Part 16

There is much said and written that would imply the need of some special kind of training suited alone for the Negro. If he has any special need whatsoever above his brother in white it is due to mistreatment and not to natural conditions. His phenomenal development along all lines indicates what is in him and what may be possible for him.

The race numbers from eight to ten millions, pays taxes upon property to the amount of nearly $300,000,000. They have graduated from universities, colleges, high, normal and professional schools about forty thousand. There are in all grades from the common school up about one and a half million pupils.

Men of the race own and control about three hundred newspapers, journals and periodicals. This is substantial progress for only thirty-six years, and yet this is no day for boasting or fine-spun flattery. As long as the great bulk of the race are in abject poverty and ignorance, and while more than a million of colored children of school age are not attending school for want of accommodation, and the number increasing more rapidly than facilities for education, and so long as the unsettled race question seriously agitates the American mind we do well to be deeply concerned. But it is unreasonable and not helpful to be over alarmed. It is time for the race to be sober and thoughtful, and if present conditions bring this about a sure blessing will result.

Among the mistakes of our years of freedom have been the surface view of life, and an ever present dependence upon politics and by-gone friends. The present shock from eliminating certain manhood rights in the Southland necessarily creates a sensation, but is also sure to quicken for us new life, purpose and hope.

The Negro question is only one aspect of America's larger problem. Can it be truthfully said that every worthy citizen shall have an equally fair opportunity in the race of life? It seems to me clear that racial adjustment at the South may be reasonably hoped for when the parties most interested unite upon the spirit of the golden rule. This and this alone will insure friendly relationship. The white man must make up in his mind to be fair, and just, and to recognize the fact that the Negro deserves a chance for the highest, broadest and best possible life. Will the Southern white man ever willingly accord this common right? Yes, I think so. But the alienation is not all on one side. For thirty-six years the fact has been specially emphasized that the Southern white man is the black man's enemy. The result is a natural one. Antagonism and race friction have enlarged rather than lessened. The time has fully come when the colored pulpit, press and leadership throughout the country and specially in the South should seek to make friends of these people with whom the blacks must necessarily live. We can not over-estimate the value of education and the getting hold of homesteads in the progress of the race, but these alone are not sufficient.

Our churches must mean more for right living. The sacredness of the home, of the married life, of honesty, of integrity, of uprightness and of right character must more than ever be impressed. The churches must be more practical and less sentimental. Instead of encouraging late hours--thus opening the evil way to our young--and spending long seasons in mere shouts and gesticulations, let there be training classes, mothers' and children's meetings, and those within reasonable hours. Let our pulpits and press rebuke crime among us as well as away from us. Let us organize and encourage good citizenship committees in all our churches and in every community. Let us draw the line between the idle and industrious among us. Let us urge vagrant laws upon that set of men who will not work but form the criminal class in all our cities. Let us more than ever show ourselves ready to help rid the community of objectionable persons and places. Let us not say less--if well said--for right public sentiment must be made, but let us do more. There must be a studied use of "Yankee" common sense. It is not to be expected that the Southern man's training, relative to the Negro, can be readily displayed. But having been born and reared under Southern skies and for parts of ten successive years taught there is one country, and having former slaveholders among some of my warmest friends, I am prepared to believe that there is no innate hindrance to a life of peace between the races.

I can not think that the best people of the South will long endure the savage methods of avenging their madness. They must have a better second thought and will ultimately welcome the spirit of maintaining law and order.

With all, there is but one way to settle the race question. It must be squarely and justly met upon the uncompromising basis of right. The Negro is a human being with clearly demonstrated capabilities, and it can not be that the world's foremost nation will need to further climb the ladder of fame by keeping the foot of the strong upon the neck of the weak.

When men are possessed and led by the Gospel of Jesus Christ then will there be peace and harmony and good will among all the people. "They shall" then "neither hurt nor destroy in all" His "holy mountain;" "for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." God hasten that better day! Amen.

TOPIC IV.

SHOULD THE NEGRO BE GIVEN AN EDUCATION DIFFERENT FROM THAT GIVEN TO THE WHITES?

BY JAMES W. JOHNSON.

J. W. JOHNSON, A. B.

J. W. Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Fla., and after finishing the public schools of his native city he went to Atlanta University, from which institution he graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1894. The same year he was appointed principal of the Central Colored Grammar School, which position he now holds. In 1895 he edited and published the "Daily American," an afternoon paper. The publishing of this paper was one of the greatest and most creditable efforts in journalism ever made by any member of the race. In 1898 he was admitted to the bar, and in 1899 to the Supreme Court of Florida. In 1901 he was elected President of the Florida State Teachers' Association.

Mr. Johnson is a man of varied talents. He has a reputation as a pleasing speaker and fluent writer. He has devoted much of his time to literature, and is a contributor to the leading magazines. Mr. Johnson is a poet of more than ordinary talent and ability, and is widely known as the writer of the words of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a national hymn for the Colored people of America. He is also the author of many songs and ballads, and also of the lyrics of two comic operas.

In answering the question involved in the above subject it becomes necessary to define the word "education"; for the term, "education given to the whites," is too loose and broad to be easily or logically handled. If the word is used in its ordinary sense, then it embraces every known form of education, from instruction in the elementary English branches on up through to instruction in the most abstruse sciences; and I can see no reason why the blacks should not receive the same instruction as the corresponding class among the whites. Mark you, I say, as the corresponding class among the whites.

If by the term, "education given to the whites," is meant higher education as opposed to industrial training, the question can not be answered in the form in which it is stated; for there is no "the Negroes" in the unit sense. Since its freedom the colored race has classified itself into almost as many grades, as regards ability and capacity, as there are to be found among the whites; it is, therefore, no longer possible to speak of "the Negroes," meaning that they are all upon the same mental and moral plain. It is as absurd to say that every Negro should be made to receive an industrial training as it is to say that every Negro should be given a college education.

The question of higher education or industrial training is one that depends entirely upon the individual; and there should be no limit placed upon the individual's right of development. I think it a great folly to educate a colored man beyond his capacity; I think it an equally great folly to so educate a white man.

It is needless, and not within the limits of the subject, for me to make any defense of higher education for Negroes; but, I do say that every man, be he black or white, should be allowed to make the most of all of his powers, his possibilities, and his opportunities. I recognize the fact that the great majority of Negroes must, and, I hope, will be engaged in agriculture and the trades; that is true of every race; but there is, and ought to be, no power to say that this or that individual in any grade of society shall not break through his environments, and rise above his conditions. And I think it safe to say that the proportion of colored men and women who have been given an education beyond their capacity for receiving and using, is very little larger than the same among the whites; and, in the years to come, as the race shall more and more fit itself to the grinding process which it takes to turn out a people, that proportion will become less and less, and each individual will settle to his level, or rise triumphant over obstacles and circumstances to the place for which his ability and aspirations fit him.

But let us consider our subject in a deeper sense; if by education is meant that training, those influences by which the habits, the character, the thoughts, and the ideals of a people are formed and developed, then, the answer hinges upon the answer to another question: Is the Negro to remain in this country a separate and distinct race, or is he to become one of the elements in the future composite American?

If, as some claim, the Negro is to remain in this country a separate and distinct race, then, in this deeper sense of the word, he should receive an education different from that given to the whites.

Because the Negro and the white race, although they have the same inherent powers, possess widely different characteristics. There are some things which the white race can do better than the Negro, and there are some things which the Negro can do better than the white race. This is no disparagement to either. It is no fault of the Negro that he has not that daring and restless spirit, that desire for founding new empires, that craving for power over weaker races, which makes the white race a pioneer; neither is it the fault of the white race that it has not that buoyancy of spirit, that cheerful patience, that music in the soul, that faith in a Higher Power, which supports the Negro under hardships that would crush or make pessimists of almost any other race on earth.

There have been given to each race certain talents, and for them each will be held accountable, and rewarded accordingly as they shall use them. Two boys in the same family may be gifted differently, one with an artistic, the other with a scientific, turn of mind; both cannot become artists, nor both scientists, yet they may each become equally great in their respective spheres. It is for the Negro to find out his own best and strongest powers, and make the most of them. He cannot by merely imitating the white man arrive at his fullest and truest racial development. He cannot and will not, as an absolutely distinct race, evolve, along the same lines, the identical civilization of the white race, but who shall say that along his own lines he may not evolve one equally as glorious and grand?

It is true, situated as he is among the most advanced people of the world in the very height of their power, with almost all of the ideals before him belonging to that people, the American Negro is greatly handicapped in distinct racial development; but the task is, perhaps, not an impossible one. Some of the most accessible means have not yet been fully employed; for instance, the race has never been made entirely familiar with the deeds and thoughts of the few men of mark it has already produced. In this deeper sense of education the knowing of one Crispus Attucks is worth more to the race than the knowing of one George Washington; and the knowing of one Dunbar is worth more than the knowing of all the Longfellows that America will ever produce.

If the Negro is to remain in this country a separate and distinct race, and is, as such, to reach the highest development of his powers, he ought to be given an education different from that given to the whites; in that, in addition to whatever other instruction he may receive, those virtuous traits and characteristics which are peculiarly his should be developed to the highest degree possible.

If, on the other hand, he is to become, in time, one of the elements in the future American race--and this seems the more plausible answer to the question--his education ought to be purely American and not in any special way Negro.

History affords no precedent of two races, distinct yet equally powerful, living together in harmony; one has always reduced to a secondary position or destroyed the other, or the two have united. So it will be a question, if the Negro succeeds in making himself the equal of the white man in intellectual attainment, wealth, and power, whether or not what is now antipathy between the two races will develop into outright antagonism; and if we are to judge from human experience through all the past we must say that it will. If the Negro shall succeed in making a new record in history so well and so good; but if he is to follow the precedents of the past, it will be a far nobler destiny for him to become an integral part of the future American type than to drop into an acknowledged and permanent secondary position.

And may it not be in the great plan of Providence that the Negro shall supply in the future American race the very elements that it shall lack and require to make it the most perfect race the world shall have seen?