The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-01-10
EDUCATORS TALKED OF
EDUCATING THE SOUTH.

New York, Jan. ga meeting was
held tonight in Carnegie Hall in the
interest of education in the South, un-
der the auspices of the Armstrong AS
ISOLATION. Morris K. Jesup, president
of the Chamber of Commerce, presided.
Gov. Montague of Virginia was among
those on the platform.
DR.. Charles w. Dabney president
of the University of Tennessee, was
the first speaker. He deplored the lack
of schools in the rural districts of the
South, and the poverty of the inhab-
itants of those districts which comperl-
ed a majority of the children to seek
work as soon as they were able to
work. He quoted from the census re-
ports to show that in 1900 the percen-
tage of illiterates among males over Il
years of age-native whites-was in
Virginia, 1875; in North Carolina, 80;
in South Carolina, IL. 6; in Georgia, 12.1 (;
in Alabama, 14.2; in Tennessee, 14.5,
and in Kentucky, 1876. Those condi-
tions were due, he said, to the poverty
of the people, who are doing, proper
tionately to their means, as much as
the people of other states,
Education is the need of the South, !"
said DR.. Dabney, but we must edu-
cate the white man first. We need not
neglect the black, but the only way to
permanent improvement is to teach the
white man so that he may in his turn
teach the negro. Racial prejudice is
Unborn in us, as in all human beings
This is not peculiar to the white peo-
pie of the South. The Creator has
planted the prejudice in the hearts of
the plain people as a means of keep
ing their blood pure, and it is going
to persist there until reason and Gull
ture take their place as the guardians
of race integrity.
1.-The only way, therefore, to remove
unreasonable race feeling is to educate
| the negro. So long as the white man
| sees any danger to his children or
| grandchildren from the negro, just SO
| long will he hate him and do all he
| can to keep them apart. Educate the
negro by all means. Make him also an
independent, self-respecting citizen;
| but educate the white man first
| President Charles D. McIver of the
| North Carolina Normal School fol-
| Women told of the advances made in
| recent years in his state, and said he
| was hopeful that the time would soon
| come when education would be within
the reach of every youth in the South
| as 1t is to-day in the North.
President Edwin A. Alderman OF
Tulane University, New Orleans
| said:
The Southern problem, so called, is
wrong at one end and crude at the
other. We have to deal with a back
| ward race. If the resistless North
would look at this matter little less
| fervidly, get 1t away from their
| emotions and into their practical
hearts and brains. they would under
stand the conditions better. The
| Southern white man wants to
| forget the negro in the past,
and to think of him only as an eco
nomic human problem that must be
considered in the future. They must
| get to know that. it is no longer a
question of what the white man is go
ing to do for him, but what he is
strong enough to do for himself
DIR Alderman spoke in strong COM
mendation of Hampton and Tuskegee
and declared them experimental sta
tions for the instruction of the whole
civilized world"