Sociology and Modern Social Problems

by Charles A. Ellwood

THE NEGRO PROBLEM

Already we have been brought in our study of the immigration problem to race problems—problems of the relations of races to one another and of their mutual adjustment. The negro problem is one of many race problems which the United States has, but because it is the most pressing of all of our race problems it is frequently spoken of as the race problem. An unsolved factor in all race problems is the biological influence of racial heredity, and this factor we must seek to understand and estimate at the very outset of any scientific study of the negro problem.

Racial Heredity as a Factor in Social Evolution.—We have already seen that racial heredity is the most important and at the same time the least known factor in the problem of immigration. While there is still much disagreement among scientific men as to the importance of racial heredity in social problems, it can be said that the weight of opinion inclines to the view that racial heredity is a very real factor, and one which cannot be left altogether out of account in studying social problems. The view of Buckle that racial heredity counted for nothing in explaining the social life of various peoples is not upheld by modern biologists. On the contrary the biological view would emphasize the importance of species and racial heredity in all problems connected with life; thus no one denies that between different species of animals heredity counts for everything in explaining their life activities, and, as between the different breeds or races of a single species, no other position is possible from the biological point of view. Nevertheless it may be admitted that man no longer lives a purely animal life and that racial heredity as a factor in his social life may be easily exaggerated. On the whole, it is a safe rule to follow that racial heredity should not be invoked to explain the social condition of a people until practically all other factors have been exhausted. Nevertheless as between the different races or great varieties of mankind there must be a great difference in racial heredity. It could not, indeed, be otherwise, since these different races were developed in different geographical environments or "areas of characterization." Natural selection has developed in each race of mankind an innate character fitted to cope with the environment in which it was evolved. This is clearly perceptible in regard to their bodily traits, and all modern research seems to show that their native reactions to different stimuli also vary greatly, that is, heredity affects their thoughts, feelings and mode of conduct as well as the color of skin, texture of hair, and shape of head. In other words, the instincts or native reactions of the different races of man vary considerably in degree if not in quality, and from this it follows that their feelings, ideas, and modes of conduct must also vary considerably.

It may be noted, however, that taking racial heredity into full account by no means leads to an attitude of fatalism as regards racial problems. On the contrary modern biology clearly teaches that racial heredity is modifiable both in the individual and in the race. It is modifiable in the individual through education or training; it is modifiable in the race through selection. Therefore racial heredity does not foredoom any people to remain in a low status of culture; only it must be taken into account in explaining the cultural conditions of all peoples, and especially in planning for a people's social amelioration.

The Racial Heredity of the Negro.—It is generally agreed by anthropologists and biologists that mankind constitutes but a single species, developed from a single pre-human anthropoid stock. The various races of mankind have had, therefore, a common origin, but having developed in different geographical areas they each present certain peculiar racial traits adapting each to the environment in which it was developed. Now, the negro race is that part of mankind which was developed in the tropics. In all the negro's physical and mental make-up he shows complete adaptation to a tropical environment. The dark color of his skin, for example, was developed by natural selection to exclude the injurious actinic rays of the sun. The various ways in which the negro's tropical environment influenced the development of his mind, particularly of his instincts, cannot be here entered into in detail. Suffice to say that the African environment of the ancestors of the present negroes in the United States deeply stamped itself upon the mental traits and tendencies of the race. For example, the tropical environment is generally unfavorable to severe bodily labor. Persons who work hard in the tropics are, in other words, apt to be eliminated by natural selection. On the other hand, nature furnishes a bountiful supply of food without much labor. Hence, the tropical environment of the negro failed to develop in him any instinct to work, but favored the survival of those naturally shiftless and lazy. Again, the extremely high death rate in Africa necessitated a correspondingly high birth rate in order that any race living there might survive; hence, nature fixed in the negro strong sexual propensities in order to secure such a high birth rate.

It is not claimed that the shiftlessness and sensuality of the masses of the American negroes to-day can be wholly attributed to hereditary influences, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that the African environment did not have something to do with these two dominant characteristics of the present American negro. So we might go through the whole list of the conspicuous traits and tendencies of the American negro, and in practically every case we would find good reason for believing that these racial traits and tendencies are at least in part instinctive, that is, due to the influence of racial heredity.

The question is frequently raised whether the negro is inferior by nature to the white man or not. It is obvious from what has been said that the negro may, on the side of his instinctive or hereditary equipment, be inferior to the white man in his natural adaptiveness to a complex civilization existing under very different climatic conditions from those in which he was evolved. This does not mean, however, that the negro is in any sense a degenerate. On the contrary, from the point of view of a tropical environment, as we have already made plain, the negro may be regarded as the white man's superior. It is only in countries out of his own natural environment, under strange conditions of life to which he has not yet become biologically adapted, that the negro is inferior to the white man. In Africa he is the white man's superior if we adopt survival as the test of superiority.

Influence of Slavery on the Negro.—There is no longer any doubt that the influence of slavery on the negro, as a form of industry, was both beneficent and maleficent. The negroes brought to America by the slave traders were subject to a very severe artificial selection, which, perhaps, secured a better type of negro physically on the whole, and a more docile type mentally; but the chief beneficent influence of slavery on the negro was that it taught him to work, to some extent at least. Moreover, it gave the negro the Anglo-Saxon tongue and the rudiments of our morality, religion, and civilization.

On the other hand, slavery did not fit the individual or the race for a life of freedom, and did not raise moral standards much above those of Africa. The monogamic form of the family was, to be sure, enforced upon the slaves, but the family life was often broken up; for even when the owner of the slaves was kind-hearted and humane, on his death his property would be sold and the families of his slaves scattered. Under such conditions it is not surprising that the negro learned little of family morality. Again, being property himself, the negro could not be taught properly to appreciate the rights of property. Finally slavery failed to develop in the slave that self-mastery and self-control which are necessary for free social life. Admirable as slavery was in some ways as a school for an uncultivated people, it failed utterly in other ways; and it surely should not be difficult to devise methods of training at the present time which are superior to anything that slavery as a school for the industrial training of the negro could possibly have accomplished.

Statistics of the Negro Problem in the United States. The following table will show the percentage of negroes in the population of the United States at different decades (Negro, in census terminology, includes all persons of negro descent):

Per cent.

1790 …………………………….. 19.37 1800 …………………………….. 18.88 1810 …………………………….. 19.03 1830 …………………………….. 18.10 1840 …………………………….. 16.84 1850 …………………………….. 15.69 1860 …………………………….. 14.13 1870 …………………………….. 12.60 1880 …………………………….. 13.12 1890 …………………………….. 11.93 1900 …………………………….. 11.63

In 1860 the total number of negroes in the population of the United States was 4,441,000. Forty years later, in 1900, the number had just doubled, having reached 8,840,000. Nevertheless, it will be seen from the above table that the percentage of negroes in the total population has steadily diminished, although the negro population doubled between 1860 and 1900. Between 1890 and 1900 the comparative rates of increase for the whites and negroes were: whites, 21.49 Per cent; negroes, 18.10 per cent.

Geographical Distribution of the Negroes. The negro problem would not be so acute in certain sections of the country if negroes were distributed evenly over the country instead of being massed as they are in certain sections. Ninety per cent of the total number of negroes in the country live in the South Atlantic and South Central states. Moreover, over eighty per cent live in the so-called "Black Belt" states,—the "Black Belt" being a chain of counties stretching from Virginia to Texas in which over half of the population are negroes. The following table shows the percentage of negro population in these states of the "Black Belt":

Per cent.

Alabama……………………………………… 45.2
Arkansas…………………………………….. 28.0
Florida……………………………………… 43.6
Georgia……………………………………… 46.7
Louisiana……………………………………. 47.1
Mississippi………………………………….. 58.5
North Carolina……………………………….. 33.0
South Carolina……………………………….. 58.4
Tennessee……………………………………. 23.8
Texas……………………………………….. 20.4
Virginia…………………………………….. 35.7

While in only two of these states there is an absolute preponderance of negroes, yet these statistics give no idea of the massing of negroes in certain localities. In Washington County, Mississippi, for example, the negroes number 44,143, the whites 5002; in Beaufort County, South Carolina, the negroes number 32,137, the whites 3349. In many counties in the "Black Belt" more than three fourths of the population are negroes. It is in these states that the negro population is rapidly increasing.

Increase of Negro in States since 1860. The following table will show the percentage of negroes in the population in former slave-holding states in 1860 and in 1900:

States 1860 1900
Per cent Per cent

Alabama ……………… 45.4 45.2
Arkansas …………….. 25.6 28
Florida ……………… 44.6 43.6
Georgia ……………… 44 40.7
Kentucky …………….. 20.4 13.3
Louisiana ……………. 49.5 47.1
Maryland …………….. 24.9 19.8
Mississippi ………….. 55.3 58.5
Missouri …………….. 10 5.2
North Carolina ……….. 30.4 33
South Carolina ……….. 58.6 58.4
Tennessee ……………. 25.5 23.8
Texas ……………….. 30.3 20.4
Virginia …………….. 42 35.7

It will be noted that the states whose relative negro population has increased since the war are Arkansas, Mississippi, and Georgia, while in South Carolina and Alabama, the relative proportion of negroes has stood stationary.

In the decade from 1890 to 1900, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas of the above states showed a more rapid increase of their negro population than of their white population. In other Southern states, however, the white population increased more rapidly than the negro population, although in Georgia both races increased about equally.

In certain Northern states the census of 1900 shows the negro population to be increasing much more rapidly than the white population. In New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Massachusetts, for example, the negro population increased about twice as fast as the white population, but the number of negroes in these states was still in 1900 comparatively small, New York having 99,000; Pennsylvania, 156,000, Illinois, 85,000, Indiana, 57,000; and Massachusetts, 31,000. This increase of negro population in certain Northern states is, of course, due to the immigration of the negro into those states, and may be regarded on the whole as a fortunate movement, serving to distribute the negro population more evenly over the whole country, were it not that the negro death rate in these Northern states is so very high that the negroes who go to these states do not as a rule maintain their numbers.

The Urban Negro Population.—Seventeen per cent of the total negro population in 1900 lived in cities of over 8000 population while the remainder lived in small towns and country districts. The following great cities had a high percentage of negroes:

Per cent.

Memphis …………………………. 48.8
Washington ………………………. 31.1
New Orleans ……………………… 27.1
Louisville ………………………. 19.1
St. Louis ……………………….. 6.2
Philadelphia …………………….. 4.8
Baltimore ……………………….. 15.6

Some smaller Southern cities have, of course, a much higher percentage of negroes in their population, such as Jacksonville, Florida, 57.1 per cent; Charleston, South Carolina, 56.5 per cent; Savannah, Georgia, 51.8 per cent. On the whole, however, it will be seen that the mass of the negroes in the United States still live in rural districts, although directly after the Civil War and again within recent years there has been a considerable movement of the negroes to the cities. This is extremely significant for the social conditions of the race, because the negro, while not adapted in general to the environment of civilization, is still less adapted to the environment which the modern city affords him.

The Social Condition of the Negroes in the United States.—(1) Intermixture of Races. Ever since the negro came to this country he has been having his racial characteristics modified by the infusion of white blood. The census of 1890 attempted to make an estimate of the number of negroes of mixed blood in the United States. The number returned as being of mixed blood was 1,132,000, but all authorities agree that this number understates the actual number. The census officials themselves repudiated these figures as being entirely misleading. Experts in ethnology have estimated that from one third to one half of the negroes in the United States show traces of white intermixture. The lower estimate, that one third of the negroes of the United States have more or less white blood, is quite generally accepted by those who have carefully investigated the matter. Of course the proportion of negroes of mixed blood varies greatly in different localities. In communities in the border states frequently more than one half of the negroes show marked traces of white intermixture. But in the isolated rural regions of the South, where the negroes predominate, the full-blood negro is by far the more common type.

This infusion of white blood into a portion of the negro population is significant sociologically. It is the negroes of mixed blood who are ambitious socially and who present some of the most acute phases of the negro problem. It is from the mixed bloods that the leaders of the race in this country have come. The pure negro without intermixture has hitherto seemed incapable of leadership. Such men as Booker T. Washington, Professor Du Bois, and most other negro leaders have a considerable mixture of white blood. A list of 2200 negro authors was once compiled by the Librarian of Congress, and investigation showed that with very few exceptions these negro authors came from the mixed stock. Indeed, practically all of the negroes who have been eminent in literature, science, art, or statesmanship have come from this class of mixed bloods.

But the infusion of white blood has also in some ways been a detriment to the negro. The illegitimate offspring resulting from the unions of white fathers and negro mothers are frequently the product of conditions of vice. The consequence is that the child of mixed origin frequently has a degenerate heredity and, coming into the world as a bastard, is more or less in disfavor with both races; hence the social environment of the mulatto as well as his heredity is oftentimes peculiarly unfavorable. It is not surprising, therefore, to find among the mulattoes a great amount of constitutional diseases and a great tendency to crime and immorality. Again mulatto women are more frequently debauched by white men than the pure blood negro women, and for this reason negro women of mixed blood are more apt to be immoral. So we see that while the mixed bloods have furnished the leaders of their race, they have also furnished an undue proportion of its vice and crime. This is exactly what we should expect when we understand the social conditions existing between the races and the origin and social environment of the mulatto.

The crime and vice and constitutional diseases of the mulatto do not prove that degeneracy results from the intermixture of the two races, as was once supposed. On the contrary, as we have already seen, all of these things result from the fact that the crossing of the races takes place under socially abnormal conditions, that is, under conditions of vice. This is not, however, true in all cases and particularly it was not true of all intermixture that took place under the regime of slavery. Rather intermixture under such circumstances approached not vice, as we understand the word, but polygyny. Consequently some of the best blood of the South runs in the veins of some of the mulattoes. Again, we have examples from other countries of the crossing of the two races, negro and white, without physical degeneracy. In the West Indies and in Brazil this crossing is frequently taking place, and many of the best families of those countries have a slight amount of negro blood in their veins. From instances like this, gathered from all over the world, it has generally been concluded by anthropologists that no evil physiological results necessarily follow the intermixture of races, even the most diverse, but that all supposed physiological evils coming from the intermixture of races really come from social rather than from physiological causes.

From the point of view of the white race and from the point of view of the negro race such racial intermixture, outside of the bounds of law, may be for many reasons undesirable. But we are here concerned with noting only the social effect of the intermixture that has gone on in the past; and we see that on the one hand it has resulted in creating a class of so-called negroes in whom white blood and the ambitions and energy of the white race predominate, and on the other hand it has also resulted in creating a degenerate mixed stock who furnish the majority of criminals and vicious persons belonging to the so-called negro race.

(2) Criminality of the Negro. One of the most important features of the negro problem in the United States is the strong tendency among the negroes toward crime; and this, as we have just seen, is especially manifest in those of mixed origin. Professor Willcox has shown that in 1890 there were in the South six white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, but twenty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes, while in the North there were twelve white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, but sixty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes. These statistics show that the negro is everywhere more criminal than the white, and that his tendency toward crime increases as we go North, doubtless largely because in the North he is in a strange and more complex environment and finds greater difficulty in making social adjustments. Moreover, negro crime is increasing. From 1880 to 1890 the negro prisoners of the United States increased 29 per cent, while the white prisoners only increased 8 per cent. Later statistics show the same result. As yet there has been no check to the steady increase of negro crime in this country since the Civil War. In some Northern cities, like Chicago, in some years the number of arrests of negroes has equaled one third of the total negro population of those cities. The criminality of the negro is doubtless in part a matter of social environment, because we see that negro crime increases in cities and in the more complex Northern communities; but it is also to some extent a matter of the negro's heredity.

Of course vice accompanies crime among the American negroes. The statistics of illegitimacy in Washington cited by Hoffman in his Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro show that in fifteen years in Washington, from 1879 to 1894, the percentage of illegitimate births among the whites was 2.9 per cent, while the percentage among the negroes was 22.5. In other words, from one fifth to one fourth of all the negro births in Washington during that fifteen-year period were illegitimate. Statistics collected in other cities show approximately the same result. Of course statistics of illegitimacy are not exactly the same thing as statistics of vice, but they, at any rate, throw a light upon the moral condition of the negro in this regard, and particularly show the demoralization of his family life.

(3) Negro Pauperism. We have no good statistics on negro pauperism, but such as we have seem to indicate that the state of dependence of the negro is very great. In the city of Washington, where 30 per cent of the population is made up of negroes, 84 per cent of the pauper burials are those of negroes; and in Charleston, where 57 per cent of the population are negroes, 96.7 per cent of the pauper burials are those of negroes. In nearly all communities where organized charities exist the negroes contribute to the dependent population far out of proportion to their numbers. It is safe to say that from 50 to 75 per cent of the total negro population of the United States live in poverty as distinguished from pauperism, that is, live under such conditions that physical and mental efficiency cannot be maintained.

(4) Negro Vital Statistics. The negro death and birth rates are both very high. No definite statistics of negro death and birth rates have been kept except in cities and in a few rural districts. In Alabama in a few registered districts the negro birth rate has been found to be equal to about twice the death rate. On the other hand it is a curious fact that in the North the negro fails to reproduce sufficiently to keep up his numbers, consequently the negro population in Northern states would die out if it were not for immigration. In Massachusetts in 1888, for example, there were 511 negro births and 579 negro deaths. Statistics from other Northern communities tell the same story.

The vital statistics of Southern cities show that the negro death rate is very much higher than the white death rate. In ten Southern cities, for example, Hoffman gives the average death rate for the whites as 20 per thousand for the white population, and for the negroes as 32.6 per thousand of the negro population. These same cities in 1901-1905 showed an annual average death rate for the whites of 17.5 and for the negroes of 28.4. In several cities the negro death rate is nearly twice that of the whites. When these mortality statistics are analyzed, moreover, while they show that negro mortality at all ages is greater than white mortality, it is greatest among negro children under fifteen years of age. This is of course largely because of the ignorant manner in which negroes care for their children, but it also indicates that natural selection is at work among the American negroes rapidly eliminating the biologically unfit.

Conclusions from Negro Vital Statistics. Three important conclusions may be drawn from the negro vital and population statistics which are well worth emphasizing. (1) The negro population is not increasing so fast as the white, owing largely to its high death rate, yet it is increasing, and there is no indication as yet that the negro population will decrease. It is probable, indeed, that at the end of the twentieth century the negro population of the United States will be between twenty and thirty millions. The view of some students of the negro problem that the negro is destined to an early extinction in this country is merely a speculative hypothesis, and as yet is not substantiated by any statistical facts.

(2) While the negro is destined to be with us always, so far as we can see, yet owing to the fact of intermixture of races he will be less and less a pure negro, so that at the end of the twentieth century the negroes in the United States will be much nearer the white type than at the present time.

(3) The high death rate among the negroes indicates that a rapid process of natural selection is going on among them. Now, natural selection means the elimination of the unfit,—the dying out of those who cannot adapt themselves to their environment. This selective process will tend toward the survival of the more fit elements among the negroes, and, therefore, towards bringing the negro up to the standard of the whites. The misery and vice which we see among the present American negroes are simply in a large degree the expression of the working of a process of natural selection among them. It would be preferable, however, if the white race could by education and other means substitute to some degree at least artificial selection for the miseries and brutality of the natural process of eliminating the unfit. This the superior race should do to protect itself as well as to raise the negro.

Industrial Conditions Among the Negroes.—Recently a committee of the American Economic Association estimated that all of the taxable property in the United States owned by negroes amounted to $300,000,000, or about $33.00 per head,—this estimate being based upon the 1900 census returns. Thirty-three dollars per head of the negro population seems of course very small when compared to the $1,000.00 per capita owned by the whites; but we must remember that the negro at his emancipation was in no way equipped to acquire property, and, with the exception of a few freedmen, the negro at the close of the war had no property whatsoever. In a few cases their old masters set up the emancipated negroes with small farms. In 1900 there were 746,715 farms occupied by negroes either as tenants or owners. Twenty-five per cent of these farms were owned by negroes and about ten per cent were owned unencumbered.

There are, of course, two ways of looking at these statistics. They are discouraging if we care to look at them in that way, but on the other hand, if we consider the disadvantageous position in which the negro was placed at the close of the Civil War, the statistics may be taken as showing a marked advance.

It must be said here that, as Booker Washington has urged, the negro problem is largely of an industrial nature. It is the unsatisfactoriness of the negro as a worker, as a producing agent, that gives rise largely to the friction between the two races. The negro has not yet become adapted to a system of free contract and is frequently unreliable as a laborer. This breeds continued antagonism between the races. It is only necessary here to remark that when the negro becomes an efficient producer and a property owner the negro problem will be practically solved.

Educational Progress Among the Negroes.—The educational progress among the negroes has been more satisfactory than their industrial progress. At the time of the emancipation 95 per cent of all the negroes in the United States were illiterate, since nearly all the slave states had laws forbidding the education of negroes. Since the emancipation there has been a rapid decrease of illiteracy. In 1880 seventy per cent of the negroes above the age of ten years were still reported as illiterate. In 1890, 56.8 per cent; and in 1900, 44.6 per cent. The number of illiterate negro voters in the United States in 1900 was 47.3 per cent of the total number of negro males above the age of twenty-one. The per cent of illiterate negro voters ranged all the way in former slave-holding states from 61.3 per cent in Louisiana to 31.9 per cent in Missouri, while in Massachusetts the percentage of negro illiteracy was only 10 per cent.

In the school year 1907-08, in the sixteen Southern states there were 1,665,000 negro children enrolled in the public schools, this number being 54.36 per cent of the negro population of the school age (five to eighteen). The number of white children enrolled was 4,692,000, or 70.34 per cent of the white population of school age. But these statistics fail to indicate the utter inadequacy of many provisions for the education of the negro children. In many districts of the South the negro schools are open only from three to five months in a year,—the equipment of the school being very inadequate and the teacher poorly trained. Nevertheless the sixteen Southern states have spent, since the emancipation, over $175,000,000 to maintain separate schools for negroes, a much larger sum than all that has been given by Northern philanthropy. In addition to the common schools for negroes there were in 1907-08 one hundred and thirty-five institutions for the higher education of the negro with an annual income of over $2,800,000. In these there were 4185 negro students receiving collegiate or professional training, 17,279 were receiving a high school course, and 23,160 industrial training. The latter figure is important because it indicates that in 1907-08 a little more than one per cent of the total number of negro children in school were receiving industrial training. The percentage is increasing, through the fact that industrial training is being introduced into a number of the city schools for negroes, both North and South; but at present not much over one per cent of the negro children are receiving industrial training.

Political Conditions.—Not much need be said concerning the political condition of the negro. The movement to disfranchise the negro by legal means came in 1890 when the new Mississippi constitution adopted in that year provided that every voter should be able to read or interpret a clause in the constitution of the United States. Since then a majority of the Southern states and practically all of the states of the "Black Belt" have embodied either in their constitutions or laws provisions for disfranchising the negro voter. Louisiana made the provision that a person must be able to read and write or be a lineal descendant of some person who voted prior to 1860. This is the famous "Grandfather Clause," which has since proved popular in a number of Southern states. While these laws and constitutional provisions have evidently been designed to disfranchise the negro voter, the Federal Supreme Court has upheld them in spite of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.

Regarding all of this legislation it may be said that it has had perhaps both good and bad effects. In so far as it has tended to eliminate the negro from politics this has been a good effect, but it has oftentimes rather succeeded in keeping the negro question in politics; and the evident injustice and inequality of some of the laws must, it would seem, react to lower the whole tone of political morality in the South. Again, the very provision of these laws to insure the disfranchisement of the illiterate negro has tended in some instances, at least, to discourage negro education, because the promoters of these laws in most cases did not aim to exclude simply the illiterate negro vote, but practically the entire negro vote. It is evident that a party designing to disfranchise the negro through this means would not be very zealous for the negro's education.

Proposed Solutions of the Negro Problem.—Among the various solutions proposed from time to time for the negro problem, more or less seriously, are: (1) admission at once of the negroes to full social equality with the whites; (2) deportation to Africa or South America; (3) colonization in some state or in territory adjacent to the United States; (4) extinction by natural selection; (5) popular education. Regarding all these solutions it must be said at once that they are either impossible or fatuous. They may be dismissed, then, without further discussion. Mr. Booker T. Washington has said that the negro is bound to become adjusted to our civilization because he is surrounded by the white man's civilization on every hand. This optimistic view, which seems to dismiss the negro problem as requiring no solution, is, however, not well supported by many facts, as we have just seen. Everywhere we have evidence that the negro when left to himself, reverts to a condition approximating his African barbarism, and the statistics of increasing vice and crime which we have just given show quite conclusively that the negro is not becoming adjusted to the white man's civilization in many cases in spite of considerable efforts which are being put forth in his behalf. While we are very far from taking a pessimistic view toward this or any other social problem, we believe that most of the solutions that have thus far been tried or urged are failures, and that more radical methods need to be adopted if the negro becomes a useful social and industrial element in our society.

As we have already seen, the negro is still essentially unadjusted to our civilization, and it would not be too much to say that the masses of negroes in this country are still not far removed from barbarism, though living in the midst of civilization. Slavery failed, as we have already seen, to render the mass of negroes capable of participating in our culture, and all that has been done for the negro since emancipation has likewise failed to adjust the mass of the race to the social conditions in which they find themselves. We may say, then, roughly, without any injustice to the negro, that the negro masses of this country are still essentially an uncultivated or a "nature" people living in the midst of civilization. The negro problem, in other words, is not greatly different from what it would be if the present negroes were descendants of savage aborigines that had peopled this country before the white man came. The problem of the negro and of the Indian, and of all the uncivilized races, is essentially the same. The problem is, how a relatively large mass of people, inferior in culture and perhaps also inferior in nature, can be adjusted relatively to the civilization of a people much their superior in culture; how the industrially inefficient nature man can be made over into the industrially efficient civilized man.

Undoubtedly the primary adjustment to be made by the American negro is the adjustment on the economic side. Only when the negro becomes adjusted to the economic side of his life will there be a solid foundation for the development of something higher. People must be taught how to be efficient, self-sustaining, productive members of society economically before they can be taught to be good citizens. The American negro in other words must be taught to be "good for something" as well as to be good. The failure of common-school education with the negro has been largely for the reason that it has failed to help him in any efficient way to adjust himself industrially. Oftentimes indeed it has had the contrary effect and the slightly educated negro has been the one who has been least valuable as a producer. The common-school education has not been such a failure with the white child, for the reason that the white child has been taught industry and morality at home, but these the negro frequently fails to get in his home life. Moreover, the common-school education of the white child has usually been simply the foundation upon which after school days he, as a citizen, has built up a wider culture. But the negro, on account of his environment, if not naturally, has proved incapable of going on with his education and building on it after getting out of school. Moreover, as we have already noted, under the present complex conditions of our social life the common school is no longer an efficient socializing agent, even for the white children. The present school system is a failure, not only for the negro race, but also, though not in the same degree, for the white race. Popular education on the old lines can never do very much to solve the negro problem.

This does not lead, however, to the conclusion that all training and education for the negro race is foredoomed to failure. On the contrary all the experiments of missionaries in dealing with uncivilized races has led to the conclusion that an all-round education in which industrial and moral training are made prominent can relatively adjust to our civilization even the most backward of human races. Wherever the missionaries have introduced industrial education and adjusted their converts to what is perhaps the fundamental side of our civilization, the economic, they have met with the largest degree of success. This success of missionary endeavors along this line has led to the establishment of similar industrial training schools for the negro in this country, and it must be said regarding such schools for the negro as Hampton and Tuskegee that they have proved an even more unqualified success than their predecessors originated by the missionaries. But these schools are as yet very far from solving the negro problem in this country, for the reason, as we have already seen, that they affect such a relatively small proportion of the negro population. Only about one per cent of negro children at the present time are probably receiving industrial training.

It should be remarked that this industrial training in no way precludes an all-round education. It is not meant that industrial education shall replace all other forms of education, but rather that it shall be added to literary education in order to enrich the educational process; and it may be remarked also that industrial training, while of itself having a strong uplifting moral influence, is not sufficient to socialize without explicit moral teaching being also added thereto. Schools that attempted to give such an all-round education to negro children would, of course, in no way cut off the possibility of higher and professional education for the small number who are especially fitted, and who should be encouraged to go on with such studies.

Accepting, then, without qualification the now widespread view that industrial training coupled with an all-round education is the best possible solution of the negro problem, let us look into the practical difficulties which confront any attempt to apply such a solution at the present time. These difficulties may be summed up under three heads: (1) The difficulty of securing adequately equipped schools to give such training; (2) the difficulty of obtaining teachers who are qualified to give this training, and who have the right spirit; (3) the present lack of intelligent coöperation by the members of both races.

As regards the first of these difficulties, it must be said that it is under our present system of school administration practically insuperable. Adequately equipped schools for industrial education will cost a great deal of money,—money which the whites of the South will probably not be willing to give for many years to come, and which we think they should not be asked to give. As we have already seen, there are more illiterate native whites in the South than in any other section of the Union. This is due in part to the effects of the war which left a majority of the Southern communities poverty-stricken, and in many communities there is still not yet sufficient money to maintain proper school facilities, even on the old lines; much less can it be expected that such communities can start at once industrial schools for the training of negro children.

As regards the difficulty of obtaining properly trained teachers with a proper spirit to do this work, it must be said that as yet these teachers could not be found, and certainly they could not within the negro race. The mass of negro teachers are still so far below even the low standards of the white schools that not one half of them would be licensed to teach if the same standards were applied to them as to the whites. Moreover, through the increase of race friction white teachers have gradually, since the Civil War, been excluded from negro schools. This has been brought about largely also by the negroes demanding these positions for themselves. But it is an old adage that "if the blind lead the blind both will fall into the ditch," and it would seem that a majority of negro teachers are unqualified for their task of civilizing and socializing their race; hence one reason for the failure of the negro common school. It would seem also that, while competent negro teachers should be encouraged in every way, white teachers should not be absolutely excluded from negro schools; and particularly that white teachers would be necessary if industrial and moral training were to be emphasized in the education of the negro. This brings us to the third difficulty,—the lack of intelligent coöperation by the members of both races. Unfortunately the negroes do not care for the newer education, the education which emphasizes industrial training. Most of them, misled by unwise leaders, prefer the education of the older type and think that industrial training will only fit them to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to the whites. On the other hand, the masses of uneducated Southern people also do not wish the new education for the negro, because they believe that it will give him superior advantages over the white children. They fail to see that anything that is done for a depressed element in society, like the negro, will ultimately benefit all society. They are, therefore, not willing to tax themselves to bring about, even gradually, the new education for the negro. While educated Southern people have supported Booker T. Washington in his propaganda for the industrial training of the negro, it is notorious that Washington's ideas have met with as much opposition from the uneducated whites as from the negroes themselves.

On the whole, however, while the situation is a difficult one, it is not, as we have already seen, one which justifies pessimism. Time is the great element in the solution of all problems, and it must be especially an element in the solution of this negro problem. A beginning has been made toward the training and the education of the negro in the right way, and it may be hoped that from centers like Hampton and Tuskegee the influence will gradually radiate which will in time bring about the popularization of industrial education. What is needed, perhaps, most of all is sufficient funds to carry on wider and wider experiments along these lines. The Southern states should not be expected to furnish these funds. They have already done their full share in attempting to educate the negro. The negro problem is a national problem, and as a national problem it should be dealt with by the Federal Government. The burden of educating the negro for citizenship should rest primarily upon the whole nation and not upon any section or community, since the whole nation is responsible for the negro's present condition. The trouble is, however, again, that the mass of the Southern people would at the present time undoubtedly resent any attempt on the part of the Federal Government to aid in the education of the negro. The question, therefore, ultimately becomes a question of educating the whites and forming a proper public sentiment regarding the education of the negro. When the leaders of both races once become united on a plan of training the negro for efficient citizenship, undoubtedly the funds will be forthcoming. While the negro question is, therefore, from one point of view primarily a question of the industrial training and adjustment of the negro, from another point of view it is a moral question which can never be solved until the superior race comes to take a right attitude toward the inferior race, namely, the attitude of service.