Serviceable as have been many of the educators connected with Howard University it has had and still has many problems. Its chief difficulty, however, is a financial one. Although it is impossible to figure out how the University could have succeeded without the aid of the United States Government, this connection of the institution has been in some respects a handicap. National aid seems to have permanently excluded the institution from the circle of the beneficiaries of those great philanthropic agencies which have played such a prominent part in the support of education during the last half century. With the exception of the Theological Department, which receives no part whatever of the Congressional appropriation, the income to the institution from benevolent sources has played but a minor part in its development. On the other hand, the United States Government has never appropriated sufficient funds to maintain the University as a first class institution. The present appropriation of $100,000 a year falls far short of what the school needs to function properly. It seems, therefore, that the United States Government, should adequately support the institution and make its appropriations legally permanent.[529]
Some remarks about the general policy of Howard University may be enlightening. The idea of racial representation among the administrative officers and faculty is indicated by the fact that membership in a particular race has never been considered a qualification for any position in the University. For many years the board of trustees has had persons of both races as members. No colored man has served a regular term as president, however, unless we include the short experience of Professor Langston already referred to. The treasurer has always been white but the office of secretary has been filled by members of both races. Neither the Theological nor the Medical School has had a Negro as dean although Dr. Charles B. Purvis was elected to that office in the latter in 1900 but declined it.
The faculties of all departments are mixed, the proportion of Negroes growing as available material from which to choose becomes more abundant. The policy of maintaining mixed faculties, however, is not dictated entirely by the lack of men and women of color competent to fill all positions on the faculty; for today the supply of such material is adequate. It seems that the governing body considers it in the best interest of the University to preserve the racial mixture in the offices and faculties in order that the students may receive the peculiar contribution of both races and that the institution may have its interests concretely connected with those of the dominant race.
Whether or not Howard has amply justified its existence during its first half century; whether its ideals have been the best for the race whose interests it primarily serves; whether its administrative policies have been wise—these are questions whose answers lie outside the scope of this sketch. As institutions of learning go, fifty years is a short time upon which to base conclusions. It is a period of beginnings. With schools of the character of Howard, with its peculiar duties to perform and its peculiar problems to solve in a field entirely new, these fifty years make up a period of experiment. Whatever the future relative to this educational experiment may be, Howard has given to America nearly four thousand graduates from its various departments most of whom are now doing the class of work in all fields of endeavor which demand trained minds, broad human sympathy and the spirit of service.
Dwight O. W. Holmes.
FOOTNOTES:
[516] Part I of Fifty Years of Howard University appeared in the April Number of the Journal of Negro History.
[517] The resignation was accepted the following year after General Howard had been appointed to the command of the Department of the Columbia.
[518] It was realized at the beginning that a hospital in connection with the department was an absolute necessity. This was provided for through the relationship established between the Medical School and Freedmen's Hospital. The Campbell Hospital, as it was formerly called, was located, at the close of the war, at what is now the northeast corner of Seventh Street and Florida Avenue. Prior to that time it was directly connected with the War Department. In 1865, in connection with the various hospitals and camps for freedmen in the several States, it was placed under the Freedmen's Bureau. In 1869 it was moved to buildings expressly erected for it by the Bureau upon ground belonging to the University on Pomeroy Street, including and adjacent to the site of the Medical Building. This new home consisted of four large frame buildings of two stories each to be used as wards; and in addition the Medical Building itself, a brick structure of four and one half stories, quite commodious and well arranged with lecture halls and laboratories for medical instruction. Dr. Robert Reyburn, who was chief medical officer of the Freedmen's Bureau from 1870 to 1872 was surgeon in chief, from 1868 to 1875. He was followed in order by Drs. Gideon S. Palmer, Charles B. Purvis, Daniel H. Williams, Austin M. Curtis and Wm. H. Warfield. Dr. Warfield, the present incumbent was appointed in 1901 and is the first graduate of the Howard University Medical School to hold this position. Only the first two named, however, were white. In 1907 the hospital was moved to its new home in the reservation lying on the south side of College Street between Fourth and Sixth Streets, the property of the University.
"The new Freedmen's Hospital was then built at a cost of $600,000. It has the great advantage of being designed primarily for teaching purposes, as practically all the patients admitted are utilized freely for instruction. The hospital has about three hundred beds and contains two clinical amphitheatres, a pathological laboratory, clinical laboratory and a room for X-Ray diagnostic work and X-Ray therapy. The Medical Faculty practically constitutes the Hospital Staff."—Howard University Catalog, 1916-17, p. 163; 1917-18, p. 168.