FUTURE OF THE NEGRO IN THE SOUTH. 155 



against him, and where head and hands may help one another to profit 

 of mind and pocket — in business of varied kinds where he may get 

 money, and with it the station that, in the common view, nothing else 

 will afford him; in good work done for his race such as will give him 

 the dignity in the eyes of all men that the master of Tuskegee has 

 won. It is very much better for a negro youth, and for his race, that 

 he should be a successful blacksmith, farmer or engineer, than a lawyer 

 or physician, hindered and shunned, sorely burthened as he is sure to be 

 by the cross that his fellowmen force him to bear. Therefore, unless 

 they are willing to betake themselves to countries where the govern- 

 ment is in the control of mixed peoples, thereby escaping the worst 

 evils of race prejudice, it seems best for negroes not to seek the so-called 

 learned professions, but to win their way on the lines where they will 

 find less resistance — on ways quite fit for a man, even if not the highest. 



It has been suggested that our colonies may afford a field for pro- 

 fessionally educated negroes; but there, if they are to be ruled by the 

 home government, it is likely that they will find a white caste in con- 

 trol. We may thus expect that the same essential disfranchisement 

 will be found there as at home. Moreover, as before remarked, this 

 project of sending to far lands the individual of ability who is needed 

 at home, can not commend itself to those who feel the need which is 

 with us, a need that calls for all the capacity we can hope to develop 

 among the black people. It is clearly not a time to consider a proposi- 

 tion to export these abler youths of the black population. 



Back of all our projects to bring the negroes of the South to the 

 full station of citizens, to get rid of the contempt and the consequences 

 of the contempt in which they are, as a race, so generally held, is the 

 grave question as to the practicability of framing a social and political 

 system in which men of such diverse origin may have a substantially 

 equal chance. It must be granted that in no modern state of high 

 grade has this problem been fairly solved. The instances from the 

 tropical colonies of Great Britain are not really apposite; but there 

 seems no fundamental difficulty to contend with in order to attain this 

 end. With cultivated people of their own race about them the better 

 negro youth would not be deprived of that element of education. We 

 have taken into our political family races scarcely less different in 

 motives from our own than are the negroes, making no kind of objec- 

 tion to their sharing the commonwealth with us. In certain ways it is 

 true that a nation loses strength where it fails to have its elements 

 closely knit together. But it may be doubted whether these losses are 

 not more than compensated for by the gains that arise from diversities 

 such as would come from the introduction into our system of a body 

 of folk with the capacities which our Africans are likely with thorough 

 training to develop. 



