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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 41. The Negro School - 7. Trends and Problems
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Chapter 41. The Negro School 905
A second most important condition for progress is to improve the stand-
ards of Negro teachers. This has been seen by the Northern foundations and
also by many of the Southern state authorities, and much effort has gone
into improving teacher training in the South. Southern state and private
Negro colleges largely serve this purpose. Many of the small Negro
colleges in the South are inadequate and the whole system needs to be
systematized. Many of them will, perhaps, succumb in the financial strain
of the present War, and this might turn out to be a blessing in disguise if the
remaining colleges are increased and improved correspondingly. The
establishment of a new model teacher-training college in the South would
be a great service which a farsighted federal policy could undertake in
order to equalize educational opportunities for Negroes. Meanwhile the
raised salary scales, to which the South will be compelled, will probably
raise the standards of training Negro teachers. Negro teachers need not
only better training and higher salaries j
they also need more security of
tenure. If the rural teacher could be given a greater independence and a
higher prestige, this, by itself, would make her a better teacher and, partic-
ularly, increase the influence of the school over the community.
If the federal government undertakes further financial responsibility
for education,*^ it will be up against a problem which has been bothering the
philanthropic foundations for a long time, although it is seldom discussed
openly: How is it possible to aid without decreasing local responsibility?
In the author’s judgment. Northern fhilanthrofy in its grand-scale charity
toward the Souths incidental to its ’positive accomplishmentsy
has also had a
demoralizing influence on the South, The South has become accustomed to
taking it for granted that not only rich people in the North, but also poor
church boards, should send money South, thus eternally repaying “the
responsibility of the North for Reconstruction.” Thus far, rich people in the
South have been less inclined to give away their money for philanthropic
purposes.
For these moral reasons it is important, when the federal government
steps in, that local financial responsibility be preserved as much as possible.
The ideal solution would be that the federal government pay certain basic
costs all over the country such as original building costs and a basic teach-
er’s salary. It is, of course, of special importance that, as far as possible,
absence of discrimination be made a condition for aid. Otherwise the idea
will become established that Negro education is the business of the federal
government and less a concern of the state and the municipalities. In this
sense there is a danger that the Negro people might become “the ward of
the nation.”
Our assumption was that, to improve Negro education, larger appropria-
tions, better buildings, more equipment, better paid and trained teachers
*For a consideration of what the federal government has already done, see Chapter 15,
Section 3.
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