The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-06-15

training. There is no emancipation from
slavery when the minds power to reason
is not trained and where men cannot
acquire ideas by reading The cry
against higher education is not justified
by the facts in the case, since what is
called higher education in the South
is nothing more than a high school
course which very few have The agi-
tation has been helped no doubt by the
high sounding titles of negro schools,
prophetic of what they shall be rather
than what they are. There is no danger
of rush to the highest centres of cul-
ture on account of the high standard and
years of discipline required in them.
The agitation for Industrial education
has done much good in that it has cor
rected a tendency among the college
! bred to ignore the trades. Tuskegee has
some of the best equipped scholars direct
ing her industrial work. Yet emphasis
must be laid on an intelligent industrial
education. Says Mr.. Baldwin before the
! Southern Educational Conference in
Athens, Ga: 81 believe in helping the
negro to help himself and to my mind
the best way to do this is to equip him
with an intelligent industrial training"
The industrial education of the negro
| to be of much value to him and his en-
ployers must be intelligent from the
writing of a book to the baking of a
biscuit, from the building of a palace to
the ironing of clothes. 1t must be SUI
perior to that of the mule. 1t is a great
power when it is infused with the life
which comes from religion and vitalized
with a spiritual force.
By an unwritten law in American So
ciety, the negro's status is fixed. No
legislation can give him social recogni-
ton. Unfortunately there is confusion
in mems minds between equality of
rights and social equality. Politicians
have helped to bring this confusion.
There is no law to make one man. be he
white or black, the social equal of an
other. The human race advances in pro-
portion to it's opportunity for social con-
tact. LAS iron sharDeneth iron. so the
countenance of a man his friend" There
are many negroes who come into spirit
ual contact with Goethe, Homer, Dante,
Socrates, Spencer and others. and feel
an elevation of soul. In his address. at
Charlotte, Governor Aycock said, con-
corning negro education: He has been
less educated since the war than before
1t is true he has been sent to school,
but his contact with the old planter and
with the accomplished and elegant wife
of the planter has been forgotten. This
contact was IN itself a better education
than he can receive from the public
schools" The editor of the Atlantic
Educational Journal, commenting on the
above says, THE negro must again have
the benefit of more intimate and kindly
< association with the white people of the
South" This is the view of prominent
negro leaders, 1t is opportunity forgso<
cial contact, for spiritual communion, y
not social equality. The two terms aare
not correlatives. If the negro, during
bondage, had the advantage of contact
with the white people, shall he be de-
MED it in freedom? Was contact then
social equality. why should it be so
now? By every noble sentiment of hui
manity we appeal to the white people of
the South not to mstrust the negro, but
help to lift him by an elevating con-
tact The vital need in the social re-
generation of the negro is the soul con-
tact, the personal influence and mag
netism of the white man. the white wo-
man the white child who ere inheritors
of centuries of civilization
3. Periods of race growth.
There are three periods of race growth
as in man. Childhood, or the period of
imitation youth, the period of assimila-
ton; manhood, the period of creation and
consolidation, The negro race is passing
through these stages like all other races
He is showing himself creditably along
these lines.
4. Some dangers of negro education.
While commendable results have been
achieved in his education, some of his
educators. with the best of intentions
are making serious mistakes by not
quickly adapting their methods to the
negro's needs, by vain attempt to make
the negro a white man, and Installing in
him false notions of greatness. If a
mans leg is two feet long, it is wrong to
cover it with a piece of cloth one foot
long, then keep on chopping off his leg
so as to reduce it to foot long Instead
of curtailing his leg you need to add
more to the cloth. We do not need to
limit the negro so much as to adapt our
methods to his needs
1t is an error to assume that the In
dian, the negro and the white man are
identical. The negro cannot be treated
as an Indian any more than an Indian be
treated as an Anglo Saxon. They cannot
be educated along the same lines All
| flesh is not the same flesh 1t is no re-
hection on the white man, the negro or
any other race is different from another.
The system of Massachusetts cannot
wholly fit North Carolina. there must
be adjustments here and there Oranges
and bananas cannot grow in Maine as
they do in Florida. because of the diff
ference of environments If you make
their environments the same in Maine
as in Florida there will be no difference.
But who has succeeded in doing it? De
velopment must come in a natural way
You cannot make an Anglo Saxon of a
negro. nor a negro of an Anglo Saxon.
1t IS not natural. Each has a right to
exists as a distinct type. 1t is the glory
Of Democracy to respect individual
growth, it should be the glory of Democ-
| racy to respect and foster race growth in
obedience to the laws of nature and in
harmony with it.
ORISHATUKEH FADUMA.
Troy. n. C.