March 24, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



455 



Ethnic Factors in Education. Dr. Edgar 

 L. Hewitt, Washington, D. C. To be 

 published in the American Anthropol- 

 ogist. 



The American Negro. Edward L. Black- 

 shear, Prairie View, Texas. 



I. Some Survivals of Primitive Racial 

 Instincts in the American Negroes. — The 

 absence or, rather, scarcity of islands and 

 peninsulas and bays and seas along most 

 of the coast line of continental Africa has 

 exerted indirectly a profound influence on 

 African character. As a result, the Afri- 

 can tribes have been isolated from all the 

 great historical world movements, and have 

 remained stationary in their social and 

 tribal relations. Deprived of the stimulus 

 of commercial and maritime influences, 

 they have for centuries lain dormant in 

 respect to the higher or organic life of the 

 human species. 



Herein lies the secret of the southern 

 racial problem. The real crux of this diffi- 

 culty is not the mere color of the skin, as 

 is sometimes asserted. It is the sum total 

 of characteristics, mental and moral, of 

 which the exaggerated physique is the 

 material expression and vehicle — it is this 

 that constitutes a race problem when a 

 group of Afro- Americans comes into any 

 sort of relationship for a continued period 

 with an Anglo-Saxon group. 



II. Negroism.—By this term is meant to 

 be conveyed an idea of a sum total of the 

 characteristics— the mere color of the skin, 

 while the most obvious, being really, as it 

 is literally, superficial — which is the result 

 of centuries of a heredity dominated by a 

 fixity and sameness of environment as bar- 

 ren of differentiating and developing fea- 

 tures as the Saharan Desert — a heredity 

 wherein the mere struggle for animal ex- 

 istence and reproduction was the moving 

 force, a heredity whose sameness of en- 

 vironment and want of contact, either 



friendly or hostile, with different human 

 types, resulted in an exaggeration of qual- 

 ities, physical, mental and moral. Add to 

 the influences of this unvarying African 

 environment and heredity all the influences 

 of American chattel slavery which served 

 to still further exaggerate tendencies al- 

 ready abnormally developed, and the re- 

 sultant is what is here designated negroism. 

 The significance of negroism lies in the de- 

 fective attempt, grotesque to the cultured 

 Anglo-Saxon mind, of the African mind to 

 incorporate into its own thought and being, 

 the real living thought and motives of the 

 Anglo-Saxon race. And herein too lies the 

 gist of the negro question. 



The remedy for negroism is the develop- 

 ment of Americanism, that is, of intelligent 

 self-respect and a manly regard for others; 

 of self-reliance as manifested in industry 

 and economy and self-support ; of a sim- 

 ple, pure, healthy, happy home life as op- 

 posed to polygamous indiseriminateness ; 

 a regard for peace and good government 

 and good order rather than a scramble for 

 place and power and spoils; a love of ecu i- 

 try, of home and a love of God manifested 

 in a life of simple sincere piety rather than 

 in manifestations of religious emotional- 

 ism unaccompanied or uninspired by the 

 spirit of a genuine Christianity. 



On the Desirahility of Founding an In- 

 stitute for the Study of Blood Poisoning. 

 P. A. Maignon, Philadelphia. 

 In these days of immense activity great 

 problems can be settled only by specializa- 

 tion. The prevention of disease is one of 

 these problems. Medical science deals 

 with the cure of disease; sanitary science 

 with its prevention. 



Medical and surgical science has been 

 much endoAved, but sanitary science has 

 somewhat lagged. Sanitary plumbing and 

 sanitary engineering are about all we hear 

 of in connection with sanitary science. 



