MR. PRESIDENT AND FRIENDS: We have six and a quarter millions
of Freedmen at the South and three-quarters of a million at the
North. They belong to a strong and prolific race that does not
waste at the contact of civilization, neither does it waste under
oppression. They numbered but four millions in 1860, and have
increased 55 per cent. in the past twenty years. Since 1870, if the
statistics are correct, they have increased 33 per cent. If this
rate of increase goes on at 55 per cent. for twenty years, in 1900,
which many of us expect to see, they will be nearly ten millions;
and if the increase of the last ten years continues, they will be
more than eleven millions.
It becomes, then, a matter of exceeding moment for us, as a nation,
to consider their condition and their future. Several things are at
least now clear: that for a long series of generations they are to
remain a distinct people. They will not amalgamate so much at the
South, Dr. Haygood and others say, as they did before the war. The
other elements that come to us from abroad—the German, the Celtic
and all—we expect soon to be lost, and they will not retain their
individuality; but this race will for generations remain a distinct
colored race; so that it becomes a problem of peculiar difficulty
to deal with them. We may think we are strong enough to throw them
off. We cannot. God Almighty is on their side, and with the welfare
of these growing millions our welfare is interlocked.
Again, they will remain, too, doubtless, at the South. We thought
that they might scatter over the North. The failure of the
migration to the North last year does not favor that theory. What
is to bring them up to a Christian civilization? We all say at once
a Christian education.
There are 700,000 in their common schools. I will simply give the
outlines as to the higher schools. Of higher schools there are
45, scattered in different parts of the South; 42 normal schools,
four of them state institutions, the rest under the auspices
of religious organizations like this. There are 21 colleges, 21
schools of theology, four of medicine and three of law. That
sounds well; but it would be wise to ask what these colleges are,
scattered over the South. I asked an officer of one of these
institutions this afternoon, “Is Talladega a college? It was
referred to as such, but was not reported by the Commissioner
of Education in 1879 as a college.” “O yes, it is a chartered
institution, and soon they expect to have a college curriculum.”
Many of these 21 colleges at the South are much in the same
condition. They are high and normal schools, with possibly a
theological school, which, however, is not as high as a college
class.
Now the question is, what are we to do with them?—what are we
expecting to accomplish by them? Several things are manifest.
First, that this higher education at the South is to be dependent
upon benevolence for its continuance and success. Nor is this any
exception to the case of higher education at the North. We little
realize that all our colleges have been founded by benevolent men,
and have been continued in their endowments by benevolent men. We
little realize that our young men who attend our colleges do not
pay for their education, in many cases not one-half of the expense
of it. Secondly, it is manifest that this work must be very largely
a denominational work. Now this morning we had a presentation of
what it would be well for us to have at the South—denominational
unity. That cannot be. Men will not work upon any principle of
that kind. If ever there was a time when we might say we had a
clean slate, we had that time when we began our work. All united
in support of this Association; but very soon we found our Baptist
friends, our Methodist friends, our Presbyterian friends and our
Episcopal friends withdrawing. Nor could we complain. The Baptists
had thousands of colored people in their churches there and the
Methodists had hundreds. To-day the Baptists report 800,000 in
their colored churches, and the Methodists report 412,000. These
colored churches said to them, “You must educate ministers for
us;” and hence they have established their schools and higher
schools. The Presbyterians had churches among the whites, and those
churches, waking up, said, “You must help us in our work for the
colored people;” and so they went into the work.
Again, the question is asked, why so many of these higher
educational institutions?—why so many colleges?—why need of
anything higher than the normal and high school? And this question
is asked by people who have given largely for this work and who
love it. Now what is the object—to educate all the colored people
in colleges? No; but to educate those who have a desire for it and
a profound capacity for it. We have graduated probably less than
five hundred from all the colleges at the South so far, so there
isn’t much danger of an over-supply at present of teachers and
preachers. But isn’t there need of a revision of our idea of this
whole matter of what the negro is to be? Let us not make at present
an ideal, but ask rather what we can do for and with the negro; and
as we do this, let us remember what material we have to work with,
and how he has been educated by two hundred years of slavery.
In the first place, where did he come from? Not from Northern
Africa; not from Southern Africa; but from the negro belt of Africa
where is found the most degraded condition of the human race on the
face of the globe.
He has been educated two hundred years in slavery, and not without
influence upon his mental make-up. The day that the first colored
regiment went from Boston in the war to the front, there was a
convention of anti-slavery friends in Music Hall. There had been
very severe criticism upon our Gov. Andrews because he had not put
more black officers in that regiment. As Frederick Douglass was
about leaving the hall, they called him back. He stood with his
crumpled hat and leaned upon a chair, and talked more sense in five
minutes than his white brethren had in all those hours. He said:
“Gentlemen, I have as much interest in that regiment as any one
here, for I have two sons in it; but I am glad that Gov. Andrews
has not put more black officers into it. Here you have educated
us for two hundred years for the position of servants. You have
taught us that we could not guide our own steps, much less rule
our fellow-men. You have wrought into the very fibre of our being
a servile spirit, so that we are not fit for rule. All I ask is
that when a man proves his capacity to rule, then he shall have an
opportunity.”
Now, I say, in reference to the negro, let us see what we can do
with him without reference to an ideal. Let us not only remove
his restrictions, so that he can rise all that his upward force
will impel him to rise, but put into him the mighty forces of a
Christian education for forty or fifty years—several generations,
in fact—and then see what we can make of the negro.
Especially do we need this higher education in order that we may
train preachers. We do not want to send a man with an imperfect
education as a missionary to Africa. Why should we send to
their black brethren in this country men imperfectly educated
as preachers to them? They, surrounded as they are by all the
stimulating influences of our modern civilization, need all of
this higher education which we can possibly induce them to take
on. Doing this for a series of years, we may at last realize
the triumph of Christianity among them. The greatest problem of
Christianity which our generation sees is the question how these
two races, so linked together, shall treat each other; but I
believe that the time is to come when we shall see them living
together in perfect harmony; when we shall see the blacks supplying
their peculiar elements to a higher civilization, and we, the white
race, shall have risen to a position exercising a true Christian
spirit, which, without the negro linked with us, we never shall
find; and then shall we see the triumph of Christianity dealing
with this now dark problem, but then showing the glory of a grand
success.
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