The African was snatched from the wilds of savagery and thrust into the
midst of a mighty civilization. He thus escaped the gradual progress
of evolution. Education must accomplish more for a backward race than
for a people who are in the fore-front of progress. It must not only
lead to the unfoldment of faculties but must equip for a life from
which the recipient is separated by many centuries of development.
The African chieftain who would make a pilgrimage from the jungle to
Boston might accomplish the first part of his journey by the original
modes of transportation--in the primitive dugout or on the backs of his
slaves; but he would complete it upon the steamship, the railway, the
electric car and the automobile. How swift the transformation and yet
how suggestive of centuries of toil, struggle and mental endeavor. It
required the human race thousands of years to bridge the chasm between
savagery and civilization, which must now be crossed by a school
curriculum of a few years’ duration. In a settled state of society,
the chief function of education is to enable the individual to live
the life already attained by his race, but the educated Negro must be
a pioneer, a progressive force in the uplifting of his race, and that,
too, notwithstanding the fact that he belongs to a backward breed that
has never taken the initiative in the progressive movements of the
world.