"The Mission Society does not attempt to provide a college education for the multitudes of Negroes; even this would be a task beyond its resources. What it does aim to do is simply to secure, if possible, the education of a comparatively few young men and young women, who shall become leaders among their people; men and women who by their knowledge, training, culture, power, will be able to organize and direct the energies of the masses of the people. Leaders are needed, and these should be thoroughly competent for leadership; it is a hard task to influence successfully the development of a race of eight million people, and those who attempt the work require natural qualities of a high order and also unusual attainments."
What is to prevent these people who have been enfranchised from becoming the prey of demagogues and designing men who wish to use them for unchristian purposes and in unchristian ways, unless they have large minded, thoroughly educated leaders with knowledge of history and of life who can lead their own people in the ways of righteousness? Events now transpiring give significance to this question.
The University of Pennsylvania has conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Mr. Lewis B. Moore, who graduated from Fisk University a few years ago. We listened to his "graduating address" at the close of his college years at Fisk, whence he went to Philadelphia to take charge of a branch of the Y.M.C.A. While attending to the laborious duties of this position he has, during four years of earnest, patient, and thorough study, earned his degree of Ph.D. in Greek and Latin and Ethics, in one of the severest graduate schools in the country. Dr. Moore is one of "our boys"; and there are many of them who are preparing themselves, by their vision of a larger life and their attainment of larger possessions, to be wise leaders among their people. Dr. Moore is now an instructor in Howard University, Washington, D.C.
There are those who object to the constitutional rights of the Negro, and some who object to his Christian privileges, lest his recognition as a man shall lead to "social equality," whatever this may mean. The following from a leading Negro paper, i.e., edited by a Negro for a Negro constituency, is a testimony as to what is and what is not the Negro's idea of "recognition":
"That the Negroes in recognizing constitutional rights are at the same time seeking an arbitrary social equality with any other race is erroneous. From the time of emancipation, the colored people have had no disposition to force a social alliance with the whites. The colored citizens have all their civil and political rights, and these rights they demand. When honored colored men or women enter a first-class hotel or restaurant, or seek a decent stateroom on a steamer, they do not enter these places because they are seeking social contact with the whites, but because they demand their just privileges for their personal protection and comfort."