The Washington bee., 1908-05-30
OUR SUPERINTENDENT
PROFESSOR ROSCOE CONK-
LING BRUCE SPEAKS - HIS
SCHOLARLY ADDRESS TO
THE GRADUATES.

THE GRADUATES.
Extracts from commencement ad-
dress delivered by Roscoe Conkling
Bruce, Assistant Superintendent of
Public Schools, Washington. D. c.,
to the graduates Of Avery College,
Pittsburg, Pa, Tuesday May 26.)
Here and there, particularly in pri-
vate institutions like Spelman Sem
mary and Hampton Institute and the
universities like Atlanta and Fisk
and Shaw, white teachers - most
from the North, but some from the
South-of the finest culture and the
noh'est devotion, will always, I pray
and believe. continue to teach Negro
youth in. the heart of the South. For
this service the Negro people will al
ways feel as they have always felt
profoundly grateful But, schools
Industrial and normal, elementary and
secondary, great and small - even
colleges and professional schools, such
separate institutions for Negro stu
dents will more and more seek teach
ers and executive officers in men and
women OF Negro blood. In point of
fact the teachers of Negroes are to-
day in the vast majority of cases
black, and neither South nor North
questions for a moment the COmpe-
tence of black men and women for
such service or the wholesome ef-
fects of such an arrangement upon
the spirit and attitude of the stu
dents and upon the whole present
social situation The quickening of
Negro life must come more and more
from within, the uplifting forces will
be more and more in the hands of
Negroes. Now, the fundamental
problem of any school is not land
and buildings, but personnel - the
personnel Of the teaching body. 1t
IS a grievOus error to suppose that a
good heart and some ability to read
and write adequately equip teacher
of the common branches; or that So
briefly and some skill with saw and
plane and hammer make a teacher of
carpentry. One of the most serious
problems which a great institution
like Tuskegee, for example, has to
face, is the dearth of men and wo-
men of liberal education, specific
training in teaching, and professional
spirit and ideals. Negro public
schools are everywhere gravely en-
barrassed by lack of principals and
teachers with a sound and thorough
education. This issue is now upon
us; the demand for well-equippedNs-
gro teachers for all classes of Negro
schools is at this moment very far IN
excess of the supply. The black
teacher of the best education and the
best training is never out of job;
the field of his influence and service
is almost limitless.
The Negro college in the South
should admit students who have never
studied Latin or Greek, and should
enrich its curriculum by the addition
OF thorough courses in natural sci
ence with its applications Of trade
and industry; in history and social
science with special attention to the
traditions and history and progress
of Negro peoples in Africa and in
America,an to the sociological prob
lems in which Negro life in America
is enmeshed today. The Negro col
lege should render its curriculum
flexible and more widely serviceable
through the introduction of an elect
i've system by whose provisions the
dead languages might give way to
the living languages and history and
social science, and pure mathemat-
ics to psychology and ethics and the
principles and practice of education.
And finally the Negro university
should organize well equipped schools
of education, of engineering, of ag-
riculture alongside the schools of
medicine. Some of these reforms
have already been cOmpassed OF are
in progress, l. am glad to say, in the
best Negro colleges and universities
OF the South.