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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 41. The Negro School - 4. The Whites’ Attitudes toward Negro Education - 5. “Industrial” versus “Classical” Education of Negroes
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An American Dilemma
896
There is much truth in the saying that unless the whites lift the Negroes up, the
Negroes will drag them down, though it is not true in the full sense in which it was
intended. It is not true to the extent that the white must lift the Negro up to his own
level; it is true to the extent that he must not leave him debased—at least must not
leave him here debased. If he does, then the Negro will inevitably hold him, if not
drag him down. No country in the present stage of the world’s progress can long
maintain itself in the front rank, and no people can long maintain themselves at the
top of the list of peoples if they have to carry perpetually the burden of a vast and
densely ignorant population, and where that population belongs to another race, the
argument must be all the stronger. Certainly, no section can, under such a burden
keep pace with a section which has no such burden. Whatever the case may have been
in the past, the time has gone by, possibly forever, when the ignorance of the work-
ing-class was an asset. Nations and peoples and, much more, sections of peoples, are
now strong and prosperous almost iif direct ratio to their knowledge and enlighten-
ment. . . .
Viewing the matter economically, the Negro race, like every other race, must be of
far more value to the country In which it is placed, if the Negro is properly educated,
elevated, and trained, than If he is allowed to remain in ignorance and degradation.
He is a greater peril to the community in which he lives if he remains in ignorance
and degradation than if he is enlightened. If the South expects ever to compete with
the North, she must educate and train her population, and, in my judgment, not
merely her white population but her entire population.
This has been the main argument through decades for improving the
educational facilities for Negroes in the South. Usually it is restricted by
assertion of their lower capability of responding to education. Usually also
it is qualified by the insistence on a particular kind of education as more
suitable for Negroes.
There is petty pressure on Negro education in the South, but the truth
is that the Southern whites have never had the nerve to make of Negro
education an accomplished instrument to keep the Negroes in their caste
status. It would have been possible, but it has not been done. The Southern
whites^ caste policy has been halfhearted all through, but particularly so in
education. The explanation is again that they are also good Americans with
all the standardized American ideals about education. The interest of
educating the Negroes to become faithful helots has been obvious, but the
Southern whites have not even attempted to make it effective in practice.
Instead, they have merely kept Negro education poor and bad. And even
on that point they have been gradually giving up resistance to the command
of the Creed. This is the deeper dynamics of Negro education.
5. “Industrial” versus “Classical” Education of Negroes
Quite independent of how the specific value of “vocational” or “indus-
trial” education, as compared with a more liberal education, is viewed,
there is no doubt that the popularity among whites, now as earlier, of the
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