The Training of a Race An address delivered at Des Moines, Iowa, May 24th, 1912 comemorating the 50th Anniversary of the work of the American Baptist Home Mission Society among the Negroes Charles L. White The American Baptist Home Mission Society 23 East 26th Street, New York The Training of a Race Charles L. White SOUTHERN PLANTS EN, inflamed by the passions of war, see through a glass dark- ly, but when fifty years have subdued their emotions they behold the far-off events of the struggle with the poise of can- dor. History cannot be writ- ten till hatred is dead. The struggles that led to the emancipation of the slaves on New Year’s Day, 1863, and later culminated in the perpet- uation of the Union, left es- trangements which only Chris- tianity can heal. And yet under influences that we shall trace as we proceed, swords have been melted into ploughshares in the furnace of affliction; and where the thorns of hatred grew, love and peace are yielding their happy harvest. We need make no serious mention of our pas- sage at arms, when brave men in both North and South amazed one another and the world by their valorous achievements, fighting each one for a cause which he justified by reason and revelation; and we shall pass over in silence those regrettable years of reconstruction when the hatreds of war were perpetuated in the arena of politics. Through those years, while we blundered upward along the narrow path of progress, the reunited nation sorely missed the steady hand, the judicial mind and the noble heart of that man who re- 1 ceived from God so much of the divine wisdom to supplement the knowledge of his generation; the man whose great soul was reflected in the com- passion that breathed through his messages and through his immortal address at Gettysburg, and whose blood was the last to wet the altar of our national sacrifice. He was the elect of God, raised up and fashioned for the salvation of a distracted country, and the thoughtful people of every com- munity in our land, and those who dwell beyond the seas, venerate to-day the memory of ABRA- HAM LINCOLN. It is vain for us to imagine what dangers might have been escaped if he as our elder statesman could have directed the social, political and eco- nomic reconstruction of the South. But if he could now return to that land where harvests wave over the fields then wasted by war, white men and black would alike honor and love him. Where the Path Began Let us in our survey walk down the five decades that stretch from February 27th, 1862, when Rev. Howard Osgood returned from Fortress Monroe and reported the result of his investigations to the Executive Committee of the Home Mission Society. For it was fifty years ago this very month that our fathers, assembled in the historic meeting house in Providence and listened to the following report: “RESOLVED: That we recommend the Society to take immediate steps to supply with Christian instruction, by means of missionaries and teachers, the emancipated slaves — whether in the District of Columbia or in other places held by our forces — and also to inaugurate a system of operations for carrying the Gospel alike to free and bond throughout the whole Southern section of our country, so fast and so far as the progress of our arms and the restoration of law and order shall open the way.” On the same day Rev. Isaac W. Brinkerhoff and Rev. Jonathan W. Horton were commissioned to 4 labor among the Negroes on the Island of St. Helena, S. C., and on September the 16th Dr. Peck, for many years the Corresponding Secretary of the Missionary Union, volunteered his services and was commissioned to Beaufort. The work pros- pered, and the colored church in Beaufort in 1807 reported 4,000 members, divided into four par- ishes, each having a preacher who co-operated with a pastor. Early in 1863 Rev. H. C. Fish, of New Jersey, on behalf of the Board, examined the condition of the freedmen in Washington and Alexandria. His report stirred the hearts of Northern Baptists, for he declared, “I found them helpless, hopeless, friendless; these poor creatures appeal to us most loudly for assistance! Not a man in the whole camp to care for their souls! Not a teacher to instruct them even in the lowest branch of learn- ing! Few, if any, missionary fields, as we be- lieve, make a stronger demand upon our denom- ination to-day than that here indicated. Difficult indeed is the problem. What are we to do for the freedmen who are being thrown in increasing numbers upon our hands? One thing is certain, they must not be neglected. And upon whom else so clearly rests this obligation as upon Northern Baptists?” Another Step Forward In 1867 at the Annual Meeting another step in the policy of the Society was taken, and one which under the constant blessing of God has endured to the present time. This policy is reflected in these words: “We must give assistance to our mission- aries in the South, to engage in such instruction of the colored people as will enable them to read the Bible and to become self-supporting and self-di- recting churches. The Board will gladly receive all moneys contributed and designated for this purpose, and appropriate the same agreeably to the wishes of the donors; the moneys thus desig- nated to be termed the Freedmen’s Fund.” 5 This action of the board thrilled the Baptists of New England and in the First Baptist Church in Boston, October 36th of the same year, the New England State Convention appointed a Freedmen’s Committee, to be called the New England Freed- men’s Aid Commission, to advise and co-operate with the Home Mission Board in raising funds and in sending out and recommending suitable persons for assistants in the South. Everywhere interest deepened. Up to April, 1864, several additional missionaries and fourteen assistants were appointed for the Southern field. In 1864 mission work was conducted at Norfolk, Va.; Alexandria; Washington, D. C. ; Beaufort; Memphis, Nashville, Island No. 10, Tenn. ; and in New Orleans. In May, 1865, the Society held its annual meet- ing in St. Louis. The war was over. At that time President Martin B. Anderson, of New York, said: “It has been asked, ‘What will you do with the NegroesP’ God does not require of us an answer to this. Our question is, ‘What will we do FOB the Negro P’ God will tell us, when it pleaseth Him, what to do with the Negro. Let us do our work, and leave the rest to God. Let us organize them into churches and Sunday Schools; teach them to labor, and to make of themselves men in every sense. God will do the rest.” The Annual Keport of the Board showed that $4,978.69 had been received for the Freedman’s Fund and the presence of 68 missionaries in twelve States. That year the designated funds for the Freed- men amounted to $21,386.26, and the total ex- penditure was $40,000. “That year it was decided that the most direct, accessible and effective way of teaching the mass of colored people is by teaching the colored min- istry.” It was further declared that the irregu- lar instruction imparted by missionaries while im- portant was entirely inadequate, and that estab- 6 lished Institutions were demanded. In this year, therefore, the Society addressed itself to the Chris- tian education of the colored people and the crea- tion of leadership without which the Negro race would never have reached the improved condition which it now enjoys. Laying Foundations In April, 1867, we began in earnest the purchase of land, the erection of buildings and the securing of suitable equipment. Schools were established in Washington, Nashville, New Orleans, Raleigh, Richmond, Alexandria, Culpepper, Fredericksburg, Williamsburg, Petersburg, Murfreesboro, Albany and Ashland, some of them with a view to per- manency. In that year alone more than 300 preachers received instruction, ministers' and dea- cons’ institutes were held, 59 teachers were em- ployed in day schools for the education of the youth, and 6,136 pupils were instructed. As the result of the year’s work many were converted and a large amount of missionary labor was per- formed by the teachers in the communities in which the schools were located. The fruitage of that year is seen also in the commissioning of 30 colored teachers in important cities and districts in the Southern States, and in the aiding of 97 colored Baptist churches toward the support of their pastors or toward securing meeting houses. In 1869 Dr. J. B. Simmons was appointed secre- tary for the Southern field and the work of the Society among the Freedmen was thoroughly established. The progress of our work from 1869 to 1882 in- cluded the purchase of a site for Shaw University in 1870 for $15,000 and a similar expenditure for the Richmond Institute and Benedict College cost- ing $10,000 and $16,000 respectively. In 1871 we purchased land for Wayland Semi- nary for $3,375 and began to erect the first build- ing at Shaw University, which was completed the year folowing, at a cost of $15,000. 7 The grounds and buildings of Leland University were secured between the years 1870 to 1874, cost- ing $70,000, and in the latter year $25,000 were spent for Wayland Seminary and $30,000 were used for the purchase of a new site at Nash- ville. Two years later, in 1876, at Nashville, $45,000 were expended for a building, and $30,- 000 in 1874, and $25,000 for the Estey Building for Girls at Raleigh. The Natchez School prop- erty followed in 1877 at a cost of $5,000 and nearly $12,000 for repairs and improvements. The chapel and dormitory and dining hall at Shaw University in 1879 cost $6,000, and in this year the Augusta School was transferred to At- lanta, a site was secured and a building was erected at a cost of $12,500. We also purchased a new site for the Richmond Institute for $5,000, and expended $7,500 for a dining hall at Benedict College. In 1881 land and a building for Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, cost $23,000 and $5,000 were used for the erection of a medical dormitory at Shaw University. The following year, 1882, the expenditure of $12,000 provided the Medical School Building in Raleigh, and $13,000 increased the capacity of the Girls’ Dormitory in Wayland Seminary. Other expenditures of that year at Jackson, Miss., and Atlanta, Ga., made the total thus far expended in lands, buildings and equip- ment, approximately $400,000. In addition to the above schools the Society adopted in 1880 the Normal and Theological School established in Selma, Ala.; in 1880 opened the school at Live Oak, Fla.; in 1881 adopted the Normal and Theological Institute started two years before by the colored people in Louisville, Kentucky. In recent years the sphere of work has been enlarged by assisting certain secondary schools whose curriculum and finances are supervised. The encouragement thus given has imparted new life to these institutions. The results have been exceedingly satisfactory. 8 The Leonard Medical School at Shaw Univer- sity has grown in equipment and we recently dedicated one of the best hospitals in the South. Two Great Schools Since 1882 two great institutions have been established. Virginia Union University at Rich- mond for men and Spelman Seminary at Atlanta, Ga., for girls. The former stands in the front rank and trains in its summer school the col- ored teachers for the State Examinations, as the University of Virginia trains the whites for the same purpose. The latter is the best school in the world for Negro girls, and there are few girls’ schools of any sort that surpass it in excel- lence. It bears the name of the parents of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, whose husband made pos- sible the erection of the extensive plant. This benefactor of the Negro race whose contributions to charity, medical research, education and religion have made so many human undertakings possible in this and other lands, has annually made sub- stantial gifts to Spelman Seminary and to our Society for its work in the South and elsewhere. As we contemplate how much would have been left unattempted and how many buildings not erected, if he had withheld his gifts for our Negro work, we wish to express publicly our gratitude to Mr. Rockefeller for his unremitting interest in the Negro race, and his widespread influence in its intellectual and spiritual development. And now let us listen as we call the roll of our Missionary Schools, and as it is spoken please remember that some of them have been shaping Christian character for nearly 50 years — and that last year 7,000 pupils were trained in them by our consecrated teachers. We own or assist 13 major and 11 secondary institutions. The 13 major schools are distrib- uted through the Southern States as follows: Morehouse College, Atlanta, Ga.; Benedict College, Columbia. S. C. ; Bishop College, Marshall, Tex.; 9 Hartshorn Memorial College and Virginia Union University at Richmond, Va.; Jackson College, Jackson, Miss.; Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C. ; Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Ga.; Alabama Baptist College, Selma, Ala.; State University, Louisville, Ky. ; and the Arkansas Baptist College at Little Rock; Roger Williams University, Nashville, Tenn. ; Storer College, Harper’s Ferry, W. Va. The secondary schools are: Americus Institute, Amer- icus, Ga. ; Coleman Academy, Gibsland, La.; Florida Baptist Academy, Jacksonville; Thompson Insti- tute, Lumberton, N. C. ; Houston Academy, Hous- ton, Tex.; the Howe Bible and Normal Institute, Memphis, Tenn.; Jeruel Academy, Athens, Ga. ; the Tidewater Institute, Chesapeake, Va.; Walker Bap- tist Academy, Augusta, Ga.; Waters Normal Insti- tute, Winton, N. C.; Western College, Macon, Mo., and Manning Bible Institute, Cairo, 111. Then and Now In 1860 this country had 4,444,800 Negroes, in 1910, 9,828,294. Since 1900 they have increased 11.3 per cent. The percentage is, however, de- creasing, for in 1900 it was 18 and in 1890, 13.5 per cent. Aside from immigration the whites are believed to have increased 15 per cent. In the South in 1910 the whites constituted 69.9 per cent, and the Negroes 28.8, as compared with 63.9 and 36.1 in 1880. The whites in the South have since 1880 gained 6 per cent, and the Negroes lost 6.2 in these thirty years. The condition of the Negroes in 1862 and since then has constituted a problem which we have helped to solve by the creation of Christian leader- ship. The Negroes in Virginia in 1910 constituted 32.6 per cent, of the population; in North Caro- lina, 31.6; South Carolina, 55.2; Georgia, 45.1; Florida, 41 per cent.; Kentucky, 11.4 per cent.; Tennessee, 21.7 per cent.; Alabama, 42.5 per cent.; Mississippi, 56.2 per cent.; Arkansas, 28.1 per cent.; Louisiana, 53.1 per cent.; Texas, 17.7 per cent. 10 In all these States our schools are located, and the Christian graduates from these schools will help to save the great mass of colored people, and reap one of the most valuable harvests the South has ever had. We have expended for Negro education during these fifty years more than five million dollars, and of this amount fully $1,290,000 is represented in land and equipment. Since 1878 the Woman’s American Baptist Home Missionary Society has co-operated with the American Baptist Home Mission Society in generous provision for the salaries of teachers in these schools. This organization has had 515 dif- ferent teachers, matrons and missionaries working either in the Negro schools or in other depart- ments of missionary service in the South. This number includes those supported by the present society and the societies now incorporated with that which has its headquarters at Chicago. Dur- ing this time the total contributions of these societies of the women of the North have been $1,045,200. The educational trust funds amount to $312,- 444.93 and the designated funds total $49,377.60. Southern Harvests The Society has steadily adhered to the train- ing of the colored people as ministers and teach- ers, and for many years has prepared students for medicine, law, pharmacy, business trades and home making. Industrial education has been gradually increasing. We have combined the Christian culture of the heart with the de- velopment of the mind and the training of the hand so that these schools may give an education for efficiency that shall make the students receiv- ing instruction sufficient unto every good work. We have asked the heads of these institutions to tell us what proportion of their graduates have made a moral failure of life, and these are some of 11 the replies: Ainericus Institute, 1 per cent.; Hartshorn Memorial College, 2 per cent.; Virginia Union University, 1 per cent. Dr. Brown, princi- pal of Waters Normal Institute, says: “We do not know of one of our graduates who has gone down to shame. All are living upright lives, with the exception of two. One of our young men who graduated went to Boston, recently, and we have not been able to locate him.” No graduate of Jackson College has made a moral failure. Houston Academy reports per cent.; Jeruel Academy 4 per cent.; Roger Williams University, 2 per cent.; Shaw University, less than 1 per cent. President Hope, of Morehouse College, writes: “I have gone carefully over the names of all grad- uates, living and dead, and I should say that 3 per cent, would cover the moral failures. By ‘moral failures’ I do not mean in every instance absolute shipwrecks.” Less than 4 per cent, of the grad- uates of Arkansas Baptist College have failed morally, and only one graduate from Howe Insti- tute. No one who had graduated from Thompson Institute has been known to make a moral failure. At Spelman Seminary a very careful biographical record is kept of every graduate, and only 4 per cent, are known to have failed, while Tidewater Institute reports 2 per cent. A large number have come to considerable fortune. Howe Institute reports 4 per cent.; Thompson Institute, 5 per cent.; Roger Williams, 1 per cent. President Hope knows of no graduates who would be regarded as rich Negroes, and says that by far the greater number have not gone into money-making primarily, although it is a fact that most of the men own their own homes and are in very good condition. Some have money enough to support them without any vocation. Nine graduates of Coleman Academy have be- come well-to-do. A large number of Jackson Col- lege students and former graduates own their own homes and are doing well. Virginia Union University reports fifty grad- 12 uates who have a considerable fortune, that is, from one to five hundred acres, and a comfortable home. Ten, and possibly more, have property to the value of $20,000 to $25,000. Two hundred who received instruction at Shaw University are worth $5,000 each, and eleven are worth not less than an average of $25,000. The Home Makers Spelman Seminary presents very interesting and complete statistics, and while recent investiga- tions would probably be more favorable, we will quote from the figures gathered in 1905. At that time 123 ex-students, 87 graduates and 36 under- graduates answered, of which 57 per cent, were married, and reported joint property. The aver- age length of time since leaving school was 7% years. Eighty-nine per cent, report property owned in their families; 43 per cent, real estate in their own names, of an average value of $820; 83 per cent, report personal property in their own names, average value, $392; 53 per cent, report personal cash savings, average value, $204; 37 per cent, own homes and 19 per cent, were buying homes. The average property owned by these former students was valued at $759; the maxi- mum value reported, $5,350, and the minimum, $15. Among the 300 or more girls coming from out- side of Atlanta, and boarding the same year on the Spelman campus, the following surprising sta- tistics were obtained: 70.5 per cent, of the fami- lies from which these girls came owned homes; 10.5 per cent, of the families were buying homes, and 19 per cent, of the families lived in rented houses. Of approximately 250 day pupils, 43 per cent, of the families owned homes; 10 per cent, were buying homes, and 47 per cent, were renting houses. 13 Deserved Leadership From Virginia Union University 100 have be- come leaders in their State; 3 are lawyers, 8 physicians, and some preachers have also be- come successful in insurance and banking. Among the graduates and students of the University who hold prominent positions as the heads of normal schools, church organizations, pro- fessors in colleges, etc., may be mentioned Booker T. Washington, who received the last year of his education at this school when it was located in Washington. Twenty-six others hold positions of great responsibility in educational institutions. Four are prominent as editors of Negro papers, and 4 have written a dozen popular books on the race question. One is the American Consul at St. Thomas. From Waters Normal Institute 5 graduates are the pastors of strong churches in large cities, 1 is a missionary to Africa, 6 are successful physicians, 3 are lawyers, making a fair living, and 48 have taught in public schools, while many of the un- dergraduates are also teachers. Jackson College has sent forth a large number of ministers, 3 lawyers, 4 physicians, 53 teachers and 3 presidents of colleges and principals of academies. From Tidewater Institute have gone forth 12 who are prominent in the ministry, 5 in medicine, and 70 in business and teaching. Coleman College has 19 graduates who have be- come prominent in the ministry, 1 in law, 4 in medicine, 1 is a postal clerk and 1 a parish super- intendent of education. Jeruel Academy is proud of 4 graduates who have come to leadership in the ministry, 1 in law, 3 in medicine, and Morehouse College reports 92 graduates having become ministers, 2 lawyers, 19 physicians, and 87 teachers. President Meserve, of Shaw University, reports that “of those who are now in school 18 are study- 14 ing for the ministry, 12 law, 121 medicine, 28 farming, 56 teaching, and a long list of our grad- uates, distinguished among their race and popular with the white people of the South, are among the leading colored physicians, lawyers, teachers, principals and college presidents, and heads of charitable institutions.” Ninety-four graduates of Spelman Seminary have become teachers. We have been concerned in our present statements with graduates only; but it should be remembered that the great major- ity of students attending these schools, although they do not graduate, become active in business, in teaching, and in the ministry. The Open Doors We have not been able to close the doors to any pupils who wish to receive an education in a Christian atmosphere, and in several of these institutions, in order that teachers may qual- ify for the State examinations, we have estab- lished training schools, where the future in- structors of colored children might have practice in teaching in the various grades. This has been especially true in the schools located in the large centers. And all who visit these schools are impressed with the facilities which we have been able to furnish, with the thorough instruc- tion that is given, and with the immense contribu- tions which this Society has made for the educa- tion of the Negro race. Thousands of well quali- fied teachers have gone forth from our schools into the country districts, where each has been the center of an influence that cannot be destroyed. In many of the communities where these teachers have gone, neighborhood life has been transformed and almost transfigured by the new ideals which our Christian pupils have brought to parents and their children. Germany justifies her vast expenditure for edu- cation because the system produces for the crises of the empire the millionth man, the Bis- 15 inarck ox- the Vou Moltke, whose leadership can guide and save the Fatherland. A distinguished American has remarked that Booker T. Washington was worth all the money given for Negro education. Wise Guides What better can we do for the men of the col- ored race than to train them for Christian civic and industrial leadership, teaching them not only law, medicine, theology and literature, but how to make their furniture, their houses and their gardens? What better education can be given a Negro girl than how to study and teach the Bible, how to cook, to make her hats and clothes, and keep her house in order? When a youth who lives in the “shadow of one blue hill” climbs the hill, sees from its top the distant school house and goes forth to its gifts, he returns to make life broad and deep and h’gh on the acres which he owns. The aspiration of colored youths for leadership among their people was deeply impressed upon me in a conversation I once had with a Negro student. When I asked what he intended to do after he left school, he said, “Be an engineer.” “A civil engineerP” I inquired. “No, sir,” he answered. “A mechanical engineerP” “No, sir.” “An electrical engineerP” “No, sir.” With the other departments of engineering I knew he was not familiar, and so I ventured as a last question: “What kind of an engineer do you intend to becomeP” 16 And he replied, with a flash in his eye, “A chief engineer.” I learned later that he was working hard as a fireman and hoped soon to secure a license as a stationary engineer. Christian leadership has been our goal. In- deed the world has long since climbed above the mesa on which Dr. Johnson stood when he cried with the plaudits of his generation, “Edu- cation is needed solely for the embellishment of life.” As in foreign missions, so in home missions, our effort is to create leadership through Christian schools. We cannot handicap the Negro race and then ask it to equal us who are not handicapped. Twenty years ago a colored boy walked a long distance to one of our schools, and four months later, when he returned home for the Christmas holidays, hardly able to read and write, the dea- cons of the church insisted on calling him “Pro- fessor.” His head, however, was not turned, and after years of diligent study he has become one of the leaders of his race, long occupied a promi- nent pulpit, and has recently been chosen as the head of an institution which has 600 students. Our experience in the study of our work brings us frequently to a comparison of the old and the new. The first address I gave in the South was before a great congregation of Negro Baptists. One of the thousand present, an old man, who had been a slave, with his aged wife standing by his side, said to me, “My brother, I very much enjoyed the rendition of your pungent points.” Later, I learned that his son was taking a graduate course in a northern university in preparation for teaching a Home Mission school, and that he pos- sesses an excellent knowledge of the English idiom. 17 Southern Investments The organization of the Negro Baptists in Association, State and National Conventions, under leadership of great ability, displays tal- ents that we should not minimize. Indeed in all the communities in the South, where Negroes live, and they live everywhere, and in all the Negro colonies in our Northern cities, if you search out the men and women of prominence who are in the van of educational, social and religious activities, you will find that they with few excep- tions have been students in the mission schools of the South. The Negroes are not a headless host. They have men of consummate ability to lead them, as their national, district and state societies show, and we are proud of them all. The women of the race also have been of late active in forming national women’s clubs, which are interested in improvements of every kind, and in the various departments of esthetics. An or- ganization known as the Neighborhood Union, whose first society was established at Atlanta, with the wife of President John Hope as its first president, is multiplying its life through other societies in the South. Mr. Washington asserts that the Negroes pay taxes upon one twenty-fourth of all the soil of Virginia; that in the counties east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, they pay taxes upon one-four- teenth of the soil, and in three counties of Vir- ginia, on one-fourth. He asserts that in Georgia the Negroes pay taxes on $28,586,000 worth of farm property in addition to large possessions of town and city lots. He intimates that “If the white man does not pay taxes on all of his, the Negro, who learns quickly from the white man, probably does not pay on all of his.” He also asserts that in the Southern States the Negroes own an amount of land equal to the combined physical territory of the kingdoms of Holland 18 and Belgium, and have in the United States $600,- 000,000 worth of property. They own In the Southern States alone nearly 10,000 dry goods and grocery stores, 200 drug stores, and 56 banks. They have 35,000 Sunday-Schools, 32,000 min- isters, 35,000 churches, and fully $56,000,000 worth of church property. The burden of the white man is not only in Africa, South America and Asia, but it is in the south land, helping the black man carry his bur- den, for the black man has a burden. While the Negroes pay considerable taxes on property which they own, we must not forget the economic axiom that the man who pays the rent for a house and farm, or rents land for tillage, also pays the taxes on this property, for the tax is always included in the rent. It took a thousand years to tame our fore- fathers; and, with nearly ten million Negroes among us whose ancestors were more than two hundred years in slavery and who with their fathers have been less than fifty years free, we should be much encouraged that within half a century these ten million Negroes have reached a condition where 69.6 per cent, of their race can both read and write. Principal Washington com- pares these attainments with 20 per cent, in Sicily, 40 per cent, in Spain, 30 per cent, in Russia and 10 per cent, in Portugal. The Cost of Progress The race was helped in many ways by slavery. Major Moulton said recently at Carnegie Hall, New York City, “I am glad my ancestors were brought from Africa to the United States, where they received Christianity in many instances from their slave holders, and to the land where their condition has become so greatly improved.” The progress of these people in the South, where they prefer to live, can only be explained by the fact that in a Christian environment they had one language, one religion, one country and 19 form of government and the same kind of educa- tion. In accomplishing these ends mission schooli have had considerable part. These number about 130, have approximately 40,000 pupils, 2,400 teachers, and represent an investment of $14,- 000,000, with an annual outlay of $2,100,000. Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes, and Atlanta University, are the three strongest schools sup- ported by independent Boards of Trustees. The scores of Negro autobiographies which we have assembled make stimulating reading. One man recalls the day when he was inspired to get an education by watching an educated pig at a county fair. He was eighteen years old and could not read or write, but he went home saying: “If that pig can get an education, I will get an education.” Shaw University took him in hand, and he has spent a long life as a missionary in Liberia. Another graduate as a lawyer faced hardships in Chicago. While shoveling coal from a side- walk to earn his office rent, a white man asked him if he knew of a Negro lawyer. He replied that he did, and that the inquirer would surely find him in his office a mile away. When the stranger disappeared around the corner, the young Negro dropped his shovel, ran to his office by an- other street, and was sitting in his chair, and suitably dressed, when the white man appeared. The next day our graduate received $25 as his first fee and has since prospered. Another writes: “I was a hard proposition when the president took me in hand, but he used the chisel of education on me faithfully and at last brought me into the proper shape.” Culture and Service It must be remembered also that a large pro- portion of the 7,000 pupils in our schools are studying the elementary branches and do not pur- 20 sue their studies to the period of graduation, yet in this brief period they become disciples of progress and are evangelists to bring to their rela- tives and friends the proper conceptions of reli- gion and education which their teachers have given to them. The pupil goes home and realizes that life leads somewhere and that his education makes him a trustee to his race. The Negro finds opponents among his people, but they are those who are entrenched in super- stition, immorality and prejudice, and these dis- integrating forces become decadent among all belated races under the influence of religion and education. From an inspiring evening recently spent in Carnegie Hall, in New York City, where Hamp- ton Institute gave a good account of its steward- ship, I returned home with my mind filled with fresh proofs of a training that combines both cul- ture and efficiency. I realized that evening that the higher education is one that lifts men higher, and the highest education raises men to heights from which they go down as Jesus did, to work for a world that can be spiritually conquered only by the industry and patience of those whose hearts are pure and whose hands are clean. I saw that night, as I had never seen before, that the higher education is that which gives its possessor a higher lifting power, and that a liberal educa- tion is an education that makes a man’s life a generous contribution to his day and race. In terms of character it makes him efficient in the conquests of sin in his own life; in terms of efficiency it makes him sufficient for every good work in uplifting others. The Gifts of Love We should all do honor to the teachers who have gone from the North, and especially from New England, to teach the Negroes. The service at first was glorified in the North, and mini- mized in the South, but it is now appreciated 21 more and more among the white neighbor* of our virile institutions. The Negroes have long since risen up to call them blessed, and Dr. DuBois has said, “These Christian teach- ers have gone forth in the ninth crusade.” One has a strange feeling in his heart when he hears an enemy of these schools say that the Negroes are incapable of education and in the same con- versation, a few minutes later, hears him assert that educated Negroes are dangerous to society and the jails are filled with them. Such opinions do not weigh an ounce in the balance against those noble expressions to the contrary which are con- stantly and freely being given by the intelligent people of the South. An entire hour might be spent in calling the names of consecrated souls: Dr. Charles M. Corey, with 34 years of service; Dr. G. M. P. King, now rounding out 47 years of labor; Dr. H. M. Tupper, 28 years president of Shaw University, which he established; Dr. D. W. Phillips, 26 years in the harness; Dr. L. B. Tefft, just laying down the bur- den after 38 years of fruitful toil; President L. G. Barrett, 16 years at Jackson College; Miss Car- rie V. Dyer, in continuous service since 1870, and those noble women, Miss S. B. Packard and Miss H. E. Giles, founders of Spelman Seminary, who, after many years of unstinted labors, fell at their post, rejoicing in what they had been permitted to achieve. To-day these institutions are administered by men of exceptional ability and taught by teachers of fine mind and heart. The tradition that a black man carried our Saviour’s cross may be supported by scanty schol- arship, but it is true that many white men North and South have won their crown by helping the black man carry his cross. These teachers have labored with rare devotion in the yielding clay which has often broken on the potter’s wheel till they have patiently made it whole again. Their names are in the books 22 that the angels write, and will appear in letters of gold when the history of Negro education is finally written. The South has treated these Chris- tian educators kindly in later years, and many of our mission schools have long had trustees and friends among the Southern people, who have al- ways ministered to these angels in their midst and given to them the cup of encouragement in the Master’s name. Two names of our Superintendents of Edu- cation loom large before our eyes. They performed well their labors for our schools. Dr. Malcolm MacVicar for ten years shaped methods of work and courses of study; Dr. George Sale followed with the extension of the curriculum and enlarged the equipment. His untimely death on Jan. 22nd, 1912, prevented his able review of our work. Like Dr. MacVicar, Dr. Sale addressed himself with patience and wisdom to his labors and was able to make his ideals attractive to the presi- dents, principals and teachers of our schools. He showed initiative and tactfulness, which won and kept for him a growing circle of friends. His sound judgment, conservatism, and wide acquaintance with the Negro problem gave weight to such recommendations as he felt it right to pre- sent to the various Boards and Foundations which have deeply at heart the welfare of the colored people. Indeed, he did his work so well for our Society that his reputation became national. No better proof can be given of the high estimation in which he was held by those who have made an expert study of the Negro problem than his selec- tion by President Taft as one of the Commission- ers to Liberia. A Wider Field What our Society has expended in Negro edu- cation, however, does not represent the total contributions of Northern Baptists for this ob- ject. Our States are the happy hunting grounds 23 through which have wandered Negro pastors and teachers, and the amount of money which has been collected from individuals, Sunday Schools, Young People’s Societies, and churches, consti- tute a vast sum. The deacons of the Clarendon Street Church were importuned so frequently for gifts to churches and schools by their Negro brethren, that on one occasion, when a preacher came before them and asked for the privilege of a collection, almost worn out by the frequent appeals, they asked the colored brother why the Clarendon Street Church was always the first place in New England to which the Negro Baptist in the South came. The preacher instantly replied, “When we go hunting, we go where we know the ducks are.” The work, however, accomplished by this Soci- ety for the Negroes has not been education alone, and in the South alone, but has long embraced evangelistic and missionary endeavors in many States in the North and West. This is conducted through co-operation with Western conventions and is very widespread. Last year forty-two mis- sionaries in eleven States were employed and approximately $10,000 was given by this Society for their salaries. A considerable amount was paid also by the various State conventions with which we are in co-operation. In several East- ern States, assistance is given by State conven- tions and State missionary societies to the Negro Baptists. The new era institute work has been con- ducted jointly with fruitful results in several Southern States, where the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the White and Negro State conventions and this Society co- operated. Gradually the Southern conventions withdrew from the work, believing that they could spend their funds to better advantage by making direct contributions to the National Baptist Con- vention. Our Society continues the joint arrange- ment at the present time in Virginia and Georgia. 24 W* believe that this work is all important, and may well be restored to its former dimensions. The Negroes themselves, during these fifty years have appreciated our efforts on their behalf, and during the last twelve years alone have paid into the school treasuries of our various institutions more than sixteen hundred thousand dollars for board and tuition charges. This makes two points clear: That their parents and friends are coming to financial strength, which makes possible the education of the younger generation, and also that a multitude of young men and women are eager to possess ample preparation for the work of life. Our Task We need to remember that the task in which we are engaged may be a very long one, for it may take as many decades to solve this problem as it took to make it. How long, therefore, shall we patiently pour our missionary treasures of money and of life into this stream P We answer, till our work is done and others come to supplement our labors. What now is our part, as we begin another half century P Shall its end still find our successors toiling with this problem that now stretches into the future? We need frequent conferences with our South- ern white brethren, for it is a gain to talk to- gether as we climb the upward path and look down on both sides of the mountain of Negro education. Southern Sentiment It is a joy to know that the best sentiment in the South to-day, where the tide is rising fast, demands not only an education for the masses of the colored people, but that higher educational institutions shall be developed to supplement the denominational work, both in order to provide 25 teachers for the rural schools and to train the exceptional man and woman. Dr. Curry, Bishop Galloway, President Mitchell of the University of South Carolina, Chancellor Hill of the University of Georgia, President Mullins of our Seminary in Louisville, Dr. John E. White and a host of others have all spoken the same strong message. The reports of the Southern Education Board leave no doubt on this subject. Our Southern Baptist leaders warn us that we must not be over-impressed by the railings of their politicians against the Negroes. Indeed it is a common observation that when in politics or religion men throw mud at their fellows they simply prove that they live on the muddy side of the street. But important changes are imminent in the South. The growing efforts on behalf of the Negroes in the organizing of Young Men’s Chris- tian Associations led by the Southern white stu- dents; the establishing of fellowships in Southern universities for the study of the race problem; the personal Christian work which the Presby- terians of Louisville are doing through the Rev. John Little, and which the Central Presbyterian Church of Atlanta is undertaking in its recently instituted playground and industrial institutional efforts among the ten thousand or more colored people who are crowded between the forks of the Seaboard and Southern Railways in that city; the higher education that Southern Methodists are supporting with increasing liberality under a Southern white president at Paine College, at Augusta, Georgia; these are significant tendencies of Southern life to-day, and our Baptist brethren are doubtless studying them with the silent re- solve not to be left in the rear of the new forces that are slowly but irresistibly organizing for a long campaign. Their work at first will supple- ment our Christian endeavors and in the end will probably lessen our commitments to this form of Christian service, which will naturally be trans- 26 ferred to the hearts and hands of white men and black who live as neighbors. The Baptist leaders in the South are most cor dial to our efforts for the Negroes. Rev. Hight C. Moore, editor of the Biblical Re- corder, Raleigh, N. C., in accepting his election as a trustee of Shaw University, wrote recently to us, “I beg to say that I appreciate the honor conferred, and will, to the best of my ability, un- dertake the services desired. I am a great be- liever in Shaw University, past, present and future.’' Recently we have received letters from nearly a hundred of the South’s distinguished sons, com- mending these mission schools for the work they are doing, in solving the race problem, in pro- viding the kind of leaders the Negroes need, and in furnishing the exact education that these gen- tlemen delight to have them receive. A National Task Our brethren of the South are exhorting each other to renewed Christian work for the Negroes. Ex-Governor Northen of Georgia has said, “What has organized Christianity at the South done for the spiritual needs of the Negro? Sometimes, in my more compassionate moments, it has occurred to me that, possibly, the Negroes at the South belong to that class of human- ity the Master had in mind, when He said: ‘For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and yet took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye vis- ited me not.’ ” The following noble lines are an extract from a committee report written by Dr. Edwin M. Po- teat, Chairman, and adopted by the Southern Bap- tist Convention: “Our commission ‘Unto the uttermost parts of 27 the earth’ is not China, or Thibet, or the heart of Africa; but the Negro quarters in your town, your village, your plantation. “The Negro here is a severer test of our loy- alty to Christ than the Chinaman in Canton; and we cannot maintain our Christian consistency while we glow with generous piety and melt to tears upon the recital of the blessing of God upon our work for Negroes in Africa or Brazil, and freeze to hardness on seeing with our own eyes the pitiful destitution of the Negroes here at home. “The love of all men is a thrilling sentiment, but it often suffers a sudden blight by the finding of a particular individual on our doorstep. And we must remember that almost if not quite the severest indictment Jesus ever launched, He launched against a man who despised a certain loathsome bundle of humanity laid at his gate, full of sores. Our Lord said of that man that he went to hell, which is to say that we must inter- pret our Christianity in terms of helpfulness to- ward the man next to us, or we run the risk of forfeiting the favor of God upon our work in the ends of the earth.” The Kindly Feeling And who can travel in the South and not ob- serve the kindly feeling which prevails between the better classes of both races P It is not in the ability of anyone reared in the North to instruct intelligently the Southern Baptists as to what they ought to do. But every word of exhortation given in the South may well be repeated in the North, where preju- dice against the Negro we fear is not growing less. Indeed, the Baptists of the Northern States may well read the burning utterances of our Southern leaders and labor more zealously in our cities for the evangelization of the Negro people, many of whom absorb the vices and not the virtues of 21 their environment. As we read the calls to serv- ice uttered to their brethren by these Southern neighbors, and meditate on their words of praise of our Christian schools, let us not for an instant imagine that the Baptists who have always dwelt closest to the great population of Negro people have not generously assisted the Negro Baptists in their Christian enterprises. Their gifts doubt- less have long since passed the mark of two mil- lion dollars. Indeed, almost every Negro church has appealed, and not in vain, to their Southern friends to help build its edifice. The Breadth of the Problem The Negro problem is a National problem and will never be solved by the North alone nor by the South alone, but by the North and the South together, working on a larger plane than has ever yet been devised and in constructive ways that will utilize the financial ability, the intel' lectual leadership and the moral power of the Negro race; and supplementing this daily increas- ing endowment with the combined strength of the educational foundations, Boards and Mission- ary Societies along lines that will ultimately fasten these institutions to the public and re» ligious school systems of the Southern States, and will at the same time conserve the best traditions sacrifices and spirit of those who both North and South have built their lives into the growing temple of Christian education that aims to train leaders for the race. It should be remembered that our Southern Bap- tists and their Christian brethren of the South were so impoverished, although not disheartened, by the losses of war, that it was impossible, how- ever strongly they were inclined, for them to es- tablish schools for the improvement of those who had lately been their slaves. 29 Lest We Forget We should not forget, that although our Bap- tist brethren withdrew from co-operation with our Society because of the growing opposition to slavery of the Northern Baptists, they never- theless were interested in the spiritual life of the Negroes and received them in large num- bers into the membership of their churches. A conspicuous example of this devotion is seen in the service rendered by Dr. Hyland, who while president of Richmond College, was also the pas- tor of a large colored church of the city. The unfortunate racial alignments of the reconstruc- tion period, however, partly broke the personal contact that had previously existed; and in the brief political ascendancy of the Negroes, feel- ings were engendered in the hearts of the South- ern people which made it easy for them, busy with the resuscitation of their own educational and re- ligious institutions, to leave indefinitely to their Northern brethren the Christian education of the Negroes. Indeed, our Southern brethren have been so busy till the present hour with the develop- ment of their own people that they have perhaps naturally not asked to co-operate with our Soci- ety in the maintenance of these numerous institu- tions for which it was making ample provision. On many occasions, however, in convention as- sembled, they have heartily endorsed our work for their colored neighbors, and we have felt their regret that the burden of their Christian under- takings made it impossible for them to assist us. The willingness and ability with which during all these years many of the most prominent gen- tlemen of the South have served as trustees of our colored schools is surely a prophecy of that larger number who some day may feel it a privi- lege not only to assist in the supervision of the institutions, but also to teach the colored pupils in our classes and to direct as presidents and prin- cipals the policies and destinies of these colleges and institutes. 30 The difficulty now encountered by the South, which in its new prosperity has again become conscious of its financial strength, is that it finds a ready-made system of higher education pre- paring the colored youth for Christian leadership, while the masses, both white and black, sorely need the rudiments of learning. However, the field is so extensive that the problem cannot be finally solved by eliminating any element that makes for strength, but by utilizing all the forces of education. History and Prophecy Our Socity eagerly took its share in the Chris- tian education of the Negroes when it would have been a crime against heaven not to have begun this work. The same heroism that sent our sol- diers to fight for the preservation of the Union led men and women to teach the emancipated slaves in our Christian schools. During the past fifty years the Baptists of the North have invest- ed more than six million dollars in carrying out their part of the great commission of our Lord, but we cannot abandon these wards that God has given to us until our white brethren of the South see the vision of their privilege in making their personal contributions to these schools in addi- tion to their sympathies and prayers, or until the Negroes themselves, slowly coming to pros- perity and fortune, shall help to lift the burden, and later entirely support and supervise their own institutions. The recent gifts of the Negro Baptists suggest that they may embrace this privilege before the white Baptists of belated vision respond to their enlightened leaders. We value highly the numer- ous resolutions of commendation of our work for the Negroes given by the Southern Baptist Con- vention. These sentiments glorify their records. But the Baptist historian of a later day may ex- press his amazement that a people so enlight- 31 ened, bo orthodox, so generous, and showing such commendable initiative in missionary work for whites at home and for Negroes and other races abroad, should have watched for fifty years the investment of six million dollars by their brethren of the North in the Christian education of the Negro race among them and not begged for a share in the work. And then surely he will write these other lines: “But as the work of providing Christian education entered upon its second half century — the common schools of the South rapidly extended an educa- tion to all races and the white Baptists, coming to great numbers and financial strength, followed the wise advice of their gifted guides and asked their Northern brethren to share with them the privilege of training the Christian leaders for the Negro race; until long before the end of the second half century, the people of the South, both white and black, so far and generously supported and promoted these mission schools, that the Northern Baptists turned their attention to other missionary tasks. “The Negro race has produced a long line of worthy leaders to succeed the able men who laid well the foundations and directed the development of these Christian schools now manned and sup- ported by the Negroes themselves. The history of this century of the training of a race mark* one of the greatest achievements of the Christian church.” And may this prophecy be true!