Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-10-11
NEW EDUCATION
FOR NEGRO RACE
URGED IN REPORT
Experts Declare Teaching
Not Practical and Sug-
gest Changes Needed.


Professional education for the col
ored race. particularly the develop
ment of physicians. teachers and
clergymen. is urged as a remedy for
racial difficulties in a report issued
by the Phelps Stokes Fund, cover
ing the results of it's ten years labor.
The fund was created In 1911 by the
will of Miss Caroline Phelps-Stokes
for the erection or improvement of
tenement house dwellings in New
York city and for the education Of
colored students in the United states
and Africa. North American Indians
and deserving white students.
Successful leadership requires the
best lessons of economics, sociology
and education" says the report, which
covers ninety pages. Really skilled
and educated negro physicians. clergy
men and teachers are needed, with an
adequate intellectual background. to
deal with the conflicting problems and
many misunderstanding caused by
race friction in America Without
SUCH leadership, both white and col
ored. race problems will increase and
multiply in menace to the nation
Say New Education Needed.
Criticism of many of the schools is
made on the ground that their courses
of study are based on nothing practi-
cal. in the following terms:
Education must be closely related
to the actual life of those who have
to be taught. 1t must take account
OF their instincts. experience and in
tereStS. as distinct from those of peo-
pie living in quite different condi-
lions. Its aim must be to equip them
for the life which they have to live.
10 moi NH he
put. not on a purely literary curricu
lum such as still prevails in many
schools. but on training in such ne
cessities of actual life as health.
hygiene. the making and keeping of a
home, the earning of a livelihood, and
civic knowledge and spirit.
I'm curriculum and method the |
schools have continued to be arb- |
trary and aristocratic. Subjects in
troduced in the middle ages to meet |
the needs of one or more classes of
the people of that time have been !
Democracy in the content of educa- |
ton demands that the curriculum !
shall impart culture through knowl- |
edge and practice related to the farm. |
the shop, the office and. above all. |
the home. Among the good negro |
schools are some which have achieved |
international fame for pioneer service |
in democratizing education. But the !
ma jority are following the traditional |
school curriculum. with too exclusive !
emphasis on bookish studies"
Change in Teachers Deplored.
The report, while recognizing that !
.the increasing responsibility of the |
one of the hopeful signs for the prog |
ress of the race" deplores the rapid |
elimination of white teachers from |
colored schools as tending to conn |
plete the segregation of the negro |
from the aid. influence and stand
ards of white people" The report |
concludes that mo greater loss could |
befall the negro school than the
elimination of northern philanthropy
and northern teachers" |
Concrete activities financed by the |
Fund include stimu-
lation and encouragement, by prizes, |
of habits Of cleanliness and order |
the students at boarding |
schools; the introduction of uni |
form system of accounting in many !!
a system had been the cause of gross |
financial waste: an architectural sur |
vey of southern schools, with recon- |
mendations which have resulted in |
both the taste and the |
practical value Of many such insti-
dening and simple manual training
into many schools.
In addition to its work with the
United States bureau of education.
the fund has co-operated with the
Slater and Jeanes funds, with officials
of southern cities, the International
Sunday School Association, the Brit
ish commission to study village life
in India and numerous other agencies.
Close Cooperation Favored.
An important recommendation in
the report is the following: The d.
vision of racial groups was discontin-
ued in the bureau Of education July
1. 1919, in accordance with an act of
Congress passed in 1917 forbidding
Of private agencies with
the federal government after June 80,
1919 1t is most unfortunate that no
provision has been made to continue
the bureaus activities in negro edu-
cation. The racial situation was
never more acute than during these
reconstruction months. The national
government has every reason to main
tain group Of workers whose duty
it shall be to know the educational
provisions for the negroes and to de-
velop correlation and cooperation be-
tween the states for the improvement
OF the negroes in every part of the
country"
During the war the officials of the
fund were constantly called on for
help in solving educational problems
connected with colored troops, and
the majority of the officials of the
fund were in active war service. Both
during and after the war the fund CO.
operated actively with the wartime
committee of the churches and the
war work council of the Y. NJ. c. A,
and was largely instrumental in
forming the interracial committee,
which has organized committees of
white and colored men in many COM
munities to cooperate in diminishing
race friction. with the results that
many dangerous riots have been
averted and a large section of the