n the least
prejudice against their education? In a paper read at the last session of
this Association, Professor W. F. Willcox of Cornell University showed by
statistics that in proportion to population there were more negro
criminals in the North than in the South. "The negro prisoners in the
Southern States to ten thousand negroes increased between 1880 and 1890
twenty-nine per cent., while the white prisoners to ten thousand whites
increased only eight per cent." "In the States where slavery was never
established, the white prisoners increased seven per cent. faster than
the white population, while the negro prisoners no less than thirty-nine
per cent. faster than the negro population. Thus the increase of negro
criminality, so far as it is reflected in the number of prisoners,
exceeded the increase of white criminality more in the North than it did
in the South."

This statement was surprising. It cannot be accounted for by color
prejudice at the North; it is related to the known shiftlessness and
irresponsibility of a great portion of the negro population. If it could
be believed that this shiftlessness is due to the late state of slavery,
the explanation would not do away with the existing conditions. Schools
at the North have for a long time been open to the negro; though color
prejudice exists, he has not been on the whole in an unfriendly
atmosphere, and willing hands have been stretched out to help him in his
ambition to rise. It is no doubt true, as has been often said lately,
that the negro at the North has been crowded out of many occupations by
more vigorous races, newly come to this country, crowded out not only of
factory industries and agricultural, but of the positions of servants,
waiters, barbers, and other minor ways of earning a living. The general
verdict is that this loss of position is due to lack of stamina and
trustworthiness. Wherever a negro has shown himself able, honest,
attentive to the moral and economic duties of a citizen, either
successful in accumulating property or filling honorably his station in
life, he has gained respect and consideration in the community in which
he is known; and this is as true at the South as at the North,
notwithstanding the race antagonism is more accentuated by reason of the
preponderance of negro population there and the more recent presence of
slavery. Upon this ugly race antagonism it is not necessary to enlarge
here in discussing the problem of educat