Following the Color Line — The New Southern Statesmanship - part 2

_South and North Work Together_ But both the Northerners (whatever their mistakes in method may have been) and the new Southern leaders were intensely and sincerely interested in the same thing: namely, better education and better conditions in the South.

It was natural that these two groups of earnest and reasonable men should finally come together in a spirit of cooeperation; and this is, indeed, what has happened.

Out of a series of quiet conferences held in the South grew what has been called the "Ogden movement" and the Southern Education Board.

This organisation was made up of three different classes of men: first, a group of the Southern leaders of whom I have spoken--Mitchell, Alderman, Dabney, Curry, Houston, Hill, McIver, Claxton, Edgar Gardner Murphy, Sydney J. Bowie, and Henry E. Fries; second, Southern men who, living in the North, were yet deeply interested in the progress of the South--men like Walter H. Page, George Foster Peabody, and Frank R. Chambers; and, finally, the Northerners--Robert C. Ogden, who was president of the board, William H. Baldwin, H. H.

Hanna, Dr. Wallace Buttrick, Albert Shaw, and Dr. G.

S.

Dickerman.

One of the inspirers of the movement, also a member of the board, was Dr. H.

B.

Frissell, who followed General Armstrong as principal of Hampton Institute.

Each year conferences have been held in the South, a feature of which has been the "Ogden Special"--a special train from the North bringing Northern citizens to Southern institutions and encouraging a more intimate acquaintanceship on both sides.

No one influence has been more potent than this in developing a spirit of nationalisation in the Southern educational movement.

So far in this chapter I have had very little to say about the Negro, and especially Negro education.

It is important to know the view of the new leadership on this question.

I have shown in previous articles that the majority view in the South was more or less hostile to the education of the Negro, or, at least, to his education beyond the bare rudiments.

The new leaders have recognised this feeling, and while without exception they believe that the Negro must be educated and most of them have said so openly, the general policy has been to emphasise white education and unite the people on that.

"In education," one of the leaders said to me, "it doesn't matter much where we begin.

If we can arouse the spirit of the school, the people are going to see that it is as important to the state to have a trained Negro as it is to have a trained white man."

One of the troubles in the South, one of the reasons for the prejudice against education, and particularly Negro education, has arisen from the fact that what has been called education was not really education at all.

In the first place many of the schools have been so poor and the teachers so inefficient that the "education" acquired was next to worthless.

There was not enough of it, nor was it of a kind to give the Negro any real hold upon life, and it often hurt him far more than it helped.

Much of the prejudice in the South against Negro education is unquestionably due to the wretched school system, which in many places has not really educated anybody.

But, deeper than all this, the old conception in the South of a school was for a long time the old aristocratic conception--what some one has called "useless culture"--of educating a class of men, not to work, but to despise work.

That idea of education has wrought much evil, especially among the Negroes.

It has taught both white and coloured men, not the doctrine of service, which is necessary to democracy, but it has given them a desire for artificial superiority, which is the characteristic of aristocracies.

It has made the Negro "uppish" and "bumptious"; it has caused some white men to argue their superiority when they had no basis of accomplishment or usefulness to make them really superior.

_The Inspiration of Hampton Institute_ But when the idea of education began to be democratic, when men began to think more of their duties than of their rights, a wholly new sort of school appeared; and it appeared first among the Negroes.

The country has not yet begun to realise the debt of gratitude which it owes to the promoters of Hampton Institute--to the genius of General Armstrong, its founder and to the organising ability of Dr. H.

B.

Frissell who followed him.

These men will be more highly honoured a hundred years from now than they are to-day, for Americans will then appreciate more fully their service to the democracy.

The "Hampton idea" is the teaching of work--of service, of humility, of duties to God and to man.

It is in the highest sense the democratic idea in education.

And it has come, as most great movements have come, from the needs and the struggles of those who are downtrodden and outcast.

And how wonderfully the idea has spread!

Out of Hampton sprung Tuskegee and Calhoun and Kowaliga and scores of other Negro schools, until to-day nearly all Negro institutions for higher training in the South have industrial or agricultural departments.

The best Southern white people were and are friendly to schools of this new type.

They thought at first that Hampton and Tuskegee were going to train servants in the old personal sense of servants who become only cooks, butlers, and farmers, and many still have that aristocratic conception of service.

But the "Hampton idea" of servants is a much greater one, for it is the democratic idea of training men who will serve their own people and thereby serve the country.

Men who graduate from Hampton and Tuskegee become leaders of their race.

They buy and cultivate land, they set up business establishments--in short, they become producers and state-builders in the largest sense.

_New World Idea of Education_ The idea of Hampton is the new world idea of education, and white people in the South (and in the North as well) are now applying it everywhere in their educational movements.

Agricultural and industrial schools for white boys and girls are spreading throughout the South: schools to teach work, just as Hampton teaches it.

Only last year the state of Georgia provided for eleven new agricultural schools in various parts of the state, and there is already talk in the South, as in the North, of agricultural training in high schools.

These men, white and black, who are educated for democratic service will in time become masters of the state.

The new leaders, then, of whom I have spoken, do not oppose Negro education: they favour it and will go forward steadily with the task of bring it about.

So far, the Negro public schools have felt little of the new impulse; in some states and localities, as I have shown in other chapters, the Negro schools have actually retrograded, where the white schools have been improving rapidly.

But that is the continuing influence of the old leadership; the new men have not yet come fully into their own.

I could quote indefinitely from the real statesmen of the South regarding Negro education, but I have too little space.

Senator Lamar of Mississippi once said: "The problem of race, in a large part, is a problem of illiteracy.

Most of the evils which have grown up out of the problem have arisen from a condition of ignorance, prejudice and superstition.

Remove these and the simpler elements of the question will come into play....

I will go with those who will go furthest in this matter."

No higher note has been struck in educational ideals than in the Declaration of Principles adopted last winter (1907) at the meeting of the Southern Educational Association at Lexington, Ky.

, an exclusively Southern gathering of white men and women.

Their resolutions, which for lack of space cannot be here printed in full, should be read by every man and woman in the country who is interested in the future of democratic institutions.

I copy here only a few of the declarations: 1. All children, regardless of race, creed, sex, or the social station or economic condition of their parents, have equal right to, and should have equal opportunity for, such education as will develop to the fullest possible degree all that is best in their individual natures, and fit them for the duties of life and citizenship in the age and community in which they live.

2. To secure this right and provide this opportunity to all children is the first and highest duty of the modern democratic state, and the highest economic wisdom of an industrial age and community.

Without universal education of the best and highest type, there can be no real democracy, either political or social; nor can agriculture, manufactures, or commerce ever attain their highest development.

3. Education in all grades and in all legitimate directions, being for the public good, the public should bear the burden of it.

The most just taxes levied by the state, or with the authority of the state, by any smaller political division, are those levied for the support of education.

No expenditures can possibly produce greater returns and none should be more liberal.

_The New South on Negro Education_ Concerning Negro education, I am publishing the resolutions in full, because they voice the present thought of the best leadership in the South: 1. We endorse the accepted policy of the states of the South in providing educational facilities for the youth of the Negro race, believing that whatever the ultimate solution of this grievous problem may be, education must be an important factor in that solution.

2. We believe that the education of the Negro in the elementary branches of education should be made thorough, and should include specific instruction in hygiene and home sanitation, for the better protection of both races.

3. We believe that in the secondary education of Negro youth emphasis should be placed upon agriculture and the industrial occupations, including nurse training, domestic science, and home economics.

4. We believe that for practical, economical and psychological reasons Negro teachers should be provided for Negro schools.

5. We advise instruction in normal schools and normal institutions by white teachers, whenever possible, and closer supervision of courses of study and methods of teaching in Negro normal schools by the State Department of Education.

6. We recommend that in urban and rural Negro schools there should be closer and more thorough supervision, not only by city and county superintendents, but also by directors of music, drawing, manual training, and other special topics.

7. We urge upon school authorities everywhere the importance of adequate buildings, comfortable seating, and sanitary accommodations for Negro youth.

8. We deplore the isolation of many Negro schools, established through motives of philanthropy, from the life and the sympathies of the communities in which they are located.

We recommend the supervision of all such schools by the state, and urge that their work and their methods be adjusted to the civilisation in which they exist, in order that the maximum good of the race and of the community may be thereby attained.

9. On account of economic and psychological differences in the two races, we believe that there should be a difference in courses of study and methods of teaching, and that there should be such an adjustment of school curricula as shall meet the evident needs of Negro youth.

10. We insist upon such an equitable distribution of the school funds that all the youth of the Negro race shall have at least an opportunity to receive the elementary education provided by the state, and in the administration of state laws, and in the execution of this educational policy, we urge patience, toleration, and justice.

(Signed) G. R.

GLENN, P.

P.

CLAXTON, J.

H.

PHILLIPS, C.

B.

GIBSON,

R.

N.

ROARK, J.

H.

VAN SICKLE,

_Committee_.

In this connection also let me call attention to the reports of J. Y.

Joyner, Superintendent of Education, and Charles L. Coon of North Carolina, for a broad view of Negro education.

I have already shown how the South and the North came together in educational relationships in the Southern Education Board.

I have pointed it out as a tendency toward nationalisation in educational interests.

But the Southern Education Board, while it contained both Northern and Southern white men, was primarily interested in white education and contained no Negro members.

At the time the board was organised, an active interest in the Negro would have defeated, in part at least, its declared purpose.

[Illustration: S. C.

MITCHELL of Richmond College; President of the Cooeperative Education Association of Virginia.

] [Illustration: JUDGE EMORY SPEER of Georgia.

After two terms in Congress he was appointed to the Federal bench.

Photograph by Curtiss Studio] [Illustration: EDGAR GARDNER MURPHY of Alabama, member Southern Education Board; author "Problems of the Present South."

Photograph by Sol.

Young] [Illustration: DR. H.

B.

FRISSELL Principal Hampton Institute and member of Southern Education and Jeanes Fund Boards.

Photograph by Rockwood] [Illustration: R. C.

OGDEN of New York, President of the Southern Education Board.

Copyright, 1907, by Pach Bros.

] [Illustration: J. Y.

JOYNER Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina.

Photograph by Wharton & Tyree] _The South, the North, and the Negro at Last Work Together_ Since that time another highly significant movement has arisen.

In 1907 Miss Jeanes, a wealthy Quakeress of Philadelphia, gave ,000,000 for the encouragement of Negro primary education.

She placed it in the hands of Dr. H.

B.

Frissell of Hampton and Dr. Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee.

In the organisation of the board for the control of this fund and its work, a further step forward in nationalisation and, indeed, in the direction of democracy, was made.

It marks a new development in the cooeperation of all the forces for good in the solution of this difficult national problem.

The membership of the board includes not only Southern and Northern white men, but also several leading Negroes.

The president and general director is a Southern white man, coming of an old family, James H. Dillard, dean of Tulane University of New Orleans.

It will be of interest to publish here a full list of the members, because they represent, in more ways than one, the new leadership not only in the South, but in the nation: Southern white men: James H. Dillard, President.

David C. Barrow, chancellor University of Georgia.

Belton Gilreath, manufacturer and mine-owner, Alabama.

Dr. S.

C.

Mitchell, of Richmond College, Richmond, Va.

Northern white men: Robert C. Ogden, of New York.

Andrew Carnegie, of New York.

Talcott Williams, of Philadelphia.

George McAneny, president of the City Club of New York.

William H. Taft, of Ohio.

To these must be added: Dr. H.

B.

Frissell, of Hampton Institute, a Northerner, whose work and residence has long been in the South.

George Foster Peabody, treasurer, a Georgian, trustee of the University of Georgia, who resides in the North.

Walter H. Page, the editor of the _World's Work_, a North Carolinian who has long lived in the North.

Negro membership: Booker T. Washington.

Bishop Abraham Grant, of Kan.

R.

R.

Moton, of Hampton Institute, secretary of the board.

J.

C.

Napier, a banker of Nashville, Tenn.

R.

D.

Smith, a farmer of Paris, Tex.

In a true sense the Southern Education Board and the Jeanes Fund Board represent organisations of working idealists.

Such cooeperation as this, between reasonable, broad-minded, and unselfish men of the entire country, is, at the present moment, the real solution of our problems.

It is the solution of the Negro problem--all the solution there ever will be.

For there is no finality in human endeavour: there is only activity; and when that activity is informed with the truth and inspired with faith and courage, it is not otherwise than success, for it is the best that human nature at any given time can do.

In making this statement, I do not, of course wish to infer that conditions are as good as can be expected, and that nothing remains to be done.

As a matter of fact, the struggle is just beginning; as I have shown in previous chapters, all the forces of entrenched prejudice and ignorance are against the movement, the political leaders who still dominate the South are as hostile as they dare to be.

The task is, indeed, too big for the South alone, or the North alone, or the white man alone: it will require all the strength and courage the nation possesses.

_Universities Feel the New Impulse_ Besides the campaign for better common schools, the educational revival has also renewed and revivified all the higher institutions of learning in the South.

The state universities, especially, have been making extraordinary progress.

I shall not soon forget my visit to the University of Georgia, at Athens, nor the impression I received while there of strong men at work, not merely erecting buildings of mortar and brick, but establishing a new sort of university system, which shall unify and direct to one common end all of the educational activities of the state: beginning with the common school and reaching upward to the university itself; including the agricultural and industrial schools, and even the Negro college of agriculture.

The University of Georgia is one of the oldest state colleges in America, and the ambition of its leaders is to make it one of the greatest.

Mr. Hodgson drove me around the campus, which has recently been extended until it contains nearly 1,000 acres.

He showed me where the new buildings are to be, the drives and the bridges.

Much of it is yet a vision of the future, but it is the sort of vision that comes true.

I spent a day with President Soule of the Agricultural College, on his special educational train, which covered a considerable part of the state of Georgia, stopping at scores of towns where the speakers appeared before great audiences of farmers and made practical addresses on cotton and corn and cattle-raising, and on education generally.

And everywhere the practical work of these public educators was greeted with enthusiasm.

I heard from Professor Stewart of his work in organising rural high schools, in encouraging local taxation, and in bringing the work of the public schools into closer correlation with that of the university.

Seeing the educational work of states like Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and others, one cannot but feel that the time is coming shortly when the North will be going South for new ideas and new inspiration in education.

In a brief review like this, I have been able, of course, to give only the barest outline of a very great work, and I have mentioned only a few among hundreds of leaders; the work I have described is only illustrative of what is going on in greater or less degree everywhere in the South.

Many important developments have come from these campaigns for education.

The actual building of new school-houses and the expenditure of more money for the struggle with illiteracy is only one of many results.

For the crusade for education, supplemented by the new industrial impulse in the South, has awakened a new spirit of self-help.

The success with which the public was aroused in the educational campaign has inspired leaders in all lines of activity with new courage and faith.

It is a spirit of youthfulness which is not afraid to attempt anything.

Much printers' ink has been expended in trying to account for the spread of the anti-saloon movement throughout the South.

But there is nothing strange about it: it is, indeed, only another manifestation of the new Southern spirit, the desire to get things right in the South.

And this movement will further stir men's minds, develop self-criticism, and reveal to the people their power of concerted action whether the politicians are with them or not.

It is, indeed, significant that the women of the South, perhaps for the first time, have become a powerful influence in public affairs.

Their organisations have helped, in some instances led, in both the educational and the anti-saloon movement.

No leaders in the Virginia educational movement have been more useful than Mrs. L. R.

Dashiell and Mrs. B.

B.

Munford of Richmond.

Practically all the progress of the South, both industrial and educational, has been made by non-political movements and non-political leaders--often in opposition to the political leaders.

Indeed, nearly every one of the hopeful movements of the South has had to capture some entrenched stronghold of the old political captains.

In several states, for example, the school systems a few years ago were crippled by political domination and nepotism.

Superintendents, principals, and teachers were frequently appointed not for their ability, but because they were good members of the party or because they were related to politicians.

_New Statesmen Against Old Politicians_ In Alabama I found prominent men attacking the fee system of payment of lesser magistrates.

The evil in this system lies in the encouragement it gives to trivial litigation and the arrest of citizens for petty offences.

Let me give a single example.

A Negro had another Negro arrested for "'sault and battery."

Both appeared in court.

The accused Negro was tried, and finally sent to the chain-gang.

The justice suggested to the convicted man that if he wanted satisfaction he should turn around and have his accuser arrested; which he did, promptly accusing him of "'busive language."

Another trial was held; and in the end both Negroes found themselves side by side in the chain-gang; the magistrate, the constable, the sheriff, had all drawn liberal fees, and the private contractor who hired the chain-gang, and who also "stood in" with the politicians, had obtained another cheap labourer for his work.

It is a vicious circle, which has enabled the politicians and their backers to profit at every turn from the weakness and evil of both Negro and low-class white man.

In attacking the fee system and the old, evil chain-gang system as the new leaders are doing in many parts of the South, in closing the saloons (always a bulwark of low politics), in building up a new school system free from selfish control, the new leaders are striking squarely at the roots of the old political aristocracy, undermining it and cutting it away.

It is sure to fall; and in its place the South will rear a splendid new leadership of constructive ability and unselfish patriotism.

There will be a division on matters of vital concern, and a turning from ancient and worn-out issues to new interests and activities.

When that time comes the whole nation will again profit by the genius of Southern statesmanship and we shall again have Southern Presidents.

Already the old type of politician sees the handwriting of fate.

He knows not which way to turn.

At one moment he harps more fiercely and bitterly than ever before on the issue which has maintained him so long in power, the Negro; and at the next moment he seizes frantically on some one of the new issues--education, prohibition, anti-railroad--hoping thereby to maintain himself and his old party control.

But he cannot do it; every force in the South is already making for new things, for more democracy, for more nationalisation.