Rational enjoyment, through moderation, is perhaps as good a
definition as can be given of culture. The reaction of culture on
conduct is a well known principle of practical ethics. The Negro race
is characterized by boisterousness of manner and extravagant forms
of taste. As if to correct such deficiencies, his higher education,
hitherto, has largely been concerned with Greek and Latin literature,
the norms of modern culture. It is just here that our educational
critics are liable to become excited. The spectacle of a Negro wearing
eye-glasses and declaiming in classic phrases about the “lofty walls of
Rome,” and the “wrath of Achilles” upsets their critical calmness and
composure. We have so often listened to the grotesque incongruity of a
Greek chorus and a greasy cabin and the relative value of a rosewood
piano and a patch of early rose potatoes that if we did not join in the
smile in order to encourage the humor, we should do so out of sheer
weariness. And yet we cannot escape the conviction that one of the
Negro’s chief needs is a higher form of intellectual and esthetic taste.