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.
SELECT REFERENCES
For brief reading:
HOFFMAN, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, Vol.
XI of Pub. of Am. Economic Ass'n.
STONE, Studies in the American Race Problem.
BAKER, Following the Color Line.
For more extended reading:
DOWD, The Negro Races.
DU BOIS, The Negroes of Philadelphia.
DU BOIS, editor, The Atlanta University Publications.
KEANE, Ethnology.
KEANE, Man, Past and Present.
MERRIAM, The Negro and the Nation.
PAGE, The Negro: the Southerner's Problem.
SMITH, The Color Line.
TILLINGHAST, The Negro in Africa and America, Pub. Am. Economic
Ass'n, 3d series, Vol. III.
WASHINGTON, The Future of the American Negro.