Brief for the higher education of the negro

by Kelly Miller

Rational enjoyment, through moderation, is perhaps as good a definition as can be given of culture. The reaction of culture on conduct is a well known principle of practical ethics. The Negro race is characterized by boisterousness of manner and extravagant forms of taste. As if to correct such deficiencies, his higher education, hitherto, has largely been concerned with Greek and Latin literature, the norms of modern culture. It is just here that our educational critics are liable to become excited. The spectacle of a Negro wearing eye-glasses and declaiming in classic phrases about the “lofty walls of Rome,” and the “wrath of Achilles” upsets their critical calmness and composure. We have so often listened to the grotesque incongruity of a Greek chorus and a greasy cabin and the relative value of a rosewood piano and a patch of early rose potatoes that if we did not join in the smile in order to encourage the humor, we should do so out of sheer weariness. And yet we cannot escape the conviction that one of the Negro’s chief needs is a higher form of intellectual and esthetic taste.

THE RELATIVE CLAIMS OF INDUSTRIAL AND HIGHER EDUCATION.

Whenever the higher education of the Negro is broached, industrial training is always suggested as a counter irritant. Partisans of rival claims align themselves in hostile array and will not so much as respect a flag of truce. These one-eyed enthusiasts lack binocular vision. The futile discussion as to whether industrial or higher education is of greater importance to the Negro is suggestive of a subject of great renown in rural debating societies: which is of greater importance to man, air or water. We had as well attempt to decide whether the base or altitude is the more important element of a triangle. The two forms of training should be considered on the basis of their relative, not rival, claims.

THE HIGHER EDUCATION STIMULATES INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY.

Indeed, one of the strongest claims for the higher education of the Negro is that it will stimulate the dormant industrial activities of the race. The surest way to incite a people to meet the material demands of life is to teach them that life is more than meat. The unimaginative laborer pursues the routine rounds of his task, spurred on, only by the immediate necessities of life and the taskmaster’s stern command. To him, it is only time and the hour that run through the whole day. The Negro lacks enlightened imagination. He needs prospect and vista. He does not make provision because he lacks prevision. Under slavery he toiled as the ass, dependent upon the daily allowance from his master’s crib. To him the prayer, Give us this day our daily bread, has a material rather than a spiritual meaning. If you would perpetuate the industrial incapacity of the Negro, then confine him to the low grounds of drudgery and toil and prevent him from casting his eyes unto the hills whence come inspiration and promise. The man with the hoe is of all men most miserable unless, forsooth, he has a hope. But if imbued with hope and sustained by an ideal, he can consecrate the hoe as well as any other instrument of service, as a means of fulfilling the promise within him. When a seed is sown in the ground it first sends its roots into the soil before the blades can rise out of it. But is it not actuated by the plant consciousness to seek the light of heaven? For what is the purpose of sending its roots below, if it be not in order to bear fruit above? The pilgrim fathers in following the inspiration of a lofty ideal developed the resources of a continent. Any people who attempt to reach the sky on a pedestal of bricks and mortar will end in confusion and bewilderment as did the builders of the Tower of Babel on the plains of Shinar in the days of Eld. It requires range of vision to stimulate the industrial activities of the people. The most effective prayer that can be uttered for the Negro is “Lord, open thou his eyes.” He can not see beyond the momentary gratification of appetite and passion. He does not look before and after. Such stimulating influence can be brought to bear upon the race only through the inspiration of the higher culture.

MEN OF HIGHER TRAINING THE LEADERS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

It requires men of sound knowledge to conceive and execute plans for the industrial education of the masses. The great apostles of industrial education for the Negro have been of academic training, or of its cultural equivalent. The work of Hampton and Tuskegee is carried on by men and women of a high degree of mental cultivation.

DR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AN EXAMPLE OF HIGHER CULTURE.

Doctor Booker T. Washington, note the title, is the most influential Negro that the race under freedom has produced. He is the great apostle of industrial training. His great success is but the legitimate outcome of his earnestness and enthusiasm. And yet there is no more striking illustration of the necessity of wise, judicious and cultivated leadership as a means of stimulating the dormant activity of the masses than he who hails from Tuskegee. His success is due wholly to his intellectual and moral faculties. His personal opportunities of association and contact have been equivalent to a liberal education. Two of America’s greatest institutions of learning have fittingly recognized his moral and intellectual worth by decorating him with their highest literary honors. Mr. Washington possesses an enlightened mind to discover the needs of the masses, executive tact to put his plans in effective operation, and persuasive ability to convince others as to the expediency of his policies. He possesses no trade or handicraft, if so he has never let the American people into the secret. Nor can it be easily seen what possible benefit such trade or handicraft would be to him in the work which has fallen to his lot. Tuskegee has been built on intellect and oratory. If Mr. Washington had been born with palsied hands, but endowed with the same intellectual gifts and powers of persuasive speech, Tuskegee would not have suffered one iota by reason of his manual affliction. But, on the other hand, had he come into the world with a sluggish brain and a heavy tongue, whatever cunning and skill his hands might have acquired, he never could have developed the institution which has made him justly famous throughout the civilized world.