The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1903-02-24
THE PROBLEM OF NEGRO EDUCATION.

The education of each race must be vitality con-
nected with the life that the race must lead and
wisely adapted to the sphere that the race and the
individual must fill. This is a mighty problem
that we can not hope to solve for either race in
a day, or a year, or a generation In the working
out of it for the negro race there are certain
fundamental truths that wg-must not forget, and
dare not ignore. Among these are:
!. That all over the face of nature and of the
universe it has been written in no unmistakabe
language that education of the right sort is a
good thing for the plants of the field, for the
beasts of the forest, for all created things. It
needs must be a good thing, then, for man, Gods
highest creation, fashioned in his own image, en-
dowed with his own faculties, with infinite ca
pacity for good or evil.
9. That this unalterable law of God can not be
changed by the color of a mans skin or by racial
differences or natural en~dowments.
5. That differences in natural e~ndowments and
racial traits are manifest and require an adapta-
to these. Have we not grossly violated this law
and sadly erred in trying to force the negro race,
but one generation removed from bondage and
ten generations from savagery, with essentially
different racial traits and endowments, the same
OAO - hNNIAO 4oO ON4 ONh IN 1Ch LIS I'll
ferent e~ndowments and it's thousand years of
freedom and education, has been preparing it.
self for2
4. That there is danger in ignorance, whether
it be wrapped in a white skin or a black one.
Nearly one-third of the population of North Caro-
lima or negroes. Who can estimate the danger
that turks in such a mass of ignorance, if these
negroes are left uneducated? The rapidity
With Which n rooo mill 1opco into n e+o+o Of
savagery and brutality through ignorance depends
upon the years and generations of education and
civilization that lie behind that race, and upon
its native and inherited strength. If this be true,
does it not follow that the decline of the negro
race into a state of savagery and brutality
through ignorance would be more rapid than that
of the white race, and that there is even more
danger in black ignorance than there is in white
ignorance. Ignorance in chains is dangerous
cnought, but it is safer than ignorance in liberty.
1t is my deliberate conviction that in a few gen
e%rations. without education, the great mass of
the negro race would sink to a state of animal
brutality. Turn such a wilG horde loose among
our people, endowed with the rights of freedom
without the knowledge to use it, controlled by
the passions of animals without the power to re-
strain them that comes alone from proper educa-
ton, and our only safety will lie in exter> pation.
With the negro it must be elevation through prop
er education or determination.
5. That education is a growth and not a crea-
ton; that it can develope to the fullest what God
has created, but can never supply what he has
not created; that there is but one creative power
in the universe; that it takes long centuries for
the seeds that He has planted in the minds and
hearts of races to grow to their fullest develop
ment that from the mustard seed an oak can new
er grow, but that by surrounding even such a
seed by the proper conditions and giving it the
proper cultivation, it may be made to grow into
something beautiful and useful, while even the