Primary principles have no ethnic quality. We hear much in this day and time of the white man’s civilization. We had just as well speak of the white man’s multiplication table. Civilization is the common possession of all who assimilate and apply its principles. England can utilize no secret art or invention that is not equally available to Japan. We reward ingenuity with a patent right for a period of years upon the process that has been invented; but when an idea has been published to the world it is no more the exclusive property of the author than gold, after it has been put in circulation, can be claimed by the miner who first dug it from its hiding place in the earth. No race or nation can preempt civilization any more than they can monopolize the atmosphere which surrounds the earth, or the waters which hold it in their liquid embrace.
I have often noticed a young man accommodate his companion with a light from his cigar. After the spark has once been communicated, the beneficiary stands upon an equal footing with the benefactor. In both cases the fire must be continued by drawing fresh supplies of oxygen from the atmosphere. From whatever source a nation may derive the light of civilization, it must be perpetuated by the exercise of their own faculties. Self-reliant manhood is the ultimate basis of American citizenship.
TRAINING FOR LEADERSHIP.
The work of the educated colored man is largely that of leadership. He requires, therefore, all the discipline, judgment and mental equipment that long preparation can afford. The more ignorant and backward the masses the more skilled and sagacious should the leaders be. If a beneficial and kindly contact between the races is denied on the lower plane of flesh and blood, it must be sought in the upper region of mental and moral kinship. Knowledge and virtue know no ethnic exclusiveness. If indeed races are irreconcilable, their best individual exponents are not. All dignified negotiation must be conducted on the high plane of individual equality.
“For east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,
’Till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat;
But there is neither east nor west, border nor breed nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth”
The irreconcilable become reconciled only after each has manifested the best possibilities of a common nature. The higher education tends to develop superior individuals who may be expected to exercise controlling influence over the multitude. The individual is the proof, the promise and the salvation of the race. The undeveloped races which, in modern times, have faded before the breath of civilization have probably perished because of their failure to produce commanding leaders to guide them wisely under the stress and strain which an encroaching civilization imposed. A single red Indian with the capacity and spirit of Booker T. Washington might have solved the red man’s problems and averted his pending doom.