education may be exaggerated or misconstrued and the race be put in the light of aspiring to nothing more than to be successful 'hewers of wood and drawers of water.'

"If we are left to carve our own future, unhampered by negative laws and influences, I have hope in our own powers of development, but I fear the things that may discourage us."

"The fittest will survive; the public schools and the graveyard will ultimately bring things right."

"I am: but the difficulties seem to increase with progress. I am in favor of industrial education, but not to take the place of higher education."

“I am hopeful of the negro's future. Organized support should be given for the education of negroes of superior mental ability at the best universities in this country. The best among us must be fully developed and the worst truly saved.”

"I am hopeful of our future. But inequality of wages and expenses is greatly hindering our progress in almost every way. Far more of our troubles are to be attributed to this than one would suppose.'

"History shows that the negro of America is treated better than the peasants of the past were treated, though they were of the same race as were their masters."

"I have, and my hopes are based on the equality of the work that is being done in Fisk, Atlanta, Wilberforce, Central, Howard, Tuskegee, and like institutions. Surely the catalogues of higher instruction are sufficient to inspire hope when one sees the vast amount of work accomplished by their army of graduates. I suggest that each negro principal of public school should be the representative of some standard negro publication; should endeavor to create an interest in race literature. Each teacher should take at least a half hour each week talking of representative colored men and women and what they have accomplished; should teach race history in conjunction with United States history, from the battle of Lexington to the storming of San Juan Hill."

"It will require an age to cement the negroes together. Intelligence, virtue, industry will join education and work; all kinds of education, from kindergarten to the university, and all kinds of work, from the plow to the telescope. The young negro must be put to work in order to save virtue, keep out of crime, and lay the foundation for a mighty race."

"To the extent that he is willing to distill his life's blood into his chosen work, I am. Let him find out what he can do well, and do that thing with all his might. If in any case his legs fail him, let him learn to fight on his knees.'"'

"Yes, and no. Materially and financially, yes. For us as a people who may hope to win an equal respect and consideration for our manhood from the dominant race, I am afraid the situation is hopeless."

"The fault is not in our stars, dear brothers, but in ourselves."

"We need better primary schools, more teaching force, and longer terms in the rural districts."

"The Northern negro, as I see him, lacks earnestness of purpose, is too easily satisfied, lives too easy, does not appreciate the value of character, and too often does not know what it is. Lives too much in the present, thinks not of to-morrow." "We should never forget that the world belongs to him who will take it."

"I am hopeful for the future of the negro to a certain extent. The masses in the rural districts must be looked after more than they are. Earnest, educated men and women must go among these people to live and work."

"I am sorry to say that the evidence of our hope is not as substantial as I would like it to be."

"The hope of the masses of the negroes will be, in my opinion, in industrial education."

"I regard the future of the negro in this country as assured. He will never encounter absolutely insurmountable barriers to his really essential progress. Men are ashained to be quoted as opposing him in that direction. The wrongs done

him in the name of resisting his criminal tendency will operate only to spur him to better things, and those who interpose to hinder him here will suffer permanent moral deterioration and decay."

"While I favor industrial schools, there never was a time, in my opinion, when there was a greater need of college-bred negroes than there is to-day. There will never be too many, the road is too long and rough for too many ever to reach the end. Our race needs college-bred men just as badly as do the whites; in fact, we need them more."

"It does seem to me notwithstanding the criticisms from without and the constant complaining within that the race is progressing."

"I would suggest that each put forth effort to have a greater number of collegebred men and women. We need them as leaders. Our race has and is furnishing plenty of muscle, but we need more brain.“

"The responsibility of this age is upon the negro to educate the white man out of his prejudice. It is our condition rather than color that is our great drawback. When we want a special car, put up the money and we get it. If we owned railroad stock we could help make the rules that govern the company. If we had the controlling amount of stock we could have our conductors.

"I am optimistic in spite of the lowering clouds. We have but recently burst from the storm and are not far enough away from it to become settled. I believe this to be the Sturm und Drang' period of the negro's existence. I am aware of the strong arguments against such a position, but in the light of the teaching of history there must be, there is, a turning point down near the gates of despair; where once the opposing currents are mastered brighter and better conditions must arise. A better understanding, and the practical application of the laws of chastity, morality, Christianity; an ever increasing acquisition of wealth and practical intelligence; the adoption of principles of courageous manhood; the wholesale banishment of buffoonery and instability; a closer study of those elements that have made the Anglo-Saxon great, and a strong pull, a long pull, and a pull individually and collectively toward the acquisition of the same traits, seem to me to be a few of the essential things that may possibly level our barriers."

"(a) In spite of the present disquieting conditions I am inclined to feel hopeful for the following reasons:

"1. The difficulties that now confront the negro will serve to awaken his dormant energies, and in proportion as he applies himself to master these difficulties will he be developing his manhood. I notice that where the negro is most oppressed there he is most prosperous. For this reason I have always held that the salvation of the race is to be worked out in the South.

2. I feel in what the negro has achieved since emancipation the promise of what he will achieve in the future. His power and resources have increased considerably in these thirty-five years.

3. I perceive in the negro elements of character which are his saving virtues. He is ambitious, irrepressible, patient, and possessed of marvelous powers of endurance. He aspires to be something else than what he is, and will strive for it. If he is kept back he will still look at the object, bide his time, and seize the opportunity when the chance invites.

4. I believe that humanity, respect for law, and love of justice, which are such conspicuous qualities of the heart of the Anglo-Saxon-the dominant race of this country-will some day reach out and embrace the negro in America as it has his brother in Cuba and his cousin in the Philippine Islands.

5. I have strong faith in the irresistible power of the Christian religion to bring those under its influence to accept the doctrine of the brotherhood of man and to live up to its obligations.

(b) As the conditions of American life demand that the negro shall take an active part in bringing about a change for the better in his situation, there are some things which should engage his most earnest endeavor. I venture to suggest those that now occur to me:

"1. To try and make himself a necessity. Whatsoever his hands find to do he must do it so well that his services will be indispensable. And he should strive to be a producer as well as a consumer. In order to gain this position let him follow the example of his prosperous Anglo-Saxon brother, namely, of cultivating and applying the resources of his intellect. To this end an opportunity could be afforded by means of the university-extension system, adapted to the peculiar needs and circumstances of the race. The plan should provide for night schools, in which

professional men and women can, in their own communities, give their service freely or for a small remuneration.

2. The practice of thrift and frugality.

"3. The establishing of real unity and cooperation of the race.

“4. The making the best use of the opportunities which are at hand.”

IS THE COLLEGE TRAINING OF NEGROES NECESSARY?

A few opinions of prominent men in answer to this query are subjoined. They are partly in answer to a circular letter sent to a few college presidents:

I have never lived South, and my opinion on the question you ask is not very valuable. It is, in a word, this, that Mr. Warner's contention is right for most members of the race, but that the way should be kept as wide open as possible for gifted men like Booker Washington, and many others to have every opportunity that any of the Northern or other colleges can afford. I am, very truly, yours,

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DECEMBER 10, 1900.

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G. STANLEY HALL, President of Clark University.

I believe not only in common-school and industrial education for the negroes of the South, but also in their higher education. The higher education is necessary to maintain the standards of the lower.

Yours, truly,

DECEMBER 11, 1900.

GEORGE E. MACLEAN, President of the State University of Iowa.

I believe fully in the higher education of every man and woman whose character and ability is such as to make such training possible. There are relatively fewer of such persons among the negroes than among the Anglo-Saxons, but for all of these the higher training is just as necessary and just as effective as for anyone else.

For the great body of the negroes the industrial and moral training already so well given in certain schools seems to me to offer the greatest hope for the future. Very truly, yours,

DECEMBER 14, 1900.

DAVID S. JORDAN, President of Leland Stanford Junior University.

Your circular of December 8 comes duly to hand. In response I would say that in my judgment no race or color is entitled to monopolize the benefits of the higher education. If any race is entitled to be specially favored in this respect I should say it is the one that has by the agency of others been longest deprived thereof. The above you are at liberty to present as my sentiments.

Yours, cordially,

DECEMBER 13, 1900.

WM. F. WARREN, President of Boston University.

In reply to your request of December 5, I would say that it seems to me that the collegiate or higher education is not a special favor to be granted to men on the ground of race, family, or any such minor consideration. The only condition for the receiving of a college education should be the ability to appreciate and to use it. Human nature is substantially the same everywhere. It should be the glory of our country to afford to all her young men and women who crave the broadest culture and who have the spirit and ability to acquire it, the amplest opportunity for development. Looking at it more specifically, I can see that the general uplifting of our negro population requires a proper percentage of college-bred negro leaders.

Yours, sincerely,

DECEMBER 17, 1900.

GEORGE C. CHASE, President of Bates College.

You ask for my opinion in regard to the desirableness of higher training for the negroes. Let me begin my statement by saying that I have the utmost faith in the management of the Atlanta University and several other institutions for the training of negroes in the South. I will, however, candidly say that in my judg ment there are a great many of the negroes whom it is not worth while to guide through a course of university training. I think that is true also of the white race, but in the present condition it is peculiarly true with regard to colored people. My idea would be that all the training that the colored man is capable of thoroughly mastering should be given him, but that in the higher departments of learning, like political economy and history, the ancient classics and the natural sciences, only selected men should be given the fullest opportunities. I have the strongest confidence that such training as is given at Hampton and at Tuskegee, largely manual and industrial, is of the greatest importance for the negroes and is to be the means of fitting the race a generation or two hence to enter more fully into the more abstract and philosophical studies. I do not know that I have made myself perfectly clear, but in a general way I should say the multiplication of universities of the higher sort is not desirable in comparison with the multiplication of training schools for all the trades and manual activities. With best wishes, very sincerely, yours,

DECEMBER 12, 1900.

FRANKLIN CARTER, President of Williams College.

Teachers and leaders need more than a common school education. This is as true of negroes as of whites.

Where shall they obtain a liberal education? With few exceptions, I think, it should be in the Southern colleges. The color line is so sharply drawn in Northern colleges (unfortunately) that a negro is at great disadvantage, not in studies, but socially. *

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Very truly, yours,

DECEMBER 12, 1900.

GEORGE HARRIS, President of Amherst College.

I believe in the Southern negro college and the higher education of negroes.

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Very truly, yours,

JOSEPH SWAIN, President University of Indiana.

DECEMBER 10, 1900.

The problem is such a difficult one that I have been compelled largely to rely on the judgment of my friends. My opinions are chiefly taken from the experience of Mr. William F. Baldwin, now president of the Long Island Railroad, and are therefore hardly such as I ought to put in a form for quotation.

Sincerely, yours,

DECEMBER 10, 1900.

ARTHUR T. HADLEY President of Yale University.

I am, like many others, greatly interested in the question of education of the negroes. There seems to me to be a place for the college properly so called which shall teach a certain number, who may be leaders of their race in the South, as preachers and advanced teachers. At the same time, I have much sympathy with Mr. Booker T. Washington's idea, that a large proportion of them should be educated for industrial pursuits.

Yours, truly,

DECEMBER 10, 1900.

JAMES B. ANGELL, President of the University of Michigan.

How, then, are the teachers, the preachers, the physicians for the colored race of the South to be provided, unless the South has institutions of the higher education serving the negro, fitting him for these higher positions? We know very well that the negro, as he rises in the social scale, will live in better houses and

follow better trades, and, in general, be industrially and financially elevated; and we should not for a moment criticise the work which is going on throughout the South in several institutions which Boston interest and sympathy have furthered. But there is another essential thing-namely, that the teachers, preachers, physicians, lawyers, engineers, and superior mechanics, the leaders of industry, throughout the negro communities of the South, should be trained in superior institutions. If any expect that the negro teachers of the South can be adequately educated in primary schools, or grammar schools, or industrial schools pure and simple, I can only say in reply that that is more than we can do at the North with the white race. The only way to have good primary schools and grammar schools in Massachusetts is to have high and normal schools and colleges in which the higher teachers are trained. It must be so throughout the South; the negro race need absolutely these higher facilities of education.-CHARLES W. ELIOT, President of Harvard College (in a speech at Trinity Church, Boston, February 23, 1896).

The higher education is the last thing that the individual pupil reaches: it is what he looks toward as the end. But from the point of view of the teachers, from the point of view of the educational system, the higher education is the very source and center and beginning of it all; and if this is wanting the whole must collapse. Take away the higher education, and you can not maintain the level of the lower; it degenerates, it becomes corrupt, and you get nothing but pretentiousness and superficiality as the residuum. In order to maintain the lower education which must be given to the South, you must have a few wellequipped institutions of higher learning.-WILLIAM D. HYDE, President of Bowdoin College (in a speech at Trinity Church, Boston, February 23, 1896).

It seems fair to assume from these and other letters that the conservative public opinion of the best classes in America is that there is a distinct place for the negro college designed to give higher training to the more gifted members of the race; that leaders thus trained are a great necessity in any community and in any group. On the other hand, there is considerable difference of opinion probably as to how large this "talented tenth" is-some speaking as though it were a negligible quantity, others as though it might be a very large and important body.

The opinions of some other persons ought perhaps to be added to the above. First, there is the almost unbroken line of testimony of the heads of negro colleges; this is, of course, interested testimony, and yet it is of some value as evidence. A man who left a chair in the University of Michigan to go South and teach negroes before the war ended wrote after twenty-five years' experience in college work:

"By this experiment certainly one thing has been settled--the ability of a goodly number of those of the colored race to receive what is called a liberal education. A person who denies that shows a lack of intelligence on the subject.

But the possibility granted, the utility of this education is doubted both as to individual and race. First, then, as to the individual, aside from the mere mercantile advantage derived from education, does not the hunger of the negro mind for knowledge prove its right to know, its capacity show that it should be filled, its longing that it should be satisfied? And as to the race at large, does it not need within it men and women of education? How would it be with us of the white race if we had none such with us-no educated ministers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, writers, thinkers? All the preaching to 8,000,000 of colored people in the United States is done by colored preachers, with the merest exceptions here and there. Do these negroes not need preparation for their vastly responsible calling?

"The entire work of instruction in the colored public schools of the South is done by colored teachers. These teachers can not be prepared in the white schools and colleges of the South. Where, then, shall they be prepared if not in special higher institutions of learning open to them? What is to become of the millions of colored people in the United States? Who are to be their leaders? Doubtless persons of their own race. Do they need less preparation for their calling than