EVOLUTION OF MENTAL CHAEACTERS 397 



" Jim " and " Jack " by the black men with whom they work. 

 Racial prejudice apparently works more harm to the whites 

 than to the blacks. So far as occupations go there is no difference, 

 for all alike till the soil, sail boats, and gather sponges. 



' When the lumber industry was introduced into the islands, 

 whites and blacks were equally ignorant of the various kinds of 

 work involved in cutting trees and converting them into lumber. 

 The managers did not care who did the work so long as it was 

 done. They wanted three things : strength, dociUty or faithful- 

 ness, and brains. They soon found that in the first two the 

 negroes were superior. Time and again persons in authority, 

 chiefly American but also some of the more capable native whites, 

 told me that if they wanted a crew of men to load a boat or 

 some such thing, they would prefer negroes every time. The 

 poor white shirks more than the coloured man. He is not so 

 strong, he is proud and touchy. Other things being equal, the 

 negro receives the preference, but other things are not equal. 

 The very man who praised the negroes generally added : " But 

 you can't use a negro for everything. They can't seem to learn 

 some things, and they don't know how to boss a job." The pay 

 roll reflects this. Even though the negroes receive the preference 

 the 400 who are employed earn on an average only about 60 per 

 cent, as much as the 57 white men. If we take only the 57 most 

 competent negroes their average daily wages are still only 88 per 

 cent, as great as those of the native whites. The difference is 

 purely a matter of brains. Although the white man may be 

 ignorant and inefficient, with no more training than the negro, 

 and although his father and grandfather were scarcely better, 

 he possesses an inheritance of mental quickness and initiative 

 which comes into evidence at the first opportunity.' ^ 



6. What conclusions are we to draw from this varied evidence ? 

 Let us first ask how we should view the differences between the 

 negro and the modern European. There seems to be no marked 

 difference in innate intellectual power ; the differences are rather 

 differences in disposition and temperament. The white man has 

 initiative, inventiveness, versatifity, and power of leadership ; the 

 black man has humility, patience, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. It 

 is remarkable with what unanimity observers of the negro 

 race in its own country speak of the high degree of intellectual 



1 Huntington, loc. cit., p. 14. 



