yet a thoroughbred, but it is presented in certain catchy and specious
phrases such as suggest the necessity of beginning at the bottom
rather than at the top, the necessity of giving to the colored
American a kind of colored education, the necessity of making his
civilization earthbound and breadwinning rather than heavenbound and
soul-satisfying--the necessity of keeping him close to mother
earth--as he "is of the earth earthy."
In those assumptions it is forgotten that education is not a question
of mechanics; it is rather a question of ethics and immortality.
Education is primarily an effort to realize in man his possibilities
as a thinking and feeling being.
Man's inheritance is first from heaven, from above. That is the
respect in which education differs from all merely constructive
processes. The stimulating and quickening power is from above.
Historically this is eminently true.
Education has been a process from above. It is not my intention to
enter upon the discussion of the merits of any particular kind of
education. My contention is that because the Negro is a part of
humanity, because he is an American with an American consciousness and
with a demonstrated capacity to take on training after the manner of
an ordinary man he should not be treated as a monstrosity. Bishop
Haygood sets forth the only proper line of distinction in education in
the following sentence: "In further teaching and learning the methods
may vary, but variations will depend less on differences of race than
on peculiarities of the individual." The "peculiarities" here
indicated unquestionably exist. They may be noted even in the same
family, but these peculiarities are found in differences which lie
deeper than the skin. There is no philosopher, unless he "is joined to
idols," so bold as to base his presumption of difference in human
beings upon the skin, for then his judgment might have to depend on
whether the skin is dark, copper-colored, brown, white, yellow,
freckled, red, etc. Human differences, all will admit, are essentially
differences of _individual souls_, and this does not preclude the
importance of environment and other incidental influences.
The great fact is that mind is mind--of like origin and like
substance--and that it has been found to yield to like treatment among
all nations and in all ages. There is no system of pedagogy that would
hold together for a moment if the idea of the unity of the human race
and the similarity of mind were invalidated. Philosophy itself would
be threatened and all science would be in jeopardy. Investigation and
practice never fail to support this theory of the solidarity of the
human race. In the schools where it has been tried it has been found
not to be a matter of color, nor even of blood--and certainly the
differences have not depended on race affiliation. It has been a
question of the individual and of local environment.
But so positive and indivisible is the human identity that even the
influence of individualism and environments is overcome by the great
universal processes of education, the great processes of mind
quickening and mind development. In many of our best institutions
there sit side by side the representatives of many nationalities and
races, and it has never been found in the work of these
institutions--as far as I have been able to discover--that any one
color or race could monopolize the benefits, but, on the contrary, it
has been found that the benefits were realized according to individual
temperament and power.
My position is not one in reference to non-essentials but essentials;
it is not a contention based even so much on degree, but rather on
quality and capability. I would not contend that environment would not
make a whole group of children more or less backward, and I do not
dispute the fact that because of better environments the whites
represent as a whole a higher state of civilization. But I hold that
this is true not because of race identity but rather because of
individual embarrassment. Give a white child and a colored child the
same environment and their progress or backwardness, I hold, would be
essentially the same under the same stimulants and encouragements.
Wherever colored and white children have been put to comparative tests
too little attention has been paid to difference of environment, and
too often there has been a dormant presumption that the same
environment would not have produced the same results upon white
children. Wherever these tests have been made it has been too often
overlooked that the facilities for their education were not equal;
they may have been nominally equal but the fact remains that they were
not really equal.
Considering the inequalities of environment and educational facilities
the results of most of the comparative tests are complimentary to the
colored child and demonstrate the similarity of his mental
susceptibilities--demonstrate that he is but a normal constituent part
of the great human race with substantially the same limitations and
capabilities as other members of the great human family.
FOURTH PAPER.
SHOULD THE NEGRO BE GIVEN AN EDUCATION DIFFERENT FROM THAT GIVEN TO
THE WHITES?
BY PROF. J. H. JONES.
[Illustration: Prof. J. H. Jones, D. D.]
REV. JOSHUA H. JONES.
The Rev. Joshua H. Jones was born at Pine Plains, South
Carolina, June 15, 1856. He professed religion at ten years
of age and joined the Shady Grove A. M. E. Church of the
Bull Swamp Circuit, South Carolina. At the age of fourteen
he was made Sunday School teacher, and at the age of sixteen
Sunday School superintendent. By the time he was eighteen he
had served in all the local spiritual offices of the church,
and was then licensed as a local preacher by the quarterly
conference of said circuit. The pastors soon discovered his
usefulness and aid to them. He was a diligent student and an
ardent churchman, and acquired education rapidly. At the age
of twenty-one years he entered the Normal Department of
Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina, and in 1880
finished the Normal and College Preparatory Courses. He then
taught and preached one year, after which he returned to
Claflin University, and in 1885 graduated with the degree at
A. B. Not daunted nor yet satisfied with his attainments he
came north, studied awhile at Howard University, Washington,
D. C., thence to Wilberforce University, where in 1887 he
graduated from the Theological Course with the degree of B.
D. In 1893 Wilberforce University conferred upon him the
degree of D. D. in recognition of his superior worth and
ability. In June, 1900, he was elected President of
Wilberforce University, and a year later Claflin University
conferred upon him the degree of M. A.
As a minister of the Gospel he has been pastor in charge of
Williams Chapel, Orangeburg, South Carolina; Branchville
Circuit, South Carolina; Fort Motte Circuit, South Carolina;
Wheeling, West Virginia; The Holy Trinity Church,
Wilberforce, Ohio; Lynn, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode
Island; Columbus, Ohio; and Presiding Elder of the Columbus
District, Ohio Conference; Pastor at Zanesville, Ohio. In
all an unbroken period of thirty-six years of church work
and twenty-eight years in the ministry he has never known a
failure. His labors have been indefatigable and his
ministrations clean and inspiring.
In his public services he has been an inspiration to the
race. For fourteen years he has been a Trustee of
Wilberforce University, five years Trustee and Secretary of
the Normal and Industrial Department at Wilberforce, and a
constant and ardent helper in the establishment and
development of the same. For six consecutive years he was
elected and served as member of the Columbus Board of
Education, and through his efforts six colored teachers were
put into the mixed schools of Columbus, Ohio, as teachers.
In private affairs he has been industrious, frugal,
economical and administrative. He has accumulated a
comfortable estate and stands well with the banking and
business circles of Columbus, Ohio, and pays taxes on a tax
valuation of $10,000.
He has always been an ardent lover of his race, of his
church, of his country and his God, and has always been a
striking figure in the circles of men wherever his lot has
fallen. Fifteen years ago he was elected Dean of Allen
University, Columbia, South Carolina; eight years ago
Professor of Theology in Payne Theological Seminary, neither
of which he was able to accept because of heavy demands upon
his energy elsewhere. In 1890 he was elected delegate to the
Methodist Ecumenical Conference and has been several times
delegate to the General Conference of the A. M. E. Church,
and in 1900 was a strong candidate for the Bishopric,
receiving fifty or more votes on the first ballot. In his
present position he bids fair to give the church good
service.
If this question is to be answered affirmatively or negatively, I
emphatically say no. If the question be asked inquiringly, carrying
with it the thought of race experience, race opportunity, race status
and the variations growing out of these, then I would give the dubious
answer, _yes and no_. In the first place, all things are educative
and all forms of education have a definite relation to all other forms
of education, and all educational processes have definite relations to
all other educational processes, so all of these factors make for
unity in education, and the completest education is that which
embraces the greatest number of educational factors. It is perfectly
true that educational processes may be varied so as to suit varying
ideals or they may be varied so as to accomplish certain ends, for
unvarying sequences follow definite antecedents; even so educational
systems may be framed for the accomplishment of varying results or
definite results as the framers of such systems may determine to suit
the conditions of mankind as conceived at any given time. The end in
view in an educational system is everything. What the chosen end of
any system of education may be ought to depend upon the institution of
the country in which a people lives and every educational system
should be framed so as to utilize all of the agencies and involve all
of the processes that make most rapidly for the achievement of the end
in view.
If the end in view is serfdom for the Negro, then a vast amount of
industrial training by rote, minus the natural sciences and mechanic
arts for the generation of capacity, plus such rudiments in
arithmetic, reading and writing as will enable him to be an efficient
workman under the directions of others is the requisite. If it is the
desire to make the Negro a useful agent in the production of wealth
through the operation of the basal industries, in the largest quantity
or the highest quality for the smallest amount of outlay, then a still
higher class of training would be necessary, whether this production
of wealth be for the good of self or for the common good of society.
But if the end in view is to prepare him for the higher
responsibilities of American citizenship, involving as that
citizenship does the relationships, obligations and duties which
devolve upon freemen and equally binding upon him as upon the whites
in a democratic society or in a country of the people, for the people
and by the people, it is evident that such a system must have
structural affinity with such a system of education carried on by the
whites and for the whites. In other words, such must be his education
that his whole being is developed and in him there is the largest
generation of capacity, insight, foresight, the power to think with
proportions so as to give him that mastery over his environments and
over the questions of common good which will enable him at all times
to do the right things, the wisest things, the best things under any
given circumstances in the midst of which he may be thrown. Any
educational system that has an aim short of this as its end will
certainly fail to prepare the Negro for the high duties which belong
to a free individual in a democratic society.
Why should the Negro be given an education different from that given
to the whites? Is he not a man? Is he not a free man? Is he not a
citizen? Is he not held responsible by society for the performance of
duties enjoined upon him by law? Is he not a subject of government? As
a subject of government, ought he not participate in the affairs of
the government? I think it will be admitted by all fair-minded men
that all governments are for the welfare of the governed. Now, since
the Negro is more interested in his own welfare than anybody else is
and since to have a thing well done you had better do it yourself,
since also his welfare is shaped by any government under which he
lives, it must necessarily follow that his best good requires that he
participate in the affairs of that government if he is to continue to
be a free man. It is argued--and that not without some degree of
reason--by part of the more favored people in this country, that the
gift of the high privileges of citizenship carries with it the demand
that the recipients of these gifts possess the capacity to exercise
them for the common good of all who belong to the body politic. They
also argue that human conditions for government are grounded in
intelligence, virtue and property. So good, so well. But how is the
Negro to acquire intelligence, virtue and property according to the
American standard if his education is to be according to an
un-American system? There are four fundamental American doctrines that
both experience and philosophy attest as being right: (I) The right of
education is a human right. (II) That the schools furnished by the
state should be open to all of the children of the state. (III) The
safety of the state depends upon the intelligence of our citizens of
that state. (IV) As a matter of self-defense the state should compel
all of its citizens to become intelligent. These doctrines have their
root in the great truth that every individual is a member of society
and that therefore society has an interest in him, in his capacity, in
his intelligence, in his worth, and in turn is injured by his
incapacity, his lack of worth, his ignorance. The great war-cry of
American leadership is "Educate, educate, educate;" yea, more,
"Educate your masters." No man lives unto himself. God has made every
man dependent, associative and co-operative, and hence the good of
every individual is found in the common good of society and the
common good of society is found in the good of the individual. Every
man who is not at his best or not doing his best is to that extent a
failure and a hurt to the common good.
To me it is perfectly clear that if the Negro is to be in this country
and not of it then his education should be different from that given
to the whites. But if he is to be in the country and of the country it
follows without argument that he must be educated in common with all
of the people of the country so that the nation may have a common
ideal and a common consciousness so that our whole society may have or
feel a common interest in our common country. To be more explicit,
whether or not the Negro should be given the same kind of education
the whites are given depends upon whether or not the whites have the
proper kind of education. I should rather contend that if the whites
have the proper kind of education for mankind, then that given to the
Negro should be exactly like it. If the whites have not the proper
kind of education for mankind, then it follows that the Negro should
be given a different kind, for whether or not one man should have the
same thing as another depends upon whether or not that thing is fit
for mankind in general. This would naturally force upon us the inquiry
as to what kind of education the whites receive. If upon proper
inquiry we find that theirs is the proper kind for man, in this same
finding we should discover that this is the proper kind for the Negro.
Here differentiation begins, even in the field of education itself. A
careful study of the constitution of man, involving the
fundamentalities that grow out of his intellectual, moral, industrial,
social and political nature will lead us, I think, to see that much of
the white man's education is to be regretted and repudiated; much of
it is to be approved and appropriated. All training given in avarice,
hatred, prejudice, passion, sensuality, sin and wickedness, growing
out of self-conceit and vanity, must assuredly be repudiated. But all
things embraced in their education that make for the good, the true,
the beautiful, the just and the elevation of mankind should be
embraced, seized upon, masticated, digested and
assimilated--transmuted into the elements of Negro character, forming
a part of the very sub-consciousness of his being. In short, whatever
education the whites have had or do get which makes for human
enlargement, for righteousness, and brings man into closer
relationship with God and gives him a fuller conception of the laws of
God made manifest by the operation of His laws throughout the cosmos
enabling him to discover the relationships which he sustains to God,
to his fellow-men, to the lower creatures which inhabit this earthly
sphere in which man lives and the laws that govern the universe,
expressing modes of existence and orders of sequence, together with
the principles of industry, frugality and economy, which determine the
material accumulations necessary for the maintenance of life, these
the Negro should know as largely as possible, for certainly they have
been fields of educational processes found necessary for the white man
through many generations. It is to be noticed that for centuries the
white man has studied in order to get a thorough grasp, first of all,
upon the intellectual tools--so to speak; in other words, to know how
to read, write and cipher in terms of his own language, and at the
same time to lay a foundation broad enough to pursue useful knowledge
in all other directions possible. For instance, having mastered his
own language to a reasonable degree, he takes the Latin and the Greek
that he might acquaint himself with the development of the
institutions out of which his own was evolved as well as to make
double his hold upon his own; he studies Hebrew and the cognate
languages to get mastery of the great truths, philosophy and
institutions of a great people, adding to his own thereby; he studies
the modern languages, German, French, Spanish and Italian, that he may
gather the best fruits of the achievements of these nations and add
them to his own store; yea, he covers the whole field of philology
that he may add to his own store the best that has been garnered by
all of the nations of the earth; he studies the literature, science
and philosophy of all living races of his day and time with the same
end in view and when he has swept the field of historic times he
delves into the mysteries of geology and archæology and follows the
mute footsteps of man through Neolithic and Paleolithic times to the
very zero of human beginnings and comes back laden with truths to
enrich the thought of his day.
He studies natural science as God manifested in nature, by observation
and experiment; he commences, with God through the discovery of the
reign of law, classifying and systematizing the same and thus
broadening his own vision and adding to the store of knowledge in our
day and generation. As a preparation for this scientific research, he
studies mathematics from the elementary principles through the largest
elaborations of Euclid, Keppler, Newton and Copernicus, and their
illustrious successors; he studies sociology, biology and mechanics;
he studies civil and sociological laws and principles to the end that
the intricacies of democratic business intercourse might be the more
fully and clearly understood, mastered and applied in civilized
processes. No form of industry has escaped him, no law of frugality
has eluded him; whatever has in it an element of truth or virtue, he
has pursued with a relentlessness that knows no failure. As a student,
he has gone the rounds of the world in search of truth and has come
back rich in the knowledge of the things that God would have us know.
How the Negro can live in the midst of a civilization created by such
a people, drawing upon such vast resources as we have but faintly
indicated and be given an education different from that of this
people--and yet live among them with any degree of security--for the
life of me, I cannot see. If, to keep up with the requirements
of such a civilization as America furnishes to-day, a white
child--notwithstanding his inheritance--has to go to school from his
earliest days away into the years of his majority and be
systematically trained in all of the subjects as taught in the
kindergarten, the public schools, the secondary schools, the
academies, the universities, and the professional schools, how much
more imperatively necessary must it be that the Negro should have like
training. It seems to me that he should not only have the same
training but that he should have more of it than the white man has.
His education should be physical, moral, intellectual, social,
industrial and political, and his educational processes should have
the highest structural affinity with the educational processes of the
whites so that he may be brought into national and political
assimilation with the white man's institutional life.
TOPIC V.
SHOULD THE IGNORANT AND NON-PROPERTY-HOLDING NEGRO BE ALLOWED TO VOTE?
BY JOHN P. GREEN.
[Illustration: Hon. John P. Green]
HON. JOHN P. GREEN.
Hon. John P. Green was born in 1845 at New Berne, N. C., of
free parents. As a boy twelve years of age, he went with his
widowed mother to Cleveland, Ohio. He was educated in the
Cleveland public schools, graduating from the Central High
School in 1869.
He was admitted to the bar of South Carolina in 1870.
Returning to Cleveland, he for nine years served as justice
of the peace. In 1881 he was elected member of the Ohio
Legislature, serving three terms. In 1897 he was appointed
to a position in the postoffice department by President
McKinley.
He was also delegate to the National Republican Convention
in 1872, in 1884 and 1896.
All citizens who are industrious, honest, brave and patriotic should
vote, without regard to their color; for, a man may possess all these
characteristics and yet be "ignorant." Ignorance is only relative
anyway.
(a) The Negro is a citizen. See XIV Amendment to Constitution, etc.
(b) He is industrious, and by his industry has not only helped to
develop the resources of the United States but he has produced much of
the property which is unjustly held by many white voters, and withheld
from him; especially in the South.
The property of the South is due not more to the capital invested in
the agricultural and manufacturing enterprises of that section than to
the labor of the Negro, who furnishes the foundation of all
wealth--labor--there.
(c) The untutored Negro has shown himself to be honest; he has never
betrayed a trust imposed in him. During the great Civil War he was
true to the trust imposed in him by his master at the front, who
confided to his care the sustenance and even life of his wife and
little ones. This was the supremest test of his honesty, which he
sacredly discharged. Since the war, he has faithfully adhered to and
followed the fortunes of the Republican party, by the mandate of which
he was emancipated; even though in doing so he has suffered all the
evils which a hostile opponent can invent to plague and swerve him
from what he considers the path of gratitude and honor.
(d) He is brave; as the records of our wars will prove. His blood has
stained many battlefields where, under "Old Glory," he fought for the
Union and Liberty; not only on American soil, but also in foreign
lands. The Negro, in contending in war, for the life and liberties of
this Republic, has literally covered himself with glory.
(1) That he is patriotic goes without saying, in the light of what
has been written in the foregoing paragraph. With all his coarse and
homely ignorance, the heart of the American Negro, when yet a slave,
throbbed with patriotic love and loyalty; and this, too, at a time
when his college-bred and intelligent (?) master was doing his
uttermost to destroy this glorious fabric of Union.