Chapter D: Webster Davis (15)

But spread of intelligence alone will not solve the Negro problem. If this problem is largely a question of ignorance, it is also scarcely less a problem of poverty. If Negroes are to assume the responsibility of raising the standards of living among themselves, the power of intelligent work and leadership toward proper industrial ideals must be placed in their hands. Economic efficiency depends on intelligence, skill and thrift. The public school system is designed to furnish the necessary intelligence for the ordinary worker, the secondary school for the more gifted workers, and the college for the exceptional few. Technical knowledge and manual dexterity in learning branches of the world's work are taught by industrial and trade schools, and such schools are of prime importance in the training of colored children. Trade-teaching can not be effectively combined with the work of the common schools because the primary curriculum is already too crowded, and thorough common-school training should precede trade-teaching. It is, however, quite possible to combine some of the work of the secondary schools with purely technical training, the necessary limitations being matters of time and cost: _e. g._, the question whether the boy can afford to stay in school long enough to add parts of a high-school course to the trade course, and particularly the question whether the school can afford or ought to afford to give trade training to high-school students who do not intend to become artisans. A system of trade-schools, therefore, supported by State and private aid, should be added to the secondary school system.

An industrial school, however, does not merely teach technique. It is also a school--a center of moral influence and of mental discipline. As such it has peculiar problems in securing the proper teaching force. It demands broadly trained men: the teacher of carpentry must be more than a carpenter, and the teacher of the domestic arts more than a cook; for such teachers must instruct, not simply in manual dexterity, but in mental quickness and moral habits. In other words, they must be teachers as well as artisans. It thus happens that college-bred men and men from other higher schools have always been in demand in technical schools. If the college graduates were to-day withdrawn from the teaching force of the chief Negro industrial schools, nearly every one of them would have to close its doors. These facts are forgotten by such advocates of industrial training as oppose the higher schools. Strong as the argument for industrial schools is--and its strength is undeniable--its cogency simply increases the urgency of the plea for higher training-schools and colleges to furnish broadly educated teachers.

But intelligence and skill alone will not solve the Southern problem of poverty. With these must go that combination of homely habits and virtues which we may loosely call thrift. Something of thrift may be taught in school, more must be taught at home; but both these agencies are helpless when organized economic society denies to workers the just rewards of thrift and efficiency. And this has been true of black laborers in the South from the time of slavery down through the scandal of the Freedmen's Bank to the peonage and crop-lien system of to-day. If the Southern Negro is shiftless, it is primarily because over large areas a shiftless Negro can get on in the world about as well as an industrious black man. This is not universally true in the South, but it is true to so large an extent as to discourage striving in precisely that class of Negroes who most need encouragement. What is the remedy? Intelligence--not simply the ability to read and write or to sew--but the intelligence of a society permeated by that larger vision of life and broader tolerance which are fostered by the college and university. Not that all men must be college-bred, but that some men, black and white, must be, to leaven the ideals of the lump. Can any serious student of the economic South doubt that this to-day is her crying need?

Ignorance and poverty are the vastest of the Negro problems. But to these later years have added a third--the problem of Negro crime. That a great problem of social morality must have become eventually the central problem of emancipation is as clear as day to any student of history. In its grosser form as a problem of serious crime it is already upon us. Of course it is false and silly to represent that white women in the South are in daily danger of black assaulters. On the contrary, white womanhood in the South is absolutely safe in the hands of ninety-five per cent. of the black men--ten times safer than black womanhood is in the hands of white men. Nevertheless, there is a large and dangerous class of Negro criminals, paupers, and outcasts. The existence and growth of such a class far from causing surprise, should be recognized as the natural result of that social disease called the Negro problem; nearly every untoward circumstance known to human experience has united to increase Negro crime: the slavery of the past, the sudden emancipation, the narrowing of economic opportunity, the lawless environment of wide regions, the stifling of natural ambition, the curtailment of political privilege, the disregard of the sanctity of black men's homes, and, above all, a system of treatment for criminals calculated to breed crime far faster than all other available agencies could repress it. Such a combination of circumstances is as sure to increase the numbers of the vicious and outcast as the rain is to wet the earth. The phenomenon calls for no delicately drawn theories of race differences; it is a plain case of cause and effect.

But plain as the causes may be, the results are just as deplorable, and repeatedly to-day the criticism is made that Negroes do not recognize sufficiently their responsibility in this matter. Such critics forget how little power to-day Negroes have over their own lower classes. Before the black murderer who strikes his victim to-day, the average black man stands far more helpless than the average white, and, too, suffers ten times more from the effects of the deed. The white man has political power, accumulated wealth, and knowledge of social forces; the black man is practically disfranchised, poor, and unable to discriminate between the criminal and the martyr. The Negro needs the defense of the ballot, the conserving power of property, and, above all, the ability to cope intelligently with such vast questions of social regeneration and moral reform as confront him. If social reform among Negroes be without organization or trained leadership from within, if the administration of law is always for the avenging of the white victim and seldom for the reformation of the black criminal, if ignorant black men misunderstand the functions of government because they have had no decent instruction, and intelligent black men are denied a voice in government because they are black--under such circumstances to hold Negroes responsible for the suppression of crime among themselves is the cruelest of mockeries.

On the other hand, a sincere desire among the American people to help the Negroes undertake their own social regeneration means, first, that the Negro be given the ballot on the same terms as other men, to protect him against injustice and to safeguard his interests in the administration of law; secondly, that through education and social organization he be trained to work, and save, and earn a decent living. But these are not all: wealth is not the only thing worth accumulating; experience and knowledge can be accumulated and handed down, and no people can be truly rich without them. Can the Negro do without these? Can this training in work and thrift be truly effective without the guidance of trained intelligence and deep knowledge--without that same efficiency which has enabled modern peoples to grapple so successfully with the problems of the Submerged Tenth? There must surely be among Negro leaders the philanthropic impulse, the uprightness of character and strength of purpose, but there must be more than these; philanthropy and purpose among blacks as well as among whites must be guided and curbed by knowledge and mental discipline--knowledge of the forces of civilization that make for survival, ability to organize and guide those forces, and realization of the true meaning of those broader ideals of human betterment which may in time bring heaven and earth a little nearer. This is social power--it is gotten in many ways by experience, by social contact, by what we loosely call the chances of life. But the systematic method of acquiring and imparting it is by the training of youth to thought, power, and knowledge in the school and college. And that group of people whose mental grasp is by heredity weakest, and whose knowledge of the past is for historic reasons most imperfect, that group is the very one which needs above all, for the talented of its youth, this severe and careful course of training; especially if they are expected to take immediate part in modern competitive life, if they are to hasten the slower courses of human development, and if the responsibility for this is to be in their own hands.

Three things American slavery gave the Negro--the habit of work, the English language, and the Christian religion; but one priceless thing it debauched, destroyed, and took from him, and that was the organized home. For the sake of intelligence and thrift, for the sake of work and morality, this home-life must be restored and regenerated with newer ideals. How? The normal method would be by actual contact with a higher home-life among his neighbors, but this method the social separation of white and black precludes. A proposed method is by schools of domestic arts, but, valuable as these are, they are but subsidiary aids to the establishment of homes; for real homes are primarily centers of ideals and teaching and only incidentally centers of cooking. The restoration and raising of home ideals must, then, come from social life among Negroes themselves; and does that social life need no leadership? It needs the best possible leadership of pure hearts and trained heads, the highest leadership of carefully trained men.

Such are the arguments for the Negro college, and such is the work that Atlanta University and a few similar institutions seek to do. We believe that a rationally arranged college course of study for men and women able to pursue it is the best and only method of putting into the world Negroes with ability to use the social forces of their race so as to stamp out crime, strengthen the home, eliminate degenerates, and inspire and encourage the higher tendencies of the race not only in thought and aspiration but in every-day toil. And we believe this, not simply because we have argued that such training ought to have these effects, or merely because we hope for such results in some dim future, but because already for years we have seen in the work of our graduates precisely such results as I have mentioned: successful teachers of teachers, intelligent and upright ministers, skilled physicians, principals of industrial schools, business men, and above all, makers of model homes and leaders of social groups, out from which radiate subtle but tangible forces of uplift and inspiration. The proof of this lies scattered in every State of the South, and, above all, in the half-unwilling testimony of men disposed to decry our work.

Between the Negro college and industrial school there are the strongest grounds for co-operation and unity. It is not a matter of mere emphasis, for we would be glad to see ten industrial schools to every college. It is not a fact that there are to-day too few Negro colleges, but rather that there are too many institutions attempting to do college work. But the danger lies in the fact that the best of the Negro colleges are poorly equipped and are to-day losing support and countenance, and that, unless the nation awakens to its duty, ten years will see the annihilation of higher Negro training in the South. We need a few strong, well-equipped Negro colleges, and we need them now, not to-morrow; unless we can have them and have them decently supported, Negro education in the South, both common-school and industrial, is doomed to failure, and the forces of social regeneration will be fatally weakened, for the college to-day among Negroes is, just as truly as it was yesterday among whites, the beginning and not the end of human training, the foundation and not the cap-stone of popular education.

Strange is it not, my brothers, how often in America those great watchwords of human energy--"Be strong!" "Know thyself!" "Hitch your wagon to a star!"--how often these die away into dim whispers when we face these seething millions of black men? And yet do they not belong to them? Are they not their heritage as well as yours? Can they bear burdens without strength, know without learning, and aspire without ideals? Are you afraid to let them try? Fear rather, in this our common fatherland, lest we live to lose those great watchwords of Liberty and Opportunity which yonder in the eternal hills their fathers fought with your fathers to preserve.

INDEX

A

Abel, 377

Abolition, Abolitionists, 13, 17, 18, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 144, 145, 328, 412, 420

Abraham, 306, 373

Academy, French, 95, 294 Negro, 159

Achilles, 455

Adams, John Quincy, 116, 412, 413

Advocate, Southwestern Christian, 455

AEneid, 455

AEneas, 455

Africa, 14, 18, 26, 102, 169, 202, 220, 227, 243, 244, 245, 246, 249, 257, 258, 263, 265, 375, 376, 390, 422, 429, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, 438, 439, 463, 478, 479, 480

Africa, Central, 169, 426 East, 426 East Coast of, 426 South, 426 West, 170

African, 13, 14, 15, 26, 38, 68, 157, 158, 263, 264, 373, 422, 439, 445, 465, 468

Afro-American, 329, 464, 472

Alabama, 217, 236, 376

Alexander the Great, 330, 464

Alfred the Great, 267, 269

Allah, 381

Alvord, J. W., 384

Amazon River, 182

Amendment, 13th, 70 14th, 70, 76, 79, 468 15th, 70, 155, 310, 469

Ames, Alexander, 130

Ames, Capt., 190

A. M. E. Church, 475

America, 38, 43, 48, 102, 212, 239, 257, 268, 270, 304, 307, 313, 320, 330, 375, 378, 395, 422, 453, 494

America, South, 48

American, 36, 43, 45, 47, 97, 99, 103, 128, 129, 130, 134, 138, 144, 166, 216, 263, 266, 316, 320, 334, 365, 368, 396, 400, 401, 418, 422, 423, 446, 447, 449, 461, 462, 464, 468, 471, 484, 490

American University, 382

Anderson, Charles W., 211

Andover, 130

Andrews, Gov. John A., 196, 415

Anglo-Saxon, 85, 258, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 291, 292, 295, 335, 368, 376, 411, 443, 464, 473

Antietam, 198

Appeal, Memphis, 193

Appolodorus, 465

Appomatox, 192, 291, 330, 484

Arab, 442

Arcadia, 178, 198

Archimedes, 213

Arctic, 422

Areopagus, 383

Arkansas, 357

Arlington Heights, 133, 381

Army, American, 192, 193, 339 5th Corps, 288 United States, 277, 281

Aristotle, 365

Arnett, Bishop, 471

Arnold, Benedict, 68

Aryan, 228

Asia, 227

Athaneum Club, 263

Athens, 385, 398

Atlanta, 181, 187

Atlanta University, 494, 503

Atlantic, 348 Ocean, 466

Attucks, Crispus, 125, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 415, 469

Augusta, 193

Augustine, 116

Austrian, 279

Avalanche, Memphis, 193

B

Baal, 353

Babylon, 42

Bacon, Lord, 241, 464

Badeau, General, 192

Balaam, 354

Balak, 118

Balaklava, 291

Baltimore, 101, 391, 483

Bancroft, 421

Bangweolo, Lake, 430

Bank, Freedmen's, 251

Banks, Gen., 198

Banneker Literary Club, 125

Bannockburn, Battle of, 27

Banquo, 294

Baptist, 475, 481

Barnato, Barney, 260, 261

Bass, Harry W., 472

Baylor's Field, 192

Bayou, M., 10, 20

Beard, Gen. O. T., 197

Beatitudes, Mount of, 109

Bechauna, 245

Beck, Mr., 68

Belgium, 470

Berea College, 334

Berkshires, 414

Bethlehem, 204

Bible, 44, 364, 365, 400, 402, 435

Black Battalion, 338, 341, 342, 346

Bliss, Judge, 61

Blue Bells, 304

Blumenbach, 294

Blyden, Edward Wilmot, 263

Boker, 119

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 23, 25, 26, 29, 330, 423

Bordentown, Manual Training and Industrial School, 397

Boston, 127, 130, 131, 177, 191, 296, 305, 412, 415, 469

Boston Common, 191

Boston Council, 125

Boston Gazette, 131

Boston Suffrage League, 305

Boston Massacre, 125

British, 20, 22, 125, 127, 129, 131, 463

Brougham, Lord, 359

Boughton, Prof. J., 227

Bowen, J. W. E., 471

Boyer, 16

Brown, John, 307, 346

Browning, Robert, 399

Brownsville, Pa., 461

Brownsville, Texas, 338, 345

Bruce, Robert, 27

Bruce, B. K., 471

Brutus, 436

Bryant, 118

Buchanan, James, 147

Bull Run, 198

Bunker Hill, 128, 130, 189, 291, 297, 298, 412, 415

Burke, Edmund, 118, 344

Burlingame, Anson, 128

Burmah, 202

Burns, Robert, 338

Burton, 168

Butler, Gen. B. F., 187, 193

Byron, 438