152 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



observer can not fail to remark their keen delight in music. Statistics 

 on this, as on other facts, are lacking; hut from what I have been able 

 to learn, it appears probable that a far greater proportion of the blacks 

 are sensitive to musical effects than is the case with the white people. 

 I have indeed never been able to find a black man who was so far lacking 

 in this sensibility that he did not enjoy the songs of his people. It is 

 not unlikely that close inquiry would show this to be a remarkable 

 feature in this unexplored race. As yet little effort has been made 

 to determine the true measure of this capacity of the negro for music. 

 It may be that they can not attain to the higher levels of the art; yet 

 it is perfectly evident that their voices are exceptionally good, and that 

 they have a keen native sense of time and tune. The most effective 

 dance music I have ever heard has been made by negroes who could not 

 read a note. When we consider how large a place music has in our life, it 

 is a fair suggestion that this quality of the black nature might well be 

 made the subject of experiment. 



Those who look closely at the conditions of the negroes of the South 

 are led to the belief that the existing separation in sympathy of the 

 races is not likely long to continue. The greater number of the negroes 

 instinctively crave a protective relation with the whites. It is the 

 ancient disposition of the weak man to lean upon the strong which has 

 in all ages and lands determined the relations of folk. At present 

 the two peoples are held apart by the memories of slavery, rather than 

 by any real personal dislike — the race prejudice which so commonly 

 separates the Northern white from the negro. As this temporary 

 barrier wears down, we may hope to find a new form of association 

 arising — one in which the negroes will seek and find their friends 

 among the trusted men of the superior race. I have seen marks of this 

 new relation here and there, not many nor very clear, but fairly in- 

 dicative of what may come about, provided the political excitement is 

 allowed to subside and the people of the South, black and white, make 

 their adjustments according to their motives and capacities, with no 

 reference to the Federal power. 



At first sight it will appear to most of the Northern people over- 

 much to ask that the powers at Washington give up all efforts to deal 

 with the needs of the negro folk — the so-called wards of the nation. 

 Yet experience has shown the impracticability of the project of help- 

 ing these negroes with the long arm of the Federal law. All that has 

 been undertaken in this way has been fruitless or worse. The only 

 chance for lifting the black man to the full status of the citizen is by 

 leaving his future essentially in the hands of the masterful folk who 

 alone can help him. We see that the ruling class in the South 

 have a measure of interest in the status of the negro and an opportunity 

 to benefit his state that can never belong to the people of the North. 



