“The progressive era” aims to set forth the marvelous achievements of
the Negro race in the United States since its emancipation fifty years
ago. Its plan is to cover the period of achievements by a series of
chapters devoted to the several lines of endeavor. I want especially to
commend the chapter on the Education of the Negro. Education furnishes
the standard in terms of which the past progress of the race may be
measured and its future progress gauged. Of the many elements which must
enter into the final solution of the race problem none will be so
important as that of education, whose purpose is to fit the Negro for a
useful and honorable place in the complex schemes of American life.
This chapter brings together for easy reference information concerning
the working of Negro institutions in better form and in fuller detail
than has before been attempted in a private publication. Figures are
taken from the reports of the Bureau of Education, and their accuracy is
vouched for by the authority of the government. Each institution listed
was visited by a special agent of the Bureau of Education and its work
thoroughly examined and analyzed by educational experts. Over three
hundred institutions are described, with the account of the equipment,
facilities and course of instruction. There are over sixty photographs
containing the fullest pictorial illustrations of Negro schools that has
ever been made available in book form. This chapter involves, at once,
the feature of a treatise and an encyclopedia, while gaining the general
view of the education of the Negro as well. The reader may at the same
time gain definite information about any particular school in any part
of the country.
No one who wishes to keep abreast of the trend of educational movement
of the Negro race, as well as to have at his elbow a compendium of Negro
institutions, can afford to be without this work.