It is sometimes claimed that the few capable Negroes can find
opportunity for higher training in the institutions of the North. It
is by no means certain to what extent these institutions would admit
colored students. The Northern College is not apt to inspire the
colored pupil with the enthusiasm and fixed purpose for the work which
Providence has assigned him. It is the spirit, not the letter that
maketh alive. The white College does not contemplate the special needs
of the Negro race. American ideals could not be fostered in the white
youth of our land by sending them to Oxford or Berlin for tuition. No
more can the Negro gain racial inspiration from Harvard or Yale. And
yet they need the benefit of contact and comparison, and the zeal for
knowledge and truth which these great institutions impart. The Negro
College and the Northern institutions will serve to preserve a balance
between undue elation for want of sober comparison, and barren culture,
for lack of inspirational contact with the masses.