internal development, without extraneous assistance, Japan has reached a degree of self-reliance, of self-control, of social organization, of respectable civilization, far beyond what our African citizens have attained under physical, civic, and religious conditions by no means unfavorable. It is true that Japan for a long time had a separate nationality, while the freedmen have been dependent wards, but the Oriental nation, without the great ethical and pervasive and ennobling and energizing influence of Christianity (for the propagandism of the daring Jesuit missionaries of the sixteenth century has been effaced) has recorded her ascents by monuments of social life and dramatic events in history. Her mental culture and habits and marvelous military success are witnesses of her progress and power. We have been accustomed to think of the whole Orient, that "fifty years of Europe were better than a cycle of Cathay," but within a quarter of a century Japan has transformed social usages and manners, arts and mauufactures, and in 1889, when we were celebrating the centennial of our Constitution, she adopted a constitution, with a limited monarchy and parliamentary institutions.

Mnch of the aid lavished upon the negro has been misapplied charity and, like much other almsgiving, hurtful to the recipient. Northern philanthropy, "disas trously kind," has often responded with liberality to appeals worse than worthless. Vagabond mendicants have been pampered; schools which were established without any serious need of them have been helped; public-school systems upon which the great mass of children, white and colored, must rely for their education have been underrated and injured, and schools of real merit, and doing good work, which deserve confidence and contributions have had assistance legitimately their due diverted into improper channels. Reluctantly and by constraint of conscience this matter is mentioned, and this voice of protest and warning raised. Dr. A. D. Mayo, of Boston, an astute and thoughtful observer, a tried friend of the black man, an eloquent advocate of his elevation, who for fifteen years has traversed the South in the interests of universal education, than whom no one has a better acquaintance with the schools of that section, bears cogent and trustworty testimony to which I give my emphatic endorsement:

"It is high time that our heedless, undiscriminating, all-out-doors habit of giving money and supplies to the great invading army of Southern solicitors should come to an end. Whatever of good has come from it is of the same nature as the habit of miscellaneous almsgiving which our system of associated charities is everywhere working to break up. It is high time that we understood that the one agency on which the negroes and nine-tenths of the white people in the South must rely for elementary instruction and training is the American common school. The attempt to educate 2,000,000 colored and 3,000,000 white American children in the South by passing around the hat in the North; sending driblets of money and barrels of supplies to encourage anybody and everybody to open a little useless private school; to draw on our Protestant Sunday schools in the North to build up among these people the church parochial system of elementary schools which the clergy of these churches are denouncing-all this and a great deal more that is still going on among us, with, of course, the usual exceptions, has had its day and done its work. The only reliable method of directly helping the elementary department of Southern education is that our churches and benevolent people put themselves in touch with the common-school authorities in all the dark places, urging even their poorer people to do more, as they can do more, than at present. The thousand dollars from Boston that keeps alive a little private or denominational school in a Southern neighborhood, if properly applied, would give two additional months, better teaching and better housing to all the children, and unite their people as in no other way. Let the great Northern schools in the South established for the negroes be reasonably endowed, and worked in cooperation with the public-school system of the State, with the idea that in due time they will all pass into the hands of the Southern people, each dependent on its own constituency for its permanent support. I believe in many instances it would be the best policy to endow or aid Southern schools that have grown up at home and have established themselves in the confidence of the people. While more money should every year be given in the North for Southern education, it should not be scattered abroad, but concentrated on strategic points for the uplifting of both races."

After the facts, hard, stubborn, unimpeachable, regretable, which have been given, we may well inquire whether much hasty action has not prevailed in assigning to the negro an educational position, which ancient and modern history does not warrant. The partition of the continent of Africa by and among European nations can hardly be ascribed solely to a lust for territorial aggrandizement. The energetic races of the North begin to realize that the tropical countries-the food and the material producing regions of the earth-can not, for all time to come, be left to the unprogressive, uncivilized colored race, deficient in the qualities necessary to the development of the rich resources of the lands they possess. The strong powers seem unwilling to tolerate the wasting of the resources of the most fertile regions through the apparent impossibility, by the race in possession, of acquiring the qualities of

efficiency which exist elsewhere. The experiment of the Congo Free State, one of the richest and most valuable tracts in Africa, established and fostered under propitious circumstances by the King of Belgium, seems likely to be a barren failure and to prove that African colonization is not a practicable scheme, without State subvention, or the strong, overmastering hand of some superior race. It requires no superior insight to discover that human evolution has come from the energy, thrift, discipline, social and political efficiency of peoples whose power is not the result of varying circumstances, "of the cosmic order of things which we have no power to control." The negro occupies an incongruous position in our country. Under military necessity slaves were emancipated, and all true Americans accept the jubilant eulogium of the poet, when he declares our country

A later Eden planted in the wilds,

With not an inch of earth within its bounds
But if a slave's foot press, it sets him free.

Partisanship and an altruistic sentiment led to favoritism, to civic equality, and to bringing the negroes, for the first time in their history and without any previous preparation, "into the rivalry of life on an equal footing of opportunity." The whole country has suffered in its material development from the hazardous experiment. The South, as a constituent portion of the Union, is a diseased limb on the body, is largely uncultivated, neglected, unproductive. Farming, with the low prices of products, yields little remunerative return on labor or money invested, and, except in narrow localities and where "trucking" obtains, is not improving agriculturally, or, if so, too slowly and locally to awaken any hopes of early or great recovery. Crippled, disheartened by the presence of a people not much inferior in numbers, of equal civil rights, and slowly capable of equal mental development or of taking on the habits of advanced civilization, the white people of the South are deprived of any considerable increase of numbers from immigration and any large demand for small freeholds, and are largely dependent on ignorant, undisciplined, uninventive, inefficient, unambitious labor. Intercourse between the Slavs and the tribes of the Ural-Altaic stock, fusion of ethnic elements, has not resulted in deterioration, but has produced an apparently homogeneous people, possessing a common consciousness. That the two diverse races now in the South can ever perfectly harmonize while occupying the same territory no one competent to form an opinion believes. Mr. Bryce concludes that the negro will stay socially distinct, as an alien element, unabsorbed and unabsorbable. That the presence in the same country of two distinctly marked races, having the same rights and privileges, of unequal capacities of development-one long habitated to servitude, deprived of all power of initiative, of all high ideal, without patriotism beyond a mere weak attachment-is a blessing is too absurd a proposition for serious consideration. Whether the great resources of the South are not destined, under existing conditions, to remain only partially developed, and whether agriculture is not doomed to barrenness of results, are economic and political questions alien to this discussion. As trustees of the Slater fund, we are confined to the duty of educating the lately emancipated race. In Occasional Papers, No. 3 (see p. 1374), the history of education since 1860, as derived from the most authentic sources, is presented with care and fullness."The great work of educating the negroes is carried on mainly by the public schools of the Southern States, supported by funds raised by public taxation, and managed and controlled by public school officers. The work is too great to be attempted by any other agency, unless by the National Government; the field is too extensive, the officers too numerous, the cost too burdensome." (Bureau of Education Report, 1891-92, p. 867.) The American Congress refused aid, and upon the impoverished South the burden and the duty were devolved. Bravely and with heroic self-sacrifice have they sought to fulfill the obligation.

In the distribution of public revenues, in the building of asylums, in provision for public education, no discrimination has been made against the colored people. The law of Georgia of October, 1870, establishing a public school system, expressly states that both races shall have equal privileges. The school system of Texas, begun under its present form in 1876, provides "absolutely equal privileges to both

Since this paper was prepared, Bishop Turner, of Georgia, a colored preacher of intelligence and respectability, in a letter from Liberia, May 11, 1895, advises the reopening of the African slave trade and says that, as a result of such enslavement for a term of years by a civilized race, millions and millions of Africans, who are now running around in a state of nudity, fighting, necromancing, masquerading, and doing everything that God disapproves of, would be working and benefiting the world. Equally curious and absurd is the conclusion of the editor of the Globe Quarterly Review (July, 1895, New York), a Northern man, that nothing but some sort of reenslavement can make the negro work, therefore he must be reenslaved, or driven from the land." Could anything be more surprising than these utterances by a former slave and by an abolitionist, or show more clearly "the difficulties, complications, and limitations" which environ the task and the duty of "uplifting the lately emancipated race?"

The last assessment of property in Virginia, 1895, shows a decrease of $8,133,374 from last year's

valuation.

white and colored children." In Florida, under the constitution of 1868 and the law of 1877, both races share equally in the school benefits. Several laws of Arkansas provide for a school system of equal privileges to both races. Under the school system of North Carolina there is no discrimination for or against either race. The school system of Louisiana was fairly started only after the adoption of the constitution of 1879, and equal privileges are granted to white and colored children. Since 1883 equal privileges are granted in Kentucky. The school system of West Virginia grants equal rights to the two races. The system in Mississippi was put in operation in 1871 and grants to both races "equal privileges and school facilities." The same exact and liberal justice obtains in Virginia, Alabama, and Tennessee. In 1893-94 there were 2,702,410 negro children of school age-from 5 to 18 yearsof whom 52.72 per cent, or 1,424,710, were enrolled as pupils. Excluding Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, the receipts from State and local taxation for schools in the South were $14,397,569. It should be borne in mind that there are fewer taxpayers in the South, in proportion to population generally and to school population espe cially, than in any other part of the United States. In the South Central States there are only 65.9 adult males to 100 children, while in the Western Division there are 156.7. In South Carolina, 37 out of every 100 are of school age; in Montana, only 18 out of 100. Consider also that in the South a large proportion of the comparatively few adults are negroes with a minimum of property. Consider, further, that the number of adult males to each 100 children in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut is twice as great as in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. In view of such and other equally surprising facts, it is a matter of national satisfaction that free education has made such progress in the South. (Bureau of Education Report, 1890-91, pp. 5, 19, 21, 24.)

It is lamentable, after all the provision which has been made, that the schools are kept open for such a short period, that so many teachers are incompetent, and that such a small proportion of persons of school age attend the schools. This does not apply solely to the colored children or to the Southern States. For the whole country the average number of days attended is only 89 for each pupil, when the proper school year should count about 200. While the enrollment and average attendance have increased, "what the people get on an average is about one-half an elementary education, and no State is now giving an education in all its schools that is equal to seven years per inhabitant for the rising generation. Some States are giving less than three years of 200 days each." (Annual Statement of Commissioner of Educa tion for 1894, p. 18.) It is an obligation of patriotism to support and improve these State-managed schools, because they are among the best teachers of the duties of citizenship and the most potent agency for molding and unifying and binding heterogeneous elements of nationality into compactness, unity, and homogeneity. We must keep them efficient if we wish them to retain public confidence.

In No. 3 of Occasional Papers (see page 1379) is described what has been undertaken and accomplished by different religious denominations. The information was furnished by themselves, and full credit was given for their patriotic and Christian work. These schools are of higher grades in name and general purpose and instruction than the public schools, but unfortunately most of them are handicapped by high-sounding and deceptive names and impossible course of study. There are 25 nominal "universities" and "colleges," which embrace primary, secondary, normal, and professional grades of instruction. These report, as engaged in "collegiate studies, about 1,000 students. The work done is in some instances excellent; in other cases it is as defective as one could well imagine it to be. This misfortune is not confined to colored schools. The last accessible report from the Bureau of Education gives 22 schools of theology and 5 each of schools of law and of medicine, and in the study of law and medicine there has in the last few years been a rapid increase of students.

A noticeable feature of the schools organized by religions associations is the provision made for industrial education. In the special colored schools established or aided by the State of higher order than the public schools, such as those in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, manual training is required for both sexes. As few white schools of the South are provided with this necessary adjunct of education, it would be unjust to criticise too severely what is being done along industrial lines in colored schools. It is rather a matter for rejoicing that the schools have even been started in this most hopeful direction, and especially as the long-wished-for industrial development seems to be dawning on the South. Whatever may be our speculative opinions as to the progress and development of which the negro may be ultimately capable, there can hardly be a well-grounded opposition to the opinion that the hope for the race in the South is to be found not so much in the high courses of university instruction or in schools of technology as in handicraft instruction. This instruction, by whatever name called, encourages us in its results to continued and liberal effort. What such schools as Hampton, the Spelman, Claflin, Tuskegee, Toug aloo, and others have done is the demonstration of the feasibility and the value of

1

industrial and mechanical training. The general instruction heretofore given in the schools, it is feared, has been too exclusively intellectual, too little of that kind which produces intelligent and skilled workmen, and therefore not thoroughly adapted to racial development nor to fitting for the practical duties of life. Perhaps it has not been philosophical nor practical, but too empirical and illusory in fitting a man for" the conditions in which he will be compelled to earn his livelihood and unfold his possibilities." The effort has been to fit an adult's clothing to a child, to take the highest courses of instruction and apply them to untutored minds. Misguided statesmanship and philanthropy have opened "high schools and universities and offered courses in Greek and Latin and Hebrew, in theology and philosophy, to those who need the rudiments of education and instruction in handicraft." This industrial training is a helpful accompaniment to mental training, and both should be based on strong moral character. It has been charged that the negroes have had too strong an inclination to become preachers or teachers, but this may be in part due to the fact that their education has been ill adjusted to their needs and surroundings, and that when the pupils leave school they do so without having been prepared for the competition which awaits them in the struggle for a higher life.

Whatever may be the discouragements and difficulties and however insufficient may be the school attendance, it is a cheering fact that the schools for the negroes do not encounter the prejudices which were too common a few years ago. In fact, there may almost be said to be coming a time when soon there will be a sustaining public opinion. The struggle of man to throw off fetters and rise into true manhood and save souls from bondage is a most instructive and thrilling spectacle, awakening sympathetic enthusiasm on the part of all who love what is noble. *** Having gathered testimony from many of the leading colored schools of the Sonth in answer to these direct questions, "Is there any opposition from the white race to your work in educating the negroes? If so, does that opposition imperil person or property?" I group it into a condensed statement:

1. CONGREGATIONALISTS.

*

Storrs School, Atlanta, says: "There is no aggressive opposition to our work among the negroes." Fisk University, Nashville: "There is no special manifestation of open opposition to our work on the part of the white people; indeed, the better citizens have a good degree of sympathy with our work and take a genuine pride in the university," Talladega College, Alabama: "I do not know of any opposition from the white race to our work. We have more opposition from the very people for whom we are especially laboring than from the other race." By act of incorporation, February 28, 1880, the college may hold, purchase, dispose of, and convey property to such an amount as the business of the college requires, and so long as the property, real or personal, is used for purposes of education it is exempt from taxation of any kind. Knoxville College: "No opposition from the white race disturbs us." Beach Institute, Savannah, Ga.: "There seems to be here no active opposition to our work in educating the negroes." Straight University, New Orleans: There is no opposition from the white race." Ballard Normal School, Macon, Ga.: "We meet now with no opposition from the whites."

2. METHODISTS.

From Philander Smith College, Little Rock, Ark.: "No opposition that amounts to anything." Cookman Institute, Jacksonville, Fla.: "There is no active opposition from the white race to our work, as far as I know." Claflin University, Orangeburg, S. C.: "There is no opposition to it on the part of the white race." Central Tennessee College, Nashville, Tenn.: "On the part of the intelligent whites there is none; on the contrary, they have nearly always spoken well of it and seem to rejoice that their former slaves and their children are being educated. Having been here over twenty-seven years, I feel quite safe." Bennett College, Greensboro, N. C., gives an emphatic negative to both questions. New Orleans University: "No opposition from white people to our work.”

3. PRESBYTERIANS.

From Biddle University, Charlotte, N. C.; "No opposition from the white race; on the contrary, very pleasant neighbors."

Principal Washington, of Tuskegee Institute, as the representative of his race, made an address at the opening of the great Atlanta Exposition which elicited high commendation from President Cleveland and the press of the country for its practical wisdom and its broad, catholic, and patriotic sentiments. The Negro Building, with its interesting exhibits, shows what progress has been made by the race in thirty years and excites strong hopes for the future. The special work displayed by the schools of Hampton and Tuskegee received honorable recognition from the jury of awards.

4. BAPTISTS.

Bishop College, Marshall, Tex.: "We have experienced opposition from certain classes of white people to the extent of threats and assaults, yet such have come from those who were entirely unacquainted with the real work being done, and I think that now sentiment is changing." Leland University, New Orleans, La.: "There is not to my knowledge, nor ever has been since I came in 1887, any opposition from the white race to our work." Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Ga.: "We are not aware of any opposition from the white race to our work." Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C.: "It gives us pleasure to say the feeling for our work among the whites seems of the kindest nature and everything is helpful." Roger Williams University, Nashville, Tenn.: "No opposition meets us from any sources; on the contrary we are generally treated with entire courtesy." Selma University, Alabama: "There is no opposition to our work from the white race. So far as I know they wish us success.'

5. NONDENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS.

Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Alabama; "I am glad to state that there is practically no opposition on the part of the whites to our work; on the contrary, there are many evidences of their hearty approval." Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute, Virginia: "This school meets no opposition to the work from the white race, and, with occasional individual exceptions, has never met any, but receives for itself and its graduate teachers a great amount of practical sympathy, and is glad of this and every opportunity to acknowledge it."

CONCLUSIONS.

I. It follows that in addition to thorough and intelligent training in the discipline of character and virtue, there shouid be given rigid and continuous attention to domestic and social life, to the refinements and comforts and economies of home. II. Taught in the economies of wise consumption, the race should be trained to acquire habits of thrift, of saving earnings, of avoiding waste, of accumulating property, of having a stake in good government, in progressive civilization.

III. Besides the rudiments of a good and useful education there is imperative need of manual training, of the proper cultivation of those faculties or mental qualities of observation, of aiming at and reaching a successful end, and of such facility and skill in tools, in practical industries, as will insure remunerative employment and give the power which comes from intelligent work.

IV. Clearer and juster ideas of education, moral and intellectual, obtained in cleaner home life and through respected and capable teachers in schools and churches. Ultimate and only sure reliance for the education of the race is to be found in the public schools, organized, controlled, and liberally supported by the State.

V. Between the races occupying the same territory, possessing under the law equal civil rights and privileges, speculative and unattainable standards should be avoided, and questions should be met as they arise, not by Utopian and partial solutions, but by the impartial application of the tests of justice, right, honor, humanity, and Christianity.

II.

EDUCATION OF THE NEGROES SINCE 1860.

[By J. L. M. Curry, LL. D., secretary of the trustees of the John F. Slater fund.]

INTRODUCTION.

The purpose of this paper is to put into permanent form a narrative of what has been done at the South for the education of the negro since 1860. The historical and statistical details may seem dry and uninteresting, but we can understand the sig nificance of this unprecedented educational movement only by a study of its beginnings and of the difficulties which had to bo overcome. The present generation, near as it is to the genesis of the work, can not appreciate its magnitude, nor the greatness of the victory which has been achieved, without a knowledge of the facts which this recital gives in connected order. The knowledge is needful, also, for a comprehension of the future possible scope and kind of education to be given to the AfroAmerican race. In the field of education we shall be unwise not to reckon with such forces as custom, physical constitution, heredity, racial characteristics and possibilities, and not to remember that these and other causes may determine the limitations under which we must act. The education of this people has a far-reaching and complicated connection with their destiny, with our institutions, and possibly with the Dark Continent, which may assume an importance akin, if not superior, to what it