NEGRO 



4112 



NEHEMIAH 



woolly hair, a flat nose, thick lips and a tall 

 body, with long arms and legs. Africa from the 

 Sudan southward to the Tropic of Capricorn is 

 the native land of the negro, but these people 

 have been carried to nearly all parts of the 

 globe. In 1619 twenty negroes were taken to 

 the American colonies and sold as slaves. Pre- 

 vious to this the Spaniards had brought negroes 

 to the West Indies and sold them into slavery. 

 The project was successful from a financial 

 viewpoint, and the importation of negroes into 

 the United States continued until 1808, when it 

 was prohibited by the Constitution. At the 

 close of the War of Secession there were about 

 4,000,000 negroes in the United States, and their 

 numbers have continued to increase; in 1910 

 there were over 9,800,000 in the country. Cuba, 

 Haiti, San Domingo and Jamaica have a large 

 proportion of negroes among their population. 



Education of the Negro. During the period 

 of slavery, no effort was made by the Southern 

 states to educate the negro, and the problem 

 was not seriously presented until the issue of 

 the War of Secession had made of him a citi- 

 zen. Church societies of the North initiated edu- 

 cational work, the teachers being very largely 

 young men and women from that section. Of 

 such institutions, Hampton Institute, estab- 

 lished in 1861, may be regarded as typical. In- 

 dependent instruction was supplemented by 

 governmental agency during the five years' life 

 of the Freedmen's Bureau, which was opened 

 in 1865. Many wealthy men gave generously 

 to the cause. 



Experience soon showed that the best in- 

 structors of the negro were men of his own 

 race, who understood his temperament and his 

 needs. To train such instructors a number of 

 normal schools and colleges were opened in the 

 decade following 1868. Men like Booker T. 

 Washington appeared, the natural leaders of 

 their people. With a more intimate knowledge 

 of the economic and social needs of the colored 

 people, they never ceased to emphasize the wis- 

 dom of specific industrial training, and they had 

 little difficulty in showing that the traditional 

 bookish drill of the white schools must be 

 greatly modified. Within recent years the ne- 

 gro schools of the South have devoted most of 

 their efforts to training their students to take 

 a part in the agricultural and industrial devel- 

 opment of the country. They have not tried 

 to turn out scholars trained in Greek and Latin 

 and the other so-called cultural studies, but 

 skilled farmers and mechanics. As a result of 

 such methods not only have the negroes devel- 



oped greater efficiency and self-reliance, but 

 the stubborn opposition which the first educa- 

 tors of the negro had to encounter has subsided 

 also. In some parts of the South negroes 

 trained in the newer industrial schools have 

 formed flourishing communities of their own. 



It may be said that the status of the negro 

 in the South is now more encouraging than it 

 has beep at any previous time since the War 

 of Secession. Free public schools for the negro 

 exist in all the Southern states, and public- 

 spirited men from the South have united with 

 those of the North in organizing the General 

 Educational Board and the Southern Educa- 

 tional Board to promote the training of the 

 negro for citizenship and life. The influence of 

 such higher institutions of learning as Fisk Uni- 

 versity at Nashville, Howe University, Atlanta 

 University, and the normal and industrial 

 schools at Tuskegee and Hampton, permeates 

 the entire educational fabric and is rapidly es- 

 tablishing new ideals and aims for the children 

 and grandchildren of former slaves. 



The total enrolment of colored children in 

 schools of the South is about 1,770,000, over 

 half the colored school population. About 25,- 

 600 students are taking secondary courses, and 

 nearly 30,000 are enroled for collegiate and pro- 

 fessional courses. G.B.D. 



Consult DuBois's The Souls of Black Folks; 

 Dennett's Nigerian Studies; Washington's The 

 Study of the Negro. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes : 



Freedmen's Bureau Slavery 



Hampton Normal and Tuskegee Normal and 

 Agricultural Institute Industrial Institute 

 Peabody Education Fund War of Secession 

 Slater Fund Washington, Booker T. 



NE'GUS, the native title of the king or em- 

 peror of Abyssinia, his full title being negus 

 negusti, meaning king of kings. Negus is also 

 the name of a drink common in the early part 

 of the eighteenth century, and named after its 

 inventor, Colonel Francis Negus (died 1732). 

 It was usually made of port, mixed with a little 

 lemon juice, sugar and hot water. 



NEHEMI'AH, a Jew born during the Baby- 

 lonian captivity, and as a youth cupbearer to 

 Artaxerxes, king of Persia. Having besought 

 the king with regard to the unprotected state 

 of his kinsmen in Judea, he was made governor 

 of that province. An account of his subsequent 

 work is given in the book of Nehemiah, the 

 latest of the historical books of the Old Testa- 

 ment, He rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, took 



