14 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



domestic animals, yet that is precisely what those are doing 

 who reject all attempts at education, social advancement, and 

 any other effort towards the betterment of conditions, save such 

 as subserve the purpose of producing a labourer at the minimum 

 of cost, and with the least possibility of making him a com- 

 petitor in any other department of life. 



It is essential that due regard be paid to the race-conscious- 

 ness of a people who recognize a sense of lack in their present 

 degraded condition, who feel the need of education to supply 

 what is wanting, and who are moved by a desire, increased by 

 a knowledge of what some have already accomplished, to attain 

 to a higher standard of life and service in the community. That 

 everything which is desired cannot be granted or attained all at 

 once is no reason whatever why all that can be done should not 

 be done. Civilization in a hurry would necessarily produce 

 pernicious results, but to block it almost completely by unfair 

 and unreasonable repression is to sit on the safety-valve, and 

 the community which does that of set purpose, or even through 

 carelessness, must accept the consequences. Citizenship can- 

 not in these days be permanently withheld from any section of 

 the community which shews its fitness for it without endanger- 

 ing the peace and safety of the body politic. 



The duty before us seems to lie in this direction — 



(a) To conserve the universal interests, as far as may be, 

 which the consciousness of both races conceives to be of per- 

 manent value. 



(b) To supply the lack which either expression of race- 

 consciousness fails to recognize, which can only be done by a 

 process of mutual education through intellectual intercourse. 



(c) To so advance the interests of the community as a 

 whole that security and progress for the future shall be ensured. 



In regard to these propositions it is a commonplace of all 

 race intercourse that the relationships must be characterised by 

 justice, not only in matters pertaining to law and its adminis- 

 tration, but in due consideration for each other's point of view, 

 in opportunity for advance freely granted, and in the provision 

 of such means as are essential thereto. Our native people- must 

 learn that claims and aims must be clearly and temperately 

 advanced, and that the value of character behind them is of 

 prime importance. They should be encouraged in this direction 

 by due recognition of the nature and spirit of such efforts for 

 advancement, as against the engineering of crises which call for 

 the use of force and delay progress. They must have clearly 

 revealed to them the sources from which our greatness has been 

 derived and taught the value of them. 



In this respect no little assistance is afforded by a grasp 

 of the mutuality of the interests involved. This is evident, 

 sometimes distressingly so, in such a matter as Health. A 

 Southern Officer of Health aflirms of the negro: " If he is tainted 

 with disease vou will suffer." What is true of physical health 



