gh that the teachers of teachers should be trained
in technical normal methods; they must also, so far as possible, be
broad-minded, cultured men and women, to scatter civilization among a
people whose ignorance was not simply of letters, but of life itself.

It can thus be seen that the work of education in the South began with
higher institutions of training, which threw off as their foliage common
schools, and later industrial schools, and at the same time strove to
shoot their roots ever deeper toward college and university training.
That this was an inevitable and necessary development, sooner or later,
goes without saying; but there has been, and still is, a question in
many minds if the natural growth was not forced, and if the higher
training was not either overdone or done with cheap and unsound methods.
Among white Southerners this feeling is widespread and positive. A
prominent Southern journal voiced this in a recent editorial:

"The experiment that has been made to give the colored students
classical training has not been satisfactory. Even though many were able
to pursue the course, most of them did so in a parrot-like way, learning
what was taught, but not seeming to appropriate the truth and import
of their instruction, and graduating without sensible aim or valuable
occupation for their future. The whole scheme has proved a waste of
time, efforts, and the money of the state."

While most far-minded men would recognize this as extreme and overdrawn,
still without doubt many are asking, Are there a sufficient number of
Negroes ready for college training to warrant the undertaking? Are not
too many students prematurely forced into this work? Does it not have
the effect of dissatisfying the young Negro with his environment? And do
these graduates succeed in real life? Such natural questions cannot be
evaded, nor on the other hand must a nation naturally skeptical as to
Negro ability assume an unfavorable answer without careful inquiry and
patient openness to conviction. We must not forget that most Americans
answer all queries regarding the Negro a priori, and that the least that
human courtesy can do is to listen to evidence.

The advocates of the higher education of the Negro would be the last to
deny the incompleteness and glaring defects of the present system: too
many institutions have attempted to do college work, the work in some
cases has not been thoroughly done, and quantity rather than quality