tional policy which embraces the phases of life which lie outside the realm of books, especially those phases which lie within the realm of social life. And the need of such an educational policy is especially urgent for our Negro population. The Negro authors and editors in the United States are generally obsessed with the idea that learning to read and write is education, and they point to the falling off in Negro illiteracy as evidence of the marvelous progress of their race. Contrary to this, Frederick Hoffman has presented evidence to show that education has thus far had no appreciable effect on the moral progress of the Negro in the United States.1 He takes Leroy-Beaulieu's definition of education as a process of developing desirable traits and of eliminating undesirable traits; and he finds that the undesirable traits of the Negro tend to persist in spite of everything that schools have been able to accomplish. Whatever may be thought of the soundness of Hoffman's view, I think the fact is evident from what I have said in Chapter 52 of this volume that the traits of the Negro are different from those of the Caucasian, and that some of the Negro traits militate greatly against his moral stamina, and his likelihood of survival. Therefore, it seems to me that there are vast opportunities for Negro leaders to distinguish themselves by devising new educational policies, new kinds of schools, and new kinds of mental and moral stimuli, with a view to strengthening the desirable traits of their people and eliminating the undesirable ones. The work of Booker Washington represents an unique innovation in Negro education, the consequence of which has been a notable uplifting of a large mass of his people; and there are unexplored fields for many more Booker Washingtons, if the future can raise up men of his power of visualizing the needs of the race.

Up to the present time, Negro education has shared, with that of the white man, the fault of being top-heavy, i. e., colleges and universities have developed out of proportion to, and at the expense of the common and high schools. There are so many Negro colleges and universities that it is impossible to maintain them except on a very low standard of efficiency. There is, therefore, need of eliminating the mass of these so-called institutions of learning, and concentrating the available resources on a few institutions of high standard, located geographically in reference to demand. The present status of Negro secondary education represents an immense waste of money, and indicates a lack of grasp of the educational needs of the race.

Negro education has also shared with that of the white man the 1 Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 236.

fault of being too scholastic, i. e., having too little relation to practical life, and being particularly deficient in the social sciences.

As for elementary education, the Negroes of the South, as also the white people, need more and better common schools. In proportion as the wealth of the South increases, and the public-school system becomes more efficient, the white people should see to it that the schools for the Negro receive an adequate share of the increasing school fund. All primary schools for Negroes, it seems to me, should be equipped for instruction in the industrial arts, especially domestic economy, and, in the rural districts, agriculture. And, with our development of a rich and philanthropic class, we should make liberal gifts to such special schools as Hampton and Tuskegee, and not leave them entirely to Northern generosity for their expansion.

In other chapters I have discussed the subject of Negro education in detail, and I merely mention it here in order to point out the great possibilities of raising the economic and moral status of the Negro through the medium of better ‹ducational policies and better coördinated schools.

CHAPTER 71

GOOD HOMES, LESS POLITICS, MORE VISION

Paths of Hope in the Direction of Better Dwelling-houses and Better Protection of the Negro's Home-The Suppression of Mobs-Less Concentration upon Politics Better Understanding between the North and South on the Political Question-Removal of Incentives for the White Demagogue-Golden Opportunities Now Beckoning to the Negro of Thrift

SIDE from better education, however, there are many things which might be done for the advancement of the welfare of our Negro population, and among these I would mention better housing and sanitary conditions in Negro residential districts. In the towns and cities of the United States the Negroes generally occupy segregated quarters, commonly designated as New Africa, Haiti, Snow Hill, Smoky Hollow, Log Town, Buzzard's Roost, etcetera, where the houses are generally in a state of dilapidation, and without modern conveniences, and where the streets and premises generally are without sanitary regulations or oversight. Now, it is perfectly evident that no amount or kind of education is going to do much to elevate the Negro as long as his domestic surroundings are so demoralizing. If the slums of our white people in our large cities are the breeding grounds of vice, disease, and crime, so also are the slums of our colored population. A boy or girl raised in slum surroundings has not a half a chance of making good. As a first essential to any moral progress of either white or black people, we need to establish standardized housing conditions. The renting of houses unfit for human habitation is one of the worst crimes which can be committed, and we need public sentiment and laws to prevent such houses from being occupied. Every municipality which has a Negro quarter should provide it with proper sewage drains, light, street-cleaning, and garbage-collection; and, above all, with proper police protection, to the extent at least of suppressing disorderly houses.

In addition to what municipalities might do for the Negro quarters, something ought to be done by public-spirited white men in the direction of building model houses for Negroes to buy or rent; and much also ought to be done by the Negroes themselves in the direction of

organizing land companies, and building and loan associations, to provide better locations and better homes for their people.

One of the most momentous needs of the Negro is a higher standard of sex morality. Sexual incontinence seems to be a great weakness of the Negro race, which is partly due to hereditary traits developed in Africa, and partly due to its position of servility among the white races. Under the matrilineal family, which has existed from time immemorial in Africa, sexual incontinence is not attended with the evil consequences that necessarily follow from it among the Caucasian races, the traditions of which are those of the patrilineal family. Consequently there have never developed among the Negro races the ideas of chastity which are so consecrated among the Caucasians. The animistic and polytheistic religion of the African Negroes rather promotes sexual incontinence, and exalts it to a virtue, while the religion of the Caucasians regards sexual incontinence as a cardinal sin.

Among the Negroes of the United States nothing so much harms their vitality and stands in the way of their economic and moral efficiency as their addiction to sexual vice. On account of the constitutional weakness of the Negroes in this matter, their unfortunate traditions, and their present defenseless position, the task of elevating the domestic morals of the race will be very difficult and will require a long period of time for the accomplishment of results. But the need of progress in this respect is so pressing that it should call forth from the best men and women of both races an immediate concentration of endeavor to set influences at work which will in some measure answer to the need.

One of the things which the white people should do, in the matter of better home life for the Negro, is to develop a stronger sentiment against sexual intercourse between white men and Negro women; not alone because of the mongrel progeny which follows, but because such intercourse is especially degrading to both races. Prostitution all over the world is, and has ever been, a matter of the strong taking advantage of the weak. Because the white man, thanks to his inherited culture, occupies a position of eminence, it is especially ignoble in him to find his victims among the weak and unprotected women of the Negro race. It is hardly less ignoble to take advantage of the weakness of Negro girls than to take advantage of a feeble-minded, a deaf, a blind, or an orphaned white girl. If Southern chivalry exalts and defends the honor of Southern white women, should it not manifest some disposition to build up and protect the virtue of colored women? What the spirit of Southern chivalry needs to do is to visit such condemna

tion upon the white consorts of Negro women that cohabitation between the races will be completely suppressed. The white race, as the stronger, instead of exploiting a weaker race, is under obligation to defend and protect it. While cohabitation between the races is undoubtedly on the decline, public sentiment in the South is still too lenient with the Southern white bully who utters diatribes against social equality and lynches Negroes for assaults upon white women, and, at the same time, cohabits with the black wench, bringing into the world a mongrel progeny representing the lowest inheritance of both races.

Maurice Evans thinks that if the South is to escape the censure of the civilized world, it must see to it "that the standard of honor be so raised that the chastity of the Negro woman is safeguarded as that of her white sister.""

In this connection it seems fitting to say that the white people should take more effective measures to protect the Negro against white mobs. Any people claiming to be civilized and free should be able to provide an adequate legal redress for every wrong, and whenever a free people override their own laws they thereby confess their incapacity for selfgovernment. The white man who joins a mob puts himself on a level with the Negro criminal in that both have given way to brute passion. Mob action, by either white or colored men, instead of helping, only postpones, the settlement of the race problem. Within the past few decades the South has awakened to the discredit and injury to its civilization of lynchings and others forms of mob-violence; and public opinion, as reflected by the press, the pulpit, and the platform, is practically a unit against such forms of lawlessness. There is, however, still an amount of lawlessness prevalent which indicates that public sentiment alone is powerless to control it.

A Southern woman says in reference to lynching: "There are a hundred law-abiding Southerners-oh, far, far more-to every one of these lawless firebrands; yet, individualistic as we are, unorganized by a social consciousness, half a dozen of them can sway the weak, the excitable, the uninformed among us, and fire the mob spirit, and lay the honor of thousands in the dust." 2

A lesson which our modern democracies have not yet sufficiently learned is that an aroused public opinion is inadequate to check a wrong or inaugurate a reform. In order to make itself prevail, it is necessary that public opinion be organized. This fact has been brought home to

2

"Black and White in the South," Outlook, Mar. 7, 1924.