EDUCATION OF OUR COLORED CITIZENS. 789 



EDUCATION OF OUR COLORED CITIZENS. 



By MAUD WILDER GOODWIN. 



WHAT shall we do with the negro ? This is not a question 

 of philanthropy, but of self-interest and self-protection. 

 The negro has come to stay. The race at present numbers some 

 seven or eight millions, and actually holds the balance of power 

 numerically in several of the Southern States. 



The Black Belt, as it is to-day, is a menace to the country from 

 Mississippi to Maine, because it is black with the darkness of 

 idleness and ignorance and immorality. It must soon be decided 

 whether it shall grow darker and darker, or shall come to shine, 

 bright as the Belt of Orion, with the light of intelligence and in- 

 dustry. The problem touches all who believe that good govern- 

 ment rests on good citizenship, and good citizenship on individual 

 enlightenment, that education is the tortoise which supports Atlas- 

 in his task of holding up the world. 



We are confronted by a solid mass of ignorant citizens, nomi- 

 nally if not actually in possession of the ballot, and potent to 

 make or mar the fabric of the republic. This mass is not de- 

 creasing, but increasing. What is to be done about it ? Whether 

 we care for the negro or his welfare matters not. If we care for 

 the nation, we must give this question earnest consideration. We 

 are entitled to hold the most divergent opinions on the subject, 

 but we are not entitled to indifference, that fatal policy of letting 

 alone growing evils which has wrecked so many communities. 



There can be no divided opinion on the desirability of educat- 

 ing citizens of any race or color. The problem, then, so far as 

 the negro is concerned, resolves itself into three questions : Is he 

 capable of being educated ? What system of education best 

 meets his temperament and condition ? and How can such educa- 

 tion be given him ? 



To put the last two questions is, of course, to assume an affirma- 

 tive answer to the first. Assuredly the negro can be educated. 

 We may assume so much of a horse or a dog. How far, is another 

 story, as Rudyard Kipling would say. All speculation on the 

 comparative intellectual capacity of the black race is idle. Any 

 accurate estimate must be based on data which, in the nature of 

 things, can not be available for some centuries to come. 



To the closest observers at the South the progress of the negro 

 appears, on the whole, remarkable, though statistics might be 

 prepared to present a different view. It is a well-worn truth that 

 civilization is classification, and so it is proving with the blacks. 

 Some of them have progressed. Some have reverted almost to 

 barbarism. Slavery itself was in its time a great school of civili- 



