season, say that they had nothing to
fear from the intelligent white population, but only from the envy of the
ignorant.
The whole situation is much aggravated by the fact that there is a
considerable infusion of white blood in the negro race in the United
States, leading to complications and social aspirations that are infinitely
pathetic. Time only and no present contrivance of ours can ameliorate
this condition.
I have made this outline of our negro problem in no spirit of pessimism
or of prejudice, but in the belief that the only way to remedy an evil or
a difficulty is candidly and fundamentally to understand it. Two things
are evident: First, the negro population is certain to increase in the
United States, in a ratio at least equal to that of the whites. Second, the
South needs its labor. Its deportation is an idle dream. The only visible
solution is for the negro to become an integral and an intelligent part of
the industrial community. The way may be long, but he must work his
way up. Sympathetic aid may do much, but the salvation of the negro is
in his own hands, in the development of individual character and a race
soul. This is fully understood by his wisest leaders. His worst enemy is
the demagogue who flatters him with the delusion that all he needs for
his elevation is freedom and certain privileges that were denied him in
slavery.

In all the Northern cities heroic efforts are made to assimilate the
foreign population by education and instruction in Americanism. In the
South, in the city and on plantation, the same effort is necessary for the
negro, but it must be more radical and fundamental. The common
school must be as fully sustained and as far reaching as it is in the
North, reaching the lowest in the city slums and the most ignorant in
the agricultural districts, but to its strictly elemental teaching must be
added moral instructions, and training in industries and in habits of
industry. Only by such rudimentary and industrial training can the mass
of the negro race in the United States be expected to improve in
character and position. A top-dressing of culture on a field with no
depth of soil may for a moment stimulate the promise of vegetation, but
no fruit will be produced. It is a gigantic task, and generations may
elapse