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BRIEF FOR THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
BRIEF FOR THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
BY PROF. KELLY MILLER Howard University WASHINGTON, D. C. 1903 Ridicule and contempt have characterized the habitual attitude of the American mind toward the Negro’s higher strivings. The African was brought to this country for the purpose of performing manual and menial labor. His bodily powers alone were required to accomplish this industrial mission. No more account was taken of his higher susceptibilities than of the mental and moral faculties of the lower animals. As the late Mr. Price used
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MANIFESTATIONS OF HIGHER QUALITIES.
MANIFESTATIONS OF HIGHER QUALITIES.
As the higher susceptibilities of the Negro were not wanted, their existence was at one time denied. The eternal inferiority of the race was assumed as a part of the cosmic order of things. History, literature, science, speculative conjecture, and even Holy Writ were ransacked for evidence and argument to support the ruling dogma. While the slave holder had proved beyond all possibility of doubt the incapacity of the Negro for knowledge, yet he, prudently enough, passed laws forbidding the attem
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IS THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO WORTH WHILE AS A PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY?
IS THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO WORTH WHILE AS A PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY?
The education of the Negro is not of itself a thing apart, but is an integral factor of the general pedagogic equation. Race psychology has not yet been formulated. No reputable authority has pointed out just wherein the two races differ in any evident mental feature. The mind of the Negro is of the same nature as that of the white man and needs the same nurture. The general poverty of the Negro, however, and his inability to formulate and direct his own scheme of culture, render the question no
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THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION TO A BACKWARD RACE.
THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION TO A BACKWARD RACE.
The African was snatched from the wilds of savagery and thrust into the midst of a mighty civilization. He thus escaped the gradual progress of evolution. Education must accomplish more for a backward race than for a people who are in the fore-front of progress. It must not only lead to the unfoldment of faculties but must equip for a life from which the recipient is separated by many centuries of development. The African chieftain who would make a pilgrimage from the jungle to Boston might acco
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THE HIGHER TRAINING OF CHOICE YOUTH.
THE HIGHER TRAINING OF CHOICE YOUTH.
The first great need of the Negro is that the choice youth of the race should assimilate the principles of culture and hand them down to the masses below. This is the only gate-way through which a new people may enter into modern civilization. Herein lies the history of culture. The select minds of the backward race or nation must receive the new cult and adapt it to the peculiar needs of their own people. Japan looms up as the most progressive of the non-Aryan races. The wonderful progress of t
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SELF-RELIANT MANHOOD.
SELF-RELIANT MANHOOD.
Another great need of the race, which the schools must in a large measure supply, is self-reliant manhood. Slavery made the Negro as dependent upon the intelligence and foresight of his master as a soldier upon the will of his commander. He had no need to take thought as to what he should eat or drink or wherewithal he should be clothed. Knowledge necessarily awakens self-consciousness of power. When a child learns the multiplication table he gets a clear notion of intellectual dignity. Here he
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TRAINING FOR LEADERSHIP.
TRAINING FOR LEADERSHIP.
The work of the educated colored man is largely that of leadership. He requires, therefore, all the discipline, judgment and mental equipment that long preparation can afford. The more ignorant and backward the masses the more skilled and sagacious should the leaders be. If a beneficial and kindly contact between the races is denied on the lower plane of flesh and blood, it must be sought in the upper region of mental and moral kinship. Knowledge and virtue know no ethnic exclusiveness. If indee
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THE MORAL IMPOTENCY OF ELEMENTARY AND MECHANICAL KNOWLEDGE.
THE MORAL IMPOTENCY OF ELEMENTARY AND MECHANICAL KNOWLEDGE.
Again, the higher education should be encouraged because of the moral impotency of all the modes of education which do not touch and stir the human spirit. It is folly to suppose that the moral nature of the child is improved because it has been taught to read and write and cast up accounts, or to practice a handicraft. Tracing the letters of the alphabet with a pen has no bearing on the Golden Rule. The spelling of words by sounds and syllables does not lead to the observance of the Ten Command
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THE SOCIAL SEPARATION OF THE RACES.
THE SOCIAL SEPARATION OF THE RACES.
The Negro has now reached a critical stage in his career. The point of attachment between the races which slavery made possible has been destroyed. The relation is daily becoming less intimate and friendly, and more business-like and formal. It thus becomes all the more imperative that the race should gain for itself the primary principles of knowledge and culture. The social separation of the races in America renders it imperative that the professional classes among the Negroes should be recrui
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THE PROFESSIONAL NEEDS OF THE CITY NEGRO.
THE PROFESSIONAL NEEDS OF THE CITY NEGRO.
According to the census of 1900, there were 72 cities in the United States with a population of more than 5,000 persons of color, averaging 15,000 each, and aggregating 1,000,000 in all. The professional needs of this urban population for teachers, preachers, lawyers and physicians call for 5,000 well-equipped men and women, not one of whom would be qualified for his function by the three R’s or a handicraft....
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THE EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION UPON THE RURAL MASSES.
THE EFFECT OF HIGHER EDUCATION UPON THE RURAL MASSES.
The supreme concern of philanthropy is the welfare of the unawakened rural masses. To this end there is need of a goodly sprinkling of well educated men and women to give wise guidance, direction and control. Let no one deceive himself that the country Negro can be uplifted except through the influence of higher contact. It is impossible to inaugurate and conduct a manual training or industrial school without men of sound academic as well as technical knowledge. The torch which is to lighten the
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THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTIVATED TASTE.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTIVATED TASTE.
Rational enjoyment, through moderation, is perhaps as good a definition as can be given of culture. The reaction of culture on conduct is a well known principle of practical ethics. The Negro race is characterized by boisterousness of manner and extravagant forms of taste. As if to correct such deficiencies, his higher education, hitherto, has largely been concerned with Greek and Latin literature, the norms of modern culture. It is just here that our educational critics are liable to become exc
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THE RELATIVE CLAIMS OF INDUSTRIAL AND HIGHER EDUCATION.
THE RELATIVE CLAIMS OF INDUSTRIAL AND HIGHER EDUCATION.
Whenever the higher education of the Negro is broached, industrial training is always suggested as a counter irritant. Partisans of rival claims align themselves in hostile array and will not so much as respect a flag of truce. These one-eyed enthusiasts lack binocular vision. The futile discussion as to whether industrial or higher education is of greater importance to the Negro is suggestive of a subject of great renown in rural debating societies: which is of greater importance to man, air or
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THE HIGHER EDUCATION STIMULATES INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY.
THE HIGHER EDUCATION STIMULATES INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY.
Indeed, one of the strongest claims for the higher education of the Negro is that it will stimulate the dormant industrial activities of the race. The surest way to incite a people to meet the material demands of life is to teach them that life is more than meat. The unimaginative laborer pursues the routine rounds of his task, spurred on, only by the immediate necessities of life and the taskmaster’s stern command. To him, it is only time and the hour that run through the whole day. The Negro l
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MEN OF HIGHER TRAINING THE LEADERS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
MEN OF HIGHER TRAINING THE LEADERS OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
It requires men of sound knowledge to conceive and execute plans for the industrial education of the masses. The great apostles of industrial education for the Negro have been of academic training, or of its cultural equivalent. The work of Hampton and Tuskegee is carried on by men and women of a high degree of mental cultivation....
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DR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AN EXAMPLE OF HIGHER CULTURE.
DR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AN EXAMPLE OF HIGHER CULTURE.
Doctor Booker T. Washington, note the title, is the most influential Negro that the race under freedom has produced. He is the great apostle of industrial training. His great success is but the legitimate outcome of his earnestness and enthusiasm. And yet there is no more striking illustration of the necessity of wise, judicious and cultivated leadership as a means of stimulating the dormant activity of the masses than he who hails from Tuskegee. His success is due wholly to his intellectual and
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THE DEFICIENCY OF THE SLAVE MECHANIC.
THE DEFICIENCY OF THE SLAVE MECHANIC.
Slavery taught the Negro, to work but at the same time to despise those who worked. To them all show of respectability was attached to those whom circumstances placed above the necessity of toil. It requires intellectual conception of the object and the end of labor to overcome this mischievous notion. The Negro mechanics produced under the old slave regime are rapidly passing away because they did not possess the power of self-perpetuation. They were not rooted and grounded in rational principl
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MONEY SPENT FOR THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO NOT WASTED.
MONEY SPENT FOR THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO NOT WASTED.
The charge has recently been made that money spent on the higher education of the Negro has been wasted. Does this charge come from the South? When we consider that it was through Northern philanthropy that a third of its population received their first impulse toward better things; that these higher institutions prepared the 30,000 Negro teachers whose services are utilized in the public schools; that the men and women who were the beneficiaries of this philanthropy are doing all in their power
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NOT MERE THEORIZERS.
NOT MERE THEORIZERS.
We often hear that the advocates of higher education are mere theorists without definite, tangible plans and propositions. There has recently sprung into prominence a class of educational philosophers who deny the value of stored up knowledge. We are informed that only such information as will be honored at the corner grocery or is convertible on demand into cash equivalent is of practical value, while all else is an educational delusion and a snare. The truth is, that all knowledge which clarif
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NEED FOR THE NEGRO COLLEGE.
NEED FOR THE NEGRO COLLEGE.
It is sometimes claimed that the few capable Negroes can find opportunity for higher training in the institutions of the North. It is by no means certain to what extent these institutions would admit colored students. The Northern College is not apt to inspire the colored pupil with the enthusiasm and fixed purpose for the work which Providence has assigned him. It is the spirit, not the letter that maketh alive. The white College does not contemplate the special needs of the Negro race. America
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DOES THE HIGHER EDUCATION LEAD AWAY FROM THE RACE?
DOES THE HIGHER EDUCATION LEAD AWAY FROM THE RACE?
It is often charged that the higher education lifts the Negro above the needs of his race. The thousands of graduates of Negro Schools and Colleges all over the land are a living refutation of this charge. After the mind has been stored with knowledge it is transmitted to the place where the need is greatest and the call is loudest, and transmuted into whatever mode of energy may be necessary to accomplish the imposed task. The issues involved in the race question are as intricate in their relat
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A CONCRETE ILLUSTRATION.
A CONCRETE ILLUSTRATION.
But Wisdom is justified of her children. As an illustration of the value of the higher education of the Negro race, I point to Howard University, which is the largest and best equipped institution of its class. The establishment and maintenance of this institution during the past 35 years has cost between two and three millions of dollars. As returns on this investment it has sent into the world 200 ministers of the Gospel, 700 physicians, pharmacists and dentists, 300 lawyers, and 600 persons w
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