As the higher susceptibilities of the Negro were not wanted, their
existence was at one time denied. The eternal inferiority of the
race was assumed as a part of the cosmic order of things. History,
literature, science, speculative conjecture, and even Holy Writ were
ransacked for evidence and argument to support the ruling dogma.
While the slave holder had proved beyond all possibility of doubt the
incapacity of the Negro for knowledge, yet he, prudently enough, passed
laws forbidding the attempt. His guilty conscience caused him to make
assurance doubly sure by re-enacting the laws of the Almighty.
For three hundred years the Negro by his marvelous assimilative power
and by striking individual emanations has been constantly manifesting
the higher possibilities of his nature, until now whoever assumes to
doubt his susceptibility for better things needs himself to be pitied
for his incapacity to grasp the truth. The same Carlyle who regards the
Negro as an “amiable blockhead,” and amenable only to the white man’s
“beneficent whip,” also declares: “That one man should die ignorant who
had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen
forty times in a minute.” When it is known that the Negro has capacity
for knowledge and virtue there can be no further justification for
shutting him out from the higher cravings of his nature.
IS THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO WORTH WHILE AS A PRACTICAL
PHILANTHROPY?
The education of the Negro is not of itself a thing apart, but is an
integral factor of the general pedagogic equation. Race psychology has
not yet been formulated. No reputable authority has pointed out just
wherein the two races differ in any evident mental feature. The mind
of the Negro is of the same nature as that of the white man and needs
the same nurture. The general poverty of the Negro, however, and his
inability to formulate and direct his own scheme of culture, render
the question not so much one of abstract pedagogics, as of practical
philanthropy. The philanthropist is supremely indifferent as to whether
an individual, white or black, should study Kant or Quaternious,
except, in so far as the resulting development reacts beneficially
upon the common welfare. Does the higher education of the few capable
Negroes possess sufficient advantage to the race at large to justify
its continuance by a wise and discriminating philanthropy? The great
missionary societies, representing the philanthropic arms of the
Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist denominations after
forty years of arduous, earnest endeavor and the expenditure of many
millions of dollars in this field, answer this question emphatically
in the affirmative. An ounce of opinion from such sources should be
worth a ton of speculation from those who reach their conclusions by a
process of “pure reasoning.”