_THE HIGHER EDUCATION FOR COLORED YOUTH._
Prof. Shaler’s article in the June number of the POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY was in many ways sensible and timely, but it seems to the
writer that in common with many other people he is misleading in his
remarks about higher education for the negro. One would think from
the great outcry against the higher education for young people of the
colored race, that scarcely any other kind of education was being given
them. On all sides we hear the familiar refrain: “The higher education
for the negro has been a failure.” Now success is a relative term. If
a mere handful of colored college graduates, in a few years, ought to
have settled the race problem, and induced their white fellow-citizens
to treat these graduates and all members of their race fairly, then
it has been a failure. But if the higher education should simply
give added power of mind, enlarge the mental grasp and capacity for
usefulness, lift up, socially, morally, religiously and financially,
not only its disciples, but also thousands who have been induced to
look upward by the force of their example, then the higher education
for colored youth has been a tremendous success. Is not the latter the
fair test? Of course the higher education of the few has not eliminated
crime. It has not done that for the white race. The writer is a colored
man and a college graduate. He can not see that the higher education
has any different effect on the colored youth from what it has on the
white. If there be any difference it is this: It raises the colored
youth from a lower social level, as a rule, and places him on a social
plane, relatively, among his own people, higher than it does in the
case of the white youth. The higher training, therefore, should be more
valuable to the colored youth.
In a recent address before a graduating class at Howard University,
the Hon. W. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, submitted statistics
which showed that the proportionate number of secondary and higher
students to the whole number of children attending school in the United
States had increased from 2.22 per cent in 1879 to 5.01 per cent in
1897, nearly two and a half times; while the proportion of colored
students in secondary schools and colleges had increased very little
indeed, from 1 per cent to only 1.16 per cent. But the story is not yet
half told. According to the report of the Commissioner of Education,
1897-98, Vol. 2, page 2,097, the total number of students taking the
higher education in the United States, as a whole, was 144,477, being
1,980 to each million of the total population. The same report, page
2,480, gives the total number of colored students pursuing collegiate
courses in these much discussed colored colleges as 2,492. This is only
310 to the million of colored population, whereas the whole of the
United States, as shown above, had 1,980 to the million, nearly six
and a half times as many in proportion to population. This does not
look as if the entire colored population were rapidly stampeding to the
higher education, or as if the labor supply in the Southern States were
falling off from this cause.
This is an age of higher education for the masses. The increase
in the number of students taking the secondary and higher
education in the United States during the last ten years has been
phenomenal--unprecedented. Is the person of color so much superior to
the white that he does not need so much educational training? I think
not. In view of the history and present condition of this race, there
is an obvious necessity for a large number of educated and trained
teachers, ministers, physicians, lawyers and pharmacists; and in view
of the fact that this race has only one fifth of its quota pursuing
studies above the elementary grades, what fair mind will not say that
there is great need of more of the secondary and higher education for
colored youth, instead of less of it?
According to the report above cited, 161 academies and colleges for
colored youth in the United States reported. The total number enrolled
was 42,328, of which 2,492 were reported in collegiate grades, 13,669
in secondary grades and 26,167 in elementary grades. Even in these
colored colleges less than 6 per cent of the students are pursuing
collegiate courses. Of these, perhaps not more than 2 per cent are
pursuing a college course equal to that offered at Howard. Nearly
two thirds of the total enrollment in these colored colleges are
receiving elementary instruction in the three R’s. Classified by
courses of study, 1,711--217 in a million--were taking the classical
course; 1,200--150 in a million--the scientific; 4,449--555 to the
million--the normal course in preparation for teaching; 1,285--160 in
a million--professional courses; 9,724 the English course, and 244 the
business course. In each of these courses the colored race has only
about one fifth or one sixth of its quota. Is there anything in these
figures to alarm the nation?
About one third of the total number of students in these 161 colored
schools and colleges are taking industrial training. When we consider
the great demand for educated colored ministers, teachers and
physicians, and the quick reward for ability in these lines, on the
one hand, and the exclusiveness of some trade-unions in shutting
out colored workmen, on the other, the wonder is that one third of
the total number of colored youth in these schools have chosen the
industrial course. For it is by no means certain that they will be
allowed to work at their trades after they have learned them.
The number of colored students who have had even a smattering of the
higher education has been shown to be ridiculously small, and the total
number of colored graduates with the college degree proper does not at
the most liberal estimate exceed one thousand. Many of them are dead.
Of the number now living, almost every one can be located in some
useful and uplifting employment as ministers, teachers, physicians,
lawyers, business men, or as wives presiding over happy, prosperous,
cultured homes which white persons seldom enter except on business.
Our critics seem to know nothing of these homes, which, as a rule, are
owned by their occupants. For the most part these homes are scattered
throughout the South, and are centers of culture and refinement that
elevate the moral and social status of the entire community.
To deprive the youth of the colored race of the higher education is to
deprive them of all the nobler incentives to study, to sacrifice, to
struggle to get an education. Every thoughtful person knows that these
incentives are necessary for the white race; they are equally necessary
for the colored race. Neither the white youth nor the colored, in large
numbers, will toil and struggle and apply himself to get an education,
unless he sees that education brings power and a better living to its
possessors.
The colored race, like every other part of our population, needs all
kinds of education. It is a sheer fallacy and a grievous wrong to them
to hold _all_ of them down to the rudiments of an education, with
industrial training. All can not profit by the industrial training any
more than all can profit by the higher training. There is no conflict
between the advocates of industrial training and the higher education.
Both are right. Both are good in their respective spheres. At any
rate, it is not necessary to disparage the magnificent achievements
of colored persons who have received the higher training to make an
argument in favor of training _all_ of them in the manual trades, or to
justify their elimination from politics.
ANDREW F. HILGER,
_Washington, D. C._