Education is now the talisman—the desire and aim of all the vast influx of immigrants who come within our gates. The children of the foreign-born population of the country are, by the last census, less illiterate, even in the North, than those of the native-born. Unless we furnish these people good schools, we can never hope to get a good class of immigrants to come to us. Without good schools, if we get any, it will be only the poorest class. And nothing would help us more in the South than to get in the best class.
Now, as to the form of education which will be of most value to the Negroes and of most value to the South—for the two, instead of being opposed to each other, as, according to our self-righteous critics, we appear to believe, are bound up in one.
Unhappily, the system of education heretofore pursued with the Negroes has been so futile in its results that a considerable proportion of Southerners, knowing the facts against all the assertion of Negro leaders, and all the clamor of those outside the South who are ignorant of the facts, believe sincerely that the educated are more worthless and more dangerous to the welfare and peace of the community in which they live than the uneducated.
That is, it is the sincere belief of a considerable number of enlightened and thoughtful whites, perfectly conversant with the situation, that the earnest effort of the South to educate the Negroes, extending through a generation, at an expense of over $110,000,000, contributed out of the property of the Southern whites, has been a complete failure in that the beneficiaries of this effort are not as good workers, or as good citizens, as the generation which preceded them, and use the education so given them, where they use it at all, in ways which are not beneficial to themselves and are injurious to the whites.
This is a condition sufficiently grave to require thoughtful consideration, and it must be met by argument rather than by vilification, or even by mere dogmatism.
It is, undoubtedly, true that the apparent result of the effort to educate the Negro has been disappointing. There are a few thousand professional men, a considerable number of college or high school graduates, but, for the greater part, there is discernible little apparent breadth of view, no growth in ability, or tendency to consider great questions reasonably. There is, indeed, rather a tendency to racial solidarity in opposition to the whites on all questions whatsoever; continued failure to distinguish soundly between outward gifts and character; a general inclination to deny crime and side with criminals against the whites, no matter how flagrant the crime may be. There is, moreover, a not rare belief among the whites that the preachers and leaders contribute to increase these tendencies and teach hostility rather than try to uplift the race morally. This view is held sincerely by a considerable section of the well-informed whites of the South.
All this is very disappointing, and yet the only lamp by which we can guide our way safely is the light of experience. Enlightenment and religion are the two great powers that have raised races and peoples. Since the dawn of history, Education and Christianity have raised the Western nations, among them the Anglo-Saxon race. With all the faults men show in practice, these two contain the vital principles. They are founded on those precepts, by which alone nations rise and civilization advances—knowledge, morality, and duty.
Whatever disappointment, then, there may be, this much at least may be laid down: There are only two ways to solve the Negro problem in the South. One is to remove him; the other is to elevate him. The former is apparently out of the question. The only method, then, is to improve him.
In suggesting the method of education that will prove of greatest service, it is easier to criticise than to reform. Hitherto, the idea has been to educate the Negro race just as the white race is educated; that is, to give him book education and “turn him loose.” There was, it is true, no field except the curious politics of the time in which the Negro could exercise his powers, based on such an education. The whites did not want this; the Negroes could not use it; but this made no difference with those who had the matter in charge. Education was understood to be ability to show book-learning. With this meagre equipment, the “educated Negro” rushed into politics, or into the pulpit, which mainly was but another name for the same thing. Sentiment, however, demanded that the Negro should be placed on an equality with the whites, and other conditions were left out of account, with disheartening results.