574 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to foreign points. They include marbles, 

 sandstones of excellent quality, and the 

 Mexican " onyx " (arragonite, or carbonate of 

 lime). Sands suitable for the manufacture of 

 glass are abundant in the eastern part of the 

 State. Silver occurs at one place, but the 

 mine has been abandoned. 



Prospects of Negro Edncation. The 



problem of the comparative intellectual or 

 ethical capacities of the Caucasian and the 

 negro is treated by Dr. J. L. M. Curry, chair- 

 man of the Executive Committee of the John 

 F. Slater Fund, as a speculative question 

 that need not be studied as yet. What is 

 called the "negro problem" is remote from 

 its final or satisfactory solution. To settle 

 it will require more than the thirty years 

 that have elapsed since the Pi-oclamation of 

 Emancipation and more data and calmer and 

 more scientific generalizations free, too, 

 from prejudice, fanaticism, sectarianism, and 

 partisanship than are yet at hand. The 

 education of the negro is encompassed with 

 peculiar complications, difficulties, and limi- 

 tations. What has been accomplished is 

 encouragement to do more. What has been 

 attained is the demonstration that other and 

 better things can be reached. In adopting 

 means and methods to secure the highest 

 results in education it must not be forgotten 

 that the negro is still fettered by the hered- 

 ity of thousands of years and by the in- 

 grained and slowly eradieable weaknesses 

 of slavery. It is proper to remember that 

 African slavery has strengthened the neces- 

 sary evils of the " peculiar institution " into 

 habitudes, and that these in the course of 

 years have become racial characteristics. 

 Conferences were held during the last year, at 

 which the normal and material condition of 

 the negroes and the obstacles to their prog- 

 ress, the methods and means of progress, 

 and the influence of women were discussed. 

 Unquestionable as has been the improvement 

 in normal and industrial work in the schools, 

 it is equally beyond question that the in- 

 struction is not what it should be in any of 

 them. What is called normal instruction is 

 too often of very superficial character and a 

 mere annex to the ordinary literary course, 

 while what is done in manual training is un- 

 scientific and based apparently on merely 

 utilitarian considerations. The Slater Fund 



has heretofore been operated in connection 

 with the denominational and other schools 

 already established in the South. While its 

 managers have sought to emphasize as much 

 as possible its peculiar objects of normal and 

 manual training, it could not interfere with 

 their objects or expect them to subordinate 

 them to its purpose. The Hampton and 

 Tuskegee Schools and the one at Montgom- 

 ery are, however, not under these embarrass- 

 ing conditions. A proposition is now before 

 the trustees for establishing or aiding in es- 

 tablishing an independent school in which 

 the purposes of the fund shall be predomi- 

 nant. The amount of the fund is $1,220,375. 



NOTES. 



A Correction. The article on Vegetable 

 Diet, by Lady Walb. Paget, which appeared 

 in the Monthly for November, 1893, was re- 

 printed from the Nineteenth Century, to 

 which magazine it should have been credited. 



The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, has 

 the awarding of certain medals for merito- 

 rious discoveries and inventions which will 

 contribute to the promotion of arts and man- 

 ufactures, as follows: The Elliott Cresson 

 medal, gold, for some discovery in the arts 

 and sciences, or for the invention and im- 

 provement of some useful machine, or for 

 some new process or combination of mate- 

 rials in manufactures, or for ingenuity, skill, 

 or perfection in workmanship ; the John Scott 

 Legacy Premium (twenty dollars) and medal, 

 bronze, for useful inventions ; and the Ed- 

 ward Longstreth medal of merit, silver, for 

 useful invention, important discovery, and 

 meritorious work in science or the industrial 

 arts, or contributions to them. Persons desir- 

 ing full information on the subject may corre- 

 spond with William H. Wahl, secretary. 



M. Dybowski, in a recent journey in the 

 interior of Africa, encountei'ed a tribe who 

 have reduced cannibalism to such a system 

 that they have only one object of purchase 

 slaves to be eaten. They refuse to sell food 

 or any other products of their country for 

 anything else, and the surrounding tribes 

 capture and export canoe loads of slaves for 

 this purpose. 



Attkntion was recently called by M. 

 Polio in the Belgian Geological Society to 

 some scientific conceptions of Dante. Thus 

 there are references in the Commedia Di- 

 vina, which was published about 1320, to the 

 facts that the moon is the principal cause of 

 the tides ; that the surface of the sea is uni- 

 form except for the waves ; that there exists 

 a centripetal force, causing bodies to fall ; 



