pronounced one of the best in the State. Every Summer his
services are in demand in various parts of the State. For
ten years Mr. Walker was the honored President of the
Georgia State Teachers' Association, Colored, and no man has
since filled that honored chair whose administration has in
any way rivaled the success of Mr. Walker. During his ten
years the association was built up as it has never been
since. The intelligence of the State--white and
Colored--came together in these annual meetings and made
this gathering of educators and leaders the most
representative body in the State.

Mr. Walker is easy of address and modest in all things,
never contending for honors. Several years ago, at its
annual exercises, his alma mater conferred upon him the
degree of A. M. as a deserved tribute and recognition of the
literary work he has accomplished. As a polished orator Mr.
Walker has been heard with profit and delight in all parts
of the State. Some of his addresses before the State
Teachers' Association are considered real gems of
literature.

After a lapse of some thirty-eight years, or a little better than a
generation, we are asking the question, "What is the Negro Teacher
doing in the matter of uplifting his race?" In so brief a period of
years it would seem to savor of arrogance to ask a question so
seemingly fraught with significance, so inopportune and, too, about a
people so recently freed from bondage that they have not yet had the
time to grow a generation of teachers. It took England more than a
generation to grow an Arnold at Rugby. It took France more than
several generations to produce a Guizot, and Pestalozzi, whose
reputation as a teacher widens with the universe, is the product of
years of experimental accumulations of Swiss ingenuity. And yet it may
be pardonable arrogance on our part to say that at this first
milestone in our educational career we pause here long enough to take
an inventory of what the Negro teacher has done and is still doing in
the matter of uplifting his people. In the pioneering or experimental
period of Negro education there were no Negro teachers, but it is safe
to say that as early as 1875 a few Negroes, daring to rush in where
angels would fear to tread, began the profession of school teaching.
It is from this date that we may safely begin to reckon the services
of the Negro tea