who ten years ago took a second degree at Yale College, says: “Many
of my college and class-mates are now occupying the best pulpits in
the land; many are tutors, professors, and principals of our best
institutions for the education of youth. Now, it is claimed by our
colored institutions that twenty years is not sufficient for them to
develop fifty or seventy-five first-class scholarly men, from among
seven million people, to occupy in equal ratios the honorable position
for elevating their own race; if this be true, it must follow that
there is a defect somewhere in the educational system; perhaps the
present corps of instructors in these institutions are incompetent to
fill the positions they occupy, or, perhaps, many are acting the role
of Government officials, having a pleasant time at the people’s expense.
“This is the conclusion we are driven to from their own statement.
“Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Amherst, and other white colleges, can in
ten years accomplish more than those colored institutions in twenty.
Something is radically wrong! But is it true that colored men have not
been developed since the war sufficiently able to direct the work of
educating their own race? In the present condition of things this is
unthinkable.
“Grover Cleveland, the President of the United States, wishes a
suitable representative of the Government at the Court of Port Au
Prince, and finds the abilities of a young colored man less than
twenty-six years old, and less than three years from one of our
American colleges, sufficiently matured to fill the position; and
again, desiring to fill another important position, the Liberian
Minister, he calls upon an ex-slave; a graduate from Lincoln
University, in the class of 1873.
“My college-mate, our President, is a Democrat, yet he does not ignore
the Negro’s ability. In all departments of the Government colored men
are placed in responsible positions, and they serve well--very few
Belknaps and Moseses. And equally true it is that colored institutions,
conducted entirely by colored people, are just as efficient in their
work as those conducted by the white for the colored students.”
We demand educated colored teachers for all colored schools, because
their _color identity_ makes them more interested in the advancement of
colored children than white teachers, and because colored pupils need
the social contact of colored teachers. Our people need social as well
as educational advancement; and in this respect colored teachers can
exercise potent influences, which would be lost if the selfish policy
of employing white teachers obtain.--_Florida News._
Large numbers of white people do not teach the Negro so much for the
interest they have in him as they do for what they get. In the second
place there is always a tendency in a white teacher, however much he
may be interested in the work, to crush out the manly and independent
spirit that is essential to the full development of the mental powers.
They always keep prominent the fact that they think the Negro is their
inferior, and try always to make him believe it. In his attainments
they virtually say to him, thus far shalt thou come and no farther. If
he is ambitious and will go beyond the mark they made for him, they
have no more use for him.--_Missionary Worker._
Nothing can be more detrimental to the future existence of these
institutions than the belief and feeling among the alumni and patrons
that such a state of affairs exists. The above opinions prove
conclusively that the advanced feeling of the entire country is
opposed to the fostering of such feeling under the guise of aid to
the freedman. In an article by Charles T. Thiving, entitled “Colleges
and their Graduates,” in a late issue of the _Independent_, some
forcible truths are stated which apply equally well to the matter under
discussion. Says he:--
“The graduates of a college are at once its warmest friends and
severest critics. The best friends of a college should naturally be
found among its own graduates. Not only should a college foster the
spirit of loyalty among its own graduates but these graduates may be
and should be the most useful of its friends.
“In a large relation it may be added that alumni associations are of
vast service. They tend to unify the best thought of some of the best
men as to most important interests.”
None of which can be the case if a feeling of repulsion and distrust
has been aroused in the heart of the members of the alumni by a
knowledge that the faculties and trustees are fostering caste
prejudice against them. It is felt by the graduates that the caste
prejudice is not shared by the patrons of these institutions who give
freely and lovingly of their means, trusting to their trustees and
faculties to attend to the distribution of it to the best advantage
of those for whom it is contributed, but that caste is developed in
the faculties, who are as a rule poor men and desire to secure and
hold lucrative life positions for themselves and families. The purpose
to ignore the Negro socially is another factor in the problem. They
see that if a colored man becomes a member of the faculty he must be
treated as other members of that department are treated; to this they
will not submit; hence the colored man may not occupy the position.
An odd feature of this caste prejudice is the strong hold it has upon
the churches. The K. of L. and G. A. R. are open to him. The State
institutions all over the country are fast becoming free to all, and
where the schools are separate as Virginia State Normal, Mississippi
State Normal, and Alabama State Normal Schools, the positions are given
to competent colored teachers; but the church, the denominational
schools under its control, the Christian Associations, cling to caste
prejudice and sow the seed of distrust and unbelief in the heart of the
black man.