rences of a physical nature are negligible, and
that if the Negro is "given a chance" the significant differences will
disappear. This attitude permeates the public school system of northern
states. A recent report on the condition of Negro pupils in the New York
City public schools professes to give "few, perhaps no, recommendations
that would not apply to the children of other races. Where the
application is more true in regard to colored children, it seems largely
to be because of this lack of equal justice in the cases of their
parents. Race weakness appears but this could easily be balanced by the
same or similar weakness in other races. Given an education carefully
adapted to his needs and a fair chance for employment, the normal child
of any race will succeed, unless the burden of wrong home conditions
lies too heavily upon him."[131]

As the writer does not define what she means by "succeed," one is
obliged to guess at what she means: Her anthropology is apparently
similar to that of Franz Boas of Columbia University, who has said that,
"No proof can be given of any material inferiority of the Negro
race;--without doubt the bulk of the individuals composing the race are
equal in mental aptitude to the bulk of our own people."

If such a statement is wholly true, the color line can hardly be
justified, but must be regarded, as it is now the case sometimes, as
merely the expression of prejudice and ignorance. If the only
differences between white and black, which can not be removed by
education, are of no real significance,--a chocolate hue of skin, a
certain kinkiness of hair, and so on,--then logically the white race
should remove the handicaps which lack of education and bad environment
have placed on the Negro, and receive him on terms of perfect equality,
in business, in politics, and in marriage.

The proposition needs only to be stated in this frank form, to arouse an
instinctive protest on the part of most Americans. Yet it has been urged
in an almost equally frank form by many writers, from the days of the
abolitionists to the present, and it seems to be the logical consequence
of the position adopted by such anthropologists as Professor Boas, and
by the educators and others who proclaim that there are no significant
differences between the Negro and the white, except such as are due to
social conditions and which, therefore, can be removed.

But what are these social differences, which it is the custo