er. They can prescribe what the blacks can hardly do other
than accept.

What we are now facing is not slavery,--an institution that may be
abolished by statute--but its offspring, Caste--a spirit pervasive,
subtle, sophistical, tyrannic. It can be overcome only by a spirit more
pervasive, persistent and powerful--the spirit of brotherhood.

Puzzling as the situation is at some points, its essential elements are
far simpler and easier to deal with than slavery presented. There is no
longer a vast property interest at stake,--on the contrary, material
interest points the same way with moral considerations. There are
complexities of the social structure, but nothing half so formidable as
the aristocratic system based on slavery. The gravest difficulty now is
a race prejudice, deep-rooted and stubborn, yet at bottom so irrational
that civilization and Christianity and human progress should be
steadily wearing it away. Let us take heart of grace. If our wills are
true, it should be no great puzzle for our heads to find the way
in this business. Let us test the practical application of our
principle--namely, that each man should do his best, each should be
allowed to do his best, and helped to do his best--let us see how this
should work in industry, education, politics, and social relations.

First in importance is the industrial situation. Broadly, the negro in
this country shows himself able and willing to work. The sharp spur of
necessity urges him, and his inherited habit carries him on. But he
needs a training in youth that shall fit him to work more effectively.
For that matter, his white brother needs it, too. But here is the
inequality of their situations,--whatever the white worker is qualified
to do he is allowed to do, but how is it with the black worker? Let the
Northern reader of these pages see at his door the palpable instance of
a limitation more cruel than can be found at the South. Let him note, as
the children stream out from the public school, the dark-skinned boy,
playing good-naturedly with his white mates, at marbles or ball or
wrestling,--just as he has been studying on the same bench with
them,--he is as clean, as well-dressed, as well-behaved, as they. Now,
five years hence, to what occupation can that colored boy turn? He can
be a bootblack, a servant, a barber, perhaps a teamster. He may be a
locomotive fireman, but when he is fit to be an engineer, he is turned
back. Carpentry, masonry, painti