698 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



0r r jesp^o xiHitutt. 



RACE PSYCHOLOGY. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



SIR: The article entitled A Study in Race 

 Psychology, published in the January 

 number of the Popular Science Monthly, has 

 called forth several letters which show that 

 the particular case there presented is far 

 from being an isolated one. It is interest- 

 ing to note also that the question of educa- 

 tional adaptation raised by the article is 

 working in many minds, and has prompted 

 experiments in many quarters. Before re- 

 ferring to these I would note that objection 

 has been taken in one instance to discussions 

 based upon a single case. It is in order to 

 apply here the doctrine of Le Play, who be- 

 lieved that to understand society it is neces- 

 sary to know its unit, the family. This, 

 however, he declared did not necessitate the 

 study of all families, but simply of typical 

 families. Now, the unit of the school is the 

 pupil, and to know the problem of the school 

 it is necessary to study its typical unit. The 

 study in question was a tentative experiment 

 of this kind. 



But to return to the correspondence. City 

 and country are about equally represented 

 in it, with the higher measure of apprecia- 

 tion for the study and its purport in the 

 former. It would seem, indeed, that the 

 problem presented is one well recognized in 

 cities with large colored populations. The 

 question raised in almost every case is how 

 to adapt the dav school to individuals or to 

 a class of whom Isaiah is the type. I should 

 answer that possibly the school is not the 

 place in which the adaptation can be made. 

 The school must treat the child primarily as 

 part of a social whole. This is one of the 

 chief benefits that it renders the community. 

 It accustoms the young to act in concert and 

 in obedience to a general law. On the other 

 hand, it must approach the child also as an 

 individual, but for obvious reasons it ad- 

 dresses itself to an average or normal indi- 

 vidual. This is the underlying principle of 

 grading which in some form or other obtains 

 in schools of every order. Experience has 

 shown, however, that society suffers if even 

 a few individuals below the normal fail of 

 development. In several foreign cities, not- 

 ably Berlin and London, this has been as 

 clearly recognized as the need of guarding 



against general illiteracy, and special schools 

 for dull or abnormal children have been 

 established at public expense. There are 

 peculiar difficulties in the way of sifting out 

 the colored population of a city like Wash- 

 ington, for example, on any such plan. Nor 

 can we hope at present for a system of con- 

 tinuation schools such as is provided in Ger- 

 many and Switzerland by which American 

 youth, white or black, who leave school with 

 the barest knowledge of the elements, might 

 have their intellectual training prolonged, 

 while at the same time they should be ini- 

 tiated into some art or trade. The only 

 feasible plan at present is to supplement the 

 school by auxiliary agencies, private or 

 church. It is interesting to note that this 

 is an expedient which is being attempted by 

 leading colored men in the interests of the 

 poorer and most backward of their race. 

 Two notable efforts of this kind have been 

 reported to me from Washington. One of 

 these is of the nature of a veritable " settle- 

 ment " in a forlorn purlieu of the city, the 

 other is an industrial school in connection 

 with a leading colored church. These efforts, 

 however, are directed chiefly to girls, and 

 they emphasize anew the extreme difficulty 

 of adapting any agency of the kind to the 

 needs of colored boys. The discussion of 

 such adaptation has been promoted by the 

 ai'ticle in question. Inadequate as are these 

 isolated experiments, they are the only re- 

 source while we wait the slow increase of 

 pressure which, like the military and indus- 

 trial stress of European countries, will yet 

 force us to make larger provision and more 

 varied adjustments for the education of the 

 masses. 



From the study of one hundred thousand 

 school children of England Dr. Francis War- 

 ner is led to the conclusion that about fifteen 

 in a thousand require particular training, 

 and he urges that the expense of teaching 

 this proportion in a special classroom and by 

 special methods would be an efficient means 

 of lessening crime, pauperism, and social fail- 

 ure. Discounting all hereditary differences 

 between the black and the white races, the 

 argument is nevertheless peculiarly applica- 

 ble to the lower class of blacks on account 

 of their well known social and family disa- 

 bilities. Anna Tolman Smith. 

 Washington, JarMary 25, 1897. 



