The age-herald., 1899-12-28
NEGRO PROBLEM BROUGHT UP
President Jordan Showed What Had
 Been Done by the South.
SPENT FIVE DOLLARS TO NORTH ONE
He Referred to Speech Made in Bir- mingham Which Said the South Had Spent $85,ooo,ooo to
 Educate the Negro

Memphis, Tenn, December 27.-The first session of the convention of the Southern Educational association met at the Court Street Cumberland Presby church in this city today. Expectation was verified by large attendance, the delegates put ting such spirit into their work as to re- eeive hearty applause.
 Dr. Jordan, president of the association, said that advices received tonight, indicate that the attendance will reach 1000, mak- ing this the largest and most representa- tive convention in the history of the asso- ciation The programme this afternoon was begun with the welcoming address by Hon. John Williams, mayor of Memphis; Hon. Morgan c. Fitzpatrick, state Huperin- tendent of public instruction; Gen. George W. Jordan, superintendent of city schools, l and Wharton s. Jones, principal of the Memphis Institute. President Julius Jordan delivered his an- nual address and his speech was accorded marked attention.
 After speaking of the great problems concerning our industrial, commercial and political development as correlated agen-
 
 our highest and best intelligences if we would rescue our people from the domina- ton of incompatible processes and princi- pies. pr. Jordan said:
 "Our section has its own peculiar prob lems, which other associations, national though they be, cannot appreciate, cannot reach and which it is not the part of wis dom to transfer to, fields of intellectual sen- timentalism.
 And well may 1t be said in reference to the complexity of our educational system that uoon the intelligent white teachers of the southern states, more than upon all others depends the determining of the characser and extent of the education that should be offered to the negro race. No race Moses can settle this matter or go be- fore the deluded multitude as pillar of cloud by day or of fire by night.
 Apprehension is Great
 'The apprehension of many of our good statesmen in regard to this negro problem is painfully great. It is unfortunately bogy that disturbs too many of our philos- ophers, and especially those who are far therest from the situation. I am sure that those who know the negro best can most readily bring about a safe and equitable solution. It cannot be done in a decade, perhaps not in a century. It is a question subject to tentative process, and it must be adjusted to meet the unfolding condi- tions of the future. The mistakes of the thirty-four years past are to be corrected. More than all the false ideas of promi- hence and supremacy and of unrestricted license to do, and demand anything, so viciously implanted by the odious emis- saries of reconstruction, must be eradicat- ed or worn &way. The inspiring thought even now in their minds as to the objects of education, Is to place them as CO., equals, co-assoeiates in the various econo- mics of democratic citizenship. Church, state, society and the commercial world, they have been taught to look to as the proper sphere to which public education must advance them. They have yet to learn the hopelessness of such meretorious assumptions. Even their misguided and folly stricken friends in the east still cling to the fond fanaticism that one section will transfer to the negro that station of uni versaI importance which they themselves decline to extend.
 What the South Has Done
 We are anxious to know what these par ties have done to show their faith by their works. Dr. A. D. Mayo, of Boston, ad- mitted in a speech at Birmingham, Ala, three or four years ago that while the south had spent ss5 o0O,0oO for the educa- tion of the nations black wards, the men who So deplored the races present, and were so apprehensive of its future in the eesssssssseeesessssssssssseesss