DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



437 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION FOR 

 COLORED YOUTH. 



Prof. Shaler's article in the June 

 number of the Popular Science 

 Monthly was in many ways sensible 

 and timely, but it seems to the writer 

 that in common with many other peo- 

 ple he is misleading in his remarks 

 about higher education for the negro. 

 One would think from the great out- 

 cry against the higher education for 

 young people of the colored race, that 

 scarcely any other kind of education 

 was being given them. On all sides we 

 hear the familiar refrain: "The higher 

 education for the negro has been a fail- 

 ure." Now success is a relative term. 

 If a mere handful of colored college 

 graduates, in a few years, ought to have 

 settled the race problem, and induced 

 their white fellow-citizens to treat these 

 graduates and all members of their race 

 fairly, then it has been a failure. But 

 if the higher education should simply 

 give added power of mind, enlarge the 

 mental grasp and capacity for useful- 

 ness, lift up, socially, morally, relig- 

 iously and financially, not only its dis- 

 ciples, but also thousands who have 

 been induced to look upward by the 

 force of their example, then the higher 

 education for colored youth has been a 

 tremendous success. Is not the latter 

 the fair test? Of course the higher edu- 

 cation of the few has not eliminated 

 crime. It has not done that for the 

 white race. The writer is a colored 

 man and a college graduate. He can 

 not see that the higher education has 

 any different effect on the colored 

 youth from what it has on the white. 

 If there be any difference it is this: It 

 raises the colored youth from a lower 

 social level, as a rule, and places him 

 on a social plane, relatively, among his 

 own people, higher than it does in the 

 case of the white youth. The higher 

 training, therefore, should be more val- 

 uable to the colored youth. 



In a recent address before a grad- 

 uating class at Howard University, the 

 Hon. W. T. Harris, Commissioner of 

 Education, submitted statistics which 



showed that the proportionate number 

 of secondary and higher students to the 

 whole number of children attending 

 school in the United States had in- 

 creased from 2.22 per cent in 1879 to 

 5.01 per cent in 1897, nearly two and a 

 half times; while the proportion of col- 

 ored students in secondary schools and 

 colleges had increased very little indeed, 

 from 1 per cent to only 1.16 per cent. 

 But the story is not yet half told. Ac- 

 cording to the report of the Commission- 

 er of Education, 1897-98, Vol. 2, page 

 2,097, the total number of students tak- 

 ing the higher education in the United 

 States, as a whole, was 144,477, being 

 1,980 to each million of the total popu- 

 lation. The same report, page 2,480, 

 gives the total number of colored stu- 

 dents pursuing collegiate courses in 

 these much discussed colored colleges as 

 2,492. This is only 310 to the million 

 of colored population, whereas the 

 whole of the United States, as shown 

 above, had 1,980 to the million, nearly 

 six and a half times as many in propor- 

 tion to population. This does not look 

 as if the entire colored population were 

 rapidly stampeding to the higher edu- 

 cation, or as if the labor supply in the 

 Southern States were falling off from 

 this cause. 



This is an age of higher education 

 for the masses. The increase in the 

 number of students taking the second- 

 ary and higher education in the United 

 States during the last ten years has 

 been phenomenal — unprecedented. Is 

 the person of color so much superior to 

 the white that he does not need so 

 much educational training? I think 

 not. In view of the history and pres- 

 ent condition of this race, there is an 

 obvious necessity for a large number of 

 educated and trained teachers, minis- 

 ters, physicians, lawyers and pharma- 

 cists; and in view of the fact that this 

 race has only one fifth of its quota 

 pursuing studies above the elementary 

 grades, what fair mind will not say that 

 there is great need of more of the sec- 

 ondary and higher education for colored 

 youth, instead of less of it? 



