Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-19
HOWARD UNIVERSITY
A Chat With Its President, Rev.
w. P. Thirkield.
HAS MOST WORTHY PURPOSE
Alumni Includes Majority Of Eminent
Colored Men.
SOME OF THE MAIN IDEAS
Graduates in All Lines Of Endeavor
Have a Fashion Of Making
Mighty Good.
SOME OF THE MAIN IDEAS
BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.

BY WILLIAM e. CURTIS
Written for The Sta. and the Chicago Record
Herald.
THE total number of graduates since the
founding Of this institution is over $780,
said the Rev. Wilbur Patterson Thirkield.
president Of Howard University. "Of these
912 have gone out from the school of medi-
cine, including the departments Of phar-
macy and dentistry Next in number are
the graduates from the normal school.
which has sent forth hundreds of we'll
equipped teachers. The college of arts and
sciences has maintained a high standard
during all these years and has graduated
1873. From the school Of theology 234 regu-
lar graduates have been sent out as trained
and well-equ!pped ministers; from the
school of law 40 have been graduated. and
about 800 have graduated from the acad-
envy. which does high-grade preparatory
work
Howard University has cost between two
and three millions Of dollars for founda-
ton and maintenance during the past thir-
ty-nine years. AS returns on this invest
ment 1t has sent into the world, in round
numbers, 200 ministers of the gospel, 900
physicians. pharmacists and dentists, 400
lawyers, 100 teachers. 100 trained nurses
and 800 men and women with a general
collegiate and academic training. together
with thousands of sometime pupils who
have shared the partial benefits of It's
courses. These twenty-five hundred gradu-
ates and ten thousand sometime pupils
are to be found In every state and territory,
in every town and county where the negro
population resides. They occupy the high
est positions of usefulness and honor allot-
ted to colOred men, well as fill the hum
bier spheres of life. These men and wom-
between the races and are preaching. teach
ing, hoping, praying and working for the
upbuildins Of the negro race.
Aim Of the Institution.
THE aim Of Howard University" said
DR.. Thirkield. lis to lift the negro to the
level Of modern civilization Howard Uni
versity believes that the first need Of the
negro is that the brightest young minds Of
the race should assimilate the principles Of
culture and hand them down to the masses
below. The most intelligent of the back
ward race or nation must first receive new
culture and adapt 1t to the peculiar needs
of their own people. The graduates Of
Howard and other institutions of like aim
are forming centers of civiiizing influence
In all parts Of the land. and we confidently
believe that these grains of leaven will uItf-
mately leaven the whole lump.
The social separation of the races in
America" continued DR.. Thirkield, rem
ders tt imperative that the professional
classes among the negroes should be re-
crufted from their own ranks. In Latin
or Catholic country, where the fiction Of
social equality does not exist, there is no
necessity for negro priests, teachers or
physicians to administer to their own race
But in America this is conceded to be a
social necessity. Such being the case, the
negro leader, to use the familiar term, re-
quires all the equipment Of his white con-
frere and special knowledge of the needs
and circumstances of his own race in add
ton. The teacher Of the negro child, the
preacher Of a negro congregation or the
physician to negro patients certainly re-
quires as much professional skill as do
those who minister to the corresponding
needs of the white race
Some Rural Prodigies.
There Is to be found in every community
q Lad Of comparatively exceptional en-
dowment who to his simple rustic neigh
bors. passes as a marvel Of learning These
rural prodigies somehow find their way to
Howard University, where they receive a
poise and balance by being pitted against
like celebrities from other communities
II any people are still skeptical as to the
Intellectual capacity Of the negro they would
have their doubts speedily dispelled by
visit TO Howard University, where they can
observe the negro youth a few years re-
moved from the cotton field and canebrake
handling the intricate problems Of Greek
syntax and analytical geometry with the
aptness and facility of the most favored
white collegians. Students frequently come
from the northern and western states
where there is no racial bar against their
entering local institutions There seems to
be certain consciousness Of kind If not
of color, even In the pursuit Of knowledge
Frequently young men take the degree of
bachelor OF arts at northern colleges and
pursue courses in law or medicine at How
ard University Students who come to
Howard University are for the most part
very poor, and are dependent upon their
own efforts for support. One of the most
distinguished graduates the university has
n he
Alabama to Washington in order to enter
school. The faculties are composed of
white and colored instructors in about equal
numbers. Colored men teach higher math-
ematics, classics, metaphysics and the vari-
Gus topics of law, medicine and theology
Its Eminent Graduates.
1T is often charged" went on DIR. Thir-
kield. that higher education lifts the regro
above the needs Of his race. Howard Uni
versity is standing refutation Of this
charge. 1t has touched the life of perhaps
a majority of the most eminent colored
men In Amer RIGA. She reckons among her
alumni many of the leading Afro-Ameri-
cans In all lines of endeavor Mr. Judson
w Lyons. recently register of the United
essary to validate our national currency
is an alumnus of Howard, as Is also Mr..
George H. White. the last negro member
of Congress Ex-Repres entative White has
secured 1000 acres of land near Cape May
N j., and has established town which
bears his own name. as sort of refuge for
thrifty negroes who dissatisfied with
conditions in the south. Prof. James M
Gregory Is principal of the State Industrial
School of New Jersey, for the education of
colored youth.
Mr.. T. Thomas Fortune. editor of the
New York Age. is also Howard product
Prof. Hugh NJ. Brown Is principal OF the
Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia,
whose leading purpose Is to prepare teach
ers industrially for work in the south Mr.
John II. Smyth, ex-minister to Liberia. Is
founder and manager of the Juvenile Re-
formatory of Virginia. His institution has
1000 acres Of land. where Juvenile Offend
ers are sent by the state of Virginia. so
as to separate them from the hardened
criminal adults in the state prison, and re-
form their evil tendencies and develop In
them Intelligent Industrial habits Mr..
Smyth has about 100 wards, and his sue
cess has received the highest commenda-
| tion from the state authorities
Practical Educational Ideals
President Thirkield gave a graphic de-
| scription of Kowaliga Institute and the
| Dixie Land Company. as illustrating prac-
| teal educational ideals as carried out by
| William E. Benson. a graduate Of Howard