Brief for the higher education of the negro

by Kelly Miller

IS THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO WORTH WHILE AS A PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY?

The education of the Negro is not of itself a thing apart, but is an integral factor of the general pedagogic equation. Race psychology has not yet been formulated. No reputable authority has pointed out just wherein the two races differ in any evident mental feature. The mind of the Negro is of the same nature as that of the white man and needs the same nurture. The general poverty of the Negro, however, and his inability to formulate and direct his own scheme of culture, render the question not so much one of abstract pedagogics, as of practical philanthropy. The philanthropist is supremely indifferent as to whether an individual, white or black, should study Kant or Quaternious, except, in so far as the resulting development reacts beneficially upon the common welfare. Does the higher education of the few capable Negroes possess sufficient advantage to the race at large to justify its continuance by a wise and discriminating philanthropy? The great missionary societies, representing the philanthropic arms of the Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist denominations after forty years of arduous, earnest endeavor and the expenditure of many millions of dollars in this field, answer this question emphatically in the affirmative. An ounce of opinion from such sources should be worth a ton of speculation from those who reach their conclusions by a process of “pure reasoning.”

THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION TO A BACKWARD RACE.

The African was snatched from the wilds of savagery and thrust into the midst of a mighty civilization. He thus escaped the gradual progress of evolution. Education must accomplish more for a backward race than for a people who are in the fore-front of progress. It must not only lead to the unfoldment of faculties but must equip for a life from which the recipient is separated by many centuries of development. The African chieftain who would make a pilgrimage from the jungle to Boston might accomplish the first part of his journey by the original modes of transportation—in the primitive dugout or on the backs of his slaves; but he would complete it upon the steamship, the railway, the electric car and the automobile. How swift the transformation and yet how suggestive of centuries of toil, struggle and mental endeavor. It required the human race thousands of years to bridge the chasm between savagery and civilization, which must now be crossed by a school curriculum of a few years’ duration. In a settled state of society, the chief function of education is to enable the individual to live the life already attained by his race, but the educated Negro must be a pioneer, a progressive force in the uplifting of his race, and that, too, notwithstanding the fact that he belongs to a backward breed that has never taken the initiative in the progressive movements of the world.

THE HIGHER TRAINING OF CHOICE YOUTH.

The first great need of the Negro is that the choice youth of the race should assimilate the principles of culture and hand them down to the masses below. This is the only gate-way through which a new people may enter into modern civilization. Herein lies the history of culture. The select minds of the backward race or nation must receive the new cult and adapt it to the peculiar needs of their own people. Japan looms up as the most progressive of the non-Aryan races. The wonderful progress of these Oriental Yankees is due in a large measure to their wise plan of procedure. They send their picked youth to the great centers of western knowledge; but before this culture is applied to their own needs it must first be sifted through the sieve of their native comprehension. The graduates of the schools and colleges for the Negro race are forming centers of civilizing influence in all parts of the land, and we confidently, believe that these grains of leaven will ultimately leaven the whole lump.

SELF-RELIANT MANHOOD.

Another great need of the race, which the schools must in a large measure supply, is self-reliant manhood. Slavery made the Negro as dependent upon the intelligence and foresight of his master as a soldier upon the will of his commander. He had no need to take thought as to what he should eat or drink or wherewithal he should be clothed.

Knowledge necessarily awakens self-consciousness of power.

When a child learns the multiplication table he gets a clear notion of intellectual dignity. Here he gains an acquisition which is his permanent, personal possession, and which can never be taken from him. It does not depend upon external authority; he could reproduce it if all the visible forms of the universe were effaced. It is said that the possession of personal property is the greatest stimulus to self-respect. When one can read his title clear to earthly possessions, it awakens a consciousness of the dignity of his own manhood. And so when one has digested and assimilated the principles of knowledge he can file his declaration of intellectual independence. He can adopt the language of Montaigne “Truth and reason are common to everyone, and are no more his who spake them first than his who speaks them after; ’tis no more according to Plato than according to me, since he and I equally see and understand them.”