ng souls.

From such schools about two thousand Negroes have gone forth with the
bachelor's degree. The number in itself is enough to put at rest the
argument that too large a proportion of Negroes are receiving higher
training. If the ratio to population of all Negro students throughout
the land, in both college and secondary training, be counted,
Commissioner Harris assures us "it must be increased to five times its
present average" to equal the average of the land.

Fifty years ago the ability of Negro students in any appreciable numbers
to master a modern college course would have been difficult to prove.
To-day it is proved by the fact that four hundred Negroes, many of whom
have been reported as brilliant students, have received the bachelor's
degree from Harvard, Yale, Oberlin, and seventy other leading colleges.
Here we have, then, nearly twenty-five hundred Negro graduates, of whom
the crucial query must be made. How far did their training fit them for
life? It is of course extremely difficult to collect satisfactory
data on such a point,--difficult to reach the men, to get trustworthy
testimony, and to gauge that testimony by any generally acceptable
criterion of success. In 1900, the Conference at Atlanta University
undertook to study these graduates, and published the results. First
they sought to know what these graduates were doing, and succeeded
in getting answers from nearly two thirds of the living. The direct
testimony was in almost all cases corroborated by the reports of the
colleges where they graduated, so that in the main the reports were
worthy of credence. Fifty-three per cent of these graduates were
teachers,--presidents of institutions, heads of normal schools,
principals of city school systems, and the like. Seventeen per cent were
clergymen; another seventeen per cent were in the professions, chiefly
as physicians. Over six per cent were merchants, farmers, and artisans,
and four per cent were in the government civil service. Granting
even that a considerable proportion of the third unheard from are
unsuccessful, this is a record of usefulness. Personally I know many
hundreds of these graduates and have corresponded with more than a
thousand; through others I have followed carefully the life-work of
scores; I have taught some of them and some of the pupils whom they
have taught, lived in homes which they have builded, and looked at life
through their eyes. Comparing them as a class with my