The Negro in America. 229 



And in the education of the negro much can be learned from 

 the bitter experience of the South. Most absurd notions were held 

 on the subject of educating the black man. In far too many cases 

 Greek, Latin, and Hebrew were taught the unfortunate pupils. The 

 consequence is that on the whole education of the negro in the South 

 has proved a dismal failure. 



That an increasing number of natives of South Africa will be 

 educated I have no doubt. It is fair not only to the white man but 

 to the negro as well, that the proper kind of education be given him. 

 It is a gross injustice, for instance, to train the native to be a skilled 

 artisan, and then drive him from end to end of South Africa in a 

 vain search for work ; to make a lawyer out of him and prevent him 

 from practising. Instruction should be given him through the medium 

 of his own language, and not by means of the classics of Greece, 

 Rome, or England. 



There is one thing that the negro in America, in the majoritv 

 of cases, is sure of getting, and that is justice before the law. There 

 are cases, no doubt, of gross injustice, but the courts as a rule see 

 that the negro gets equitable treatment. In South Africa it should 

 be the same. Nothing is appreciated more by the negro mind than 

 plain justice. 



I have spoken of the horror with which the Southern whites 

 view the subject of amalgamation with the negro race. It is their 

 bete noir. A negro leader in America said recentlv that the " Anglo- 

 Saxon is the most arrogant and rapacious, the most exclusive and 

 intolerant race in history." Quite so, and when it loses these 

 qualities it will cease to exist. Race purity is becoming a passion in 

 the South. In no part of the limitless lands of the Anglo-Saxon are 

 the ideals of our race cherished more than in the South. I hope 

 the same passion will grow in this country, and that any approach 

 to amalgamation will be viewed with dismav. 



The last lesson is the most important of all. As I have already 

 intimated, the wholesale enfranchisement of the freedmen has pro\ed 

 one of the most colossal blunders of political history. It has been 

 a real cause of the decline of the negro race in the South. That for 

 which the white man struggled for years was freely given to the 

 blacks. What marvel then that it stultified their development and 

 checked real progress and effort. Politically, the negro was made the 

 white man's equal. In consequence he concluded there was no differ- 

 ence whatsoever between himself and his former master. The race 

 has never climbed the steep and rugged heights along which every 

 people that has become great must toil, but has been lifted on a 

 flowery bed of ease to the summit. Let not the same political 

 blunder be made in South Africa ! 



In conclusion, I beg to state my indebtedness to Hoffman's 

 " Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro " (The Mac- 

 millan Co., New York) in the preparation of this paper. This work 

 should be in the library of every one in South Africa interested in the 

 Negro Problem. 



