Twentieth Century Negro Literature. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
subject it becomes necessary to define the word "education"; for the term, "education given to the whites," is too loose and broad to be easily or logically handled. If the word is used in its ordinary sense, then it embraces every known form of education, from instruction in the elementary English branches on up through to instruction in the most abstruse sciences; and I can see no reason why the blacks should not receive the same instruction as the corresponding class among the whites. Mark you, I say, as the corresponding class among the whites.
If by the term, "education given to the whites," is meant higher education as opposed to industrial training, the question can not be answered in the form in which it is stated; for there is no "the Negroes" in the unit sense. Since its freedom the colored race has classified itself into almost as many grades, as regards ability and capacity, as there are to be found among the whites; it is, therefore, no longer possible to speak of "the Negroes," meaning that they are all upon the same mental and moral plain. It is as absurd to say that every Negro should be made to receive an industrial training as it is to say that every Negro should be given a college education.
The question of higher education or industrial training is one that depends entirely upon the individual; and there should be no limit placed upon the individual's right of development. I think it a great folly to educate a colored man beyond his capacity; I think it an equally great folly to so educate a white man.
It is needless, and not within the limits of the subject, for me to make any defense of higher education for Negroes; but, I do say that every man, be he black or white, should be allowed to make the most of all of his powers, his possibilities, and his opportunities. I recognize the fact that the great majority of Negroes must, and, I hope, will be engaged in agriculture and the trades; that is true of every race; but there is, and ought to be, no power to say that this or that individual in any grade of society shall not break through his environments, and rise above his conditions. And I think it safe to say that the proportion of colored men and women who have been given an education beyond their capacity for receiving and using, is very little larger than the same among the whites; and, in the years to come, as the race shall more and more fit itself to the grinding process which it takes to turn out a people, that proportion will become less and less, and each individual will settle to his level, or rise triumphant over obstacles and circumstances to the place for which his ability and aspirations fit him.
But let us consider our subject in a deeper sense; if by education is meant that training, those influences by which the habits, the character, the thoughts, and the ideals of a people are formed and developed, then, the answer hinges upon the answer to another question: Is the Negro to remain in this country a separate and distinct race, or is he to become one of the elements in the future composite American?
If, as some claim, the Negro is to remain in this country a separate and distinct race, then, in this deeper sense of the word, he should receive an education different from that given to the whites.
Because the Negro and the white race, although they have the same inherent powers, possess widely different characteristics. There are some things which the white race can do better than the Negro, and there are some things which the Negro can do better than the white race. This is no disparagement to either. It is no fault of the Negro that he has not that daring and restless spirit, that desire for founding new empires, that craving for power over weaker races, which makes the white race a pioneer; neither is it the fault of the white race that it has not that buoyancy of spirit, that cheerful patience, that music in the soul, that faith in a Higher Power, which supports the Negro under hardships that would crush or make pessimists of almost any other race on earth.
There have been given to each race certain talents, and for them each will be held accountable, and rewarded accordingly as they shall use them. Two boys in the same family may be gifted differently, one with an artistic, the other with a scientific, turn of mind; both cannot become artists, nor both scientists, yet they may each become equally great in their respective spheres. It is for the Negro to find out his own best and strongest powers, and make the most of them. He cannot by merely imitating the white man arrive at his fullest and truest racial development. He cannot and will not, as an absolutely distinct race, evolve, along the same lines, the identical civilization of the white race, but who shall say that along his own lines he may not evolve one equally as glorious and grand?
It is true, situated as he is among the most advanced people of the world in the very height of their power, with almost all of the ideals before him belonging to that people, the American Negro is greatly handicapped in distinct racial development; but the task is, perhaps, not an impossible one. Some of the most accessible means have not yet been fully employed; for instance, the race has never been made entirely familiar with the deeds and thoughts of the few men of mark it has already produced. In this deeper sense of education the knowing of one Crispus Attucks is worth more to the race than the knowing of one George Washington; and the knowing of one Dunbar is worth more than the knowing of all the Longfellows that America will ever produce.
If the Negro is to remain in this country a separate and distinct race, and is, as such, to reach the highest development of his powers, he ought to be given an education different from that given to the whites; in that, in addition to whatever other instruction he may receive, those virtuous traits and characteristics which are peculiarly his should be developed to the highest degree possible.
If, on the other hand, he is to become, in time, one of the elements in the future American race—and this seems the more plausible answer to the question—his education ought to be purely American and not in any special way Negro.
History affords no precedent of two races, distinct yet equally powerful, living together in harmony; one has always reduced to a secondary position or destroyed the other, or the two have united. So it will be a question, if the Negro succeeds in making himself the equal of the white man in intellectual attainment, wealth, and power, whether or not what is now antipathy between the two races will develop into outright antagonism; and if we are to judge from human experience through all the past we must say that it will. If the Negro shall succeed in making a new record in history so well and so good; but if he is to follow the precedents of the past, it will be a far nobler destiny for him to become an integral part of the future American type than to drop into an acknowledged and permanent secondary position.
And may it not be in the great plan of Providence that the Negro shall supply in the future American race the very elements that it shall lack and require to make it the most perfect race the world shall have seen?
If the Negro is to become an inseparable part of the great American nation his education should be in every way the same as that of other American citizens.
SECOND PAPER.
SHOULD THE NEGRO BE GIVEN AN EDUCATION DIFFERENT FROM THAT GIVEN TO THE WHITES?
BY PROF. JAMES STORUM, OF WASHINGTON, D. C.
PROF. JAMES STORUM.
Prof. James Storum was born in the city of Buffalo, New York, March 31, 1847. His mother, Mary Cannady, was a native of Sussex County, Virginia, where she lived for twelve years, when her father sold his farm and moved to Ohio and located with his wife and eight children near Urbana. His mother was a woman of strong character, deep religious convictions, and piety, and full of energy and enterprise, a counterpart of which is seen in her worthy son.
His grandfather, Charles Storum, of Duchess County, New York, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and did valiant service for the independence of this Republic. He died in 1843 at the age of one hundred years. Prof. Storum began his school life in the public schools of his native city. He was admired by his associates for his manly qualities and good fellowship, and was held in high esteem by his teachers for his studious habit and exemplary deportment. At the age of thirteen he embraced religion and united with the Michigan Street Baptist Church, where both his parents were useful and active members.
He frequently heard his parents express their purpose to send him to college, and as he grew older and better able to appreciate the value of education, the desire grew