hood, and makes him a better citizen and inspires him with more gallantry and nobler principles. For like begets like." Then he goes on to say: "While, in this country, we are degraded by the public press, degraded by the courts of the country from the United States Supreme Court down, degraded on the railroads after purchasing first class tickets, degraded at the hotels and barber shops, degraded in many states at the ballot-box, degraded in some of the large cities by being compelled to rent houses in the alleys and the most disreputable streets. Thus we are degraded in so many respects that all the starch of respectability is taken out of the manhood of millions of our people, and as degradation begets degradation, it is very possible that in many instances we are guilty of doing a series of infamous things that we would not be guilty of if our environments were different."

Abnormal characters of both races, born under the "South's policy." will necessarily come under the law of restraint, even should this "policy" be abolished when the oligarchy of these states receives its final sentence of political death by the people. But we predict that it would not take longer than a few generations before all the taint of this cursed "policy" would have vanished among the colored people. The nature of these people is so pliable that a "right policy" will

effect them as favorably as a wrong one has effected them unfavorably.

The Negro man is by nature a gentleman, using that word in its true sense, and the colored man of African descent will prove himself a gentleman if environments will give him half a gentleman's chance.

THE

CHAPTER IX

THE TEMPERAMENTS

MENTAL

TEMPERAMENT.

The Mental Temperament has its constitutional basis in the brain and nervous system. Its predominance in the organization is due to inheritance, and if moderately inclined to be prominent at birth, it may be strengthened by training and culture, so that its place may become primary in the life of the individual thus born. It is characterized by a body comparatively slight, and a head that is large in proportion to the frame that supports it. The face is oval and forehead large and broad in the upper part. The physiognomy is delicately molded if not sharply drawn, and the countenance is prominent and expressive, the skull delicate and thin and the hair fine and soft. The body is not strongly marked as in the Motive Temperament; the muscles are small and compact, being adapted to rapid actions rather than to great strength. In short, the whole system is high-strung.

We believe that we meet with no contradiction when we say that the Mental Temperament is almost an unknown quality among the native African Negroes. There may be a few excep

tions; if there are, we have not found them. We have met with many cases of the Vital-Mental

MENTAL
LOCALITY

(VITAL)

MOTIVEITY

LOCAL

LOCALITY

The Three Temperaments

TEMPERAMENT is a condition of the mind. When certain brain organs, through which the mental faculties of the mind act, predominate, then we have, what we call, either a Mental, Motive or Vital Temperament. We illustrate this in the above drawing, where the three localities of the Temperaments are shown. When all three are equally developed we have a Harmonious Temperament. When two predominate we have, for instance, the MentalMotive, the Motive-Vital or the Vital-Mental Temperament, These facts must be borne in mind in connection with the following portraits of the Temperaments:

Temperament, even among the decidedly dark, but none that approached the purely mental, save in those who were of pronounced Caucasian blood, like Prof. Atkins, Olivia D. Washington

ceased.

and others. Phillis Wheatly, and others of her type may have represented the purely mental. When this Temperament predominates, and there is a good degree of vitality to sustain it, the person may exhibit remarkable capabilities,