asping, bullying ignorance that seeks
to ride rough shod over superior knowledge and breeding; it will demand
all his logic to meet the arguments from without that the Negro has no
time now for scholarship--that he must get money and get land first;
that learning possesses little mercantile value now; that the way to
advancement along scholarly lines is barred; that the cook, the
carpenter, the shoemaker, are all better paid than the scholar for the
use of the sum of their knowledge which costs far less than his. He must
face the facts no matter how unjust or inconsistent such things are and
meet the final question--_Is it worth striving for?--Is it worth while
to put ambitions and longings on the altar, to work unceasingly,
uncomplainingly amidst stolid indifference, absolute contempt and often
open hostility?_

We are face to face here with the question whether scholarship pays,
whether the educated Negro is to be encouraged to multiply and push
forward determinedly on his mission. If there was but the present moment
to contemplate, the race might be excused for pausing, for acquiescing
in the limitations set for its education, and for saying the game is not
worth the candle. But to-day does not end all. There is a _future_ and
that Negro is lacking in proper manhood who does not determine to help
on that future. The future is always bound up in the present and if this
future is to make men and women out of the race in coming generations
the question is answered. Negro scholarship is worth striving for,
because the educated Negro is to lead for that future. Education,
learning, scholarship will make the undying lustre of a people--will
prove their greatest glory. Thinkers will give an immortality to a
people that neither wealth, nor industry, nor strength of arm, nor even
virtue can procure for it.

So the educated Negro must keep this in view, must see his mission
clearly and stand courageously ready to undertake it--

"Cleansed of servile panic,
Slow to dread or despise,
Humble because of knowledge,
Mighty by sacrifice."

But there must be united effort among the leaders of the race along all
lines to this end. Advocates of higher learning and of industrial
education must accord respect to each other's opinions and work
unitedly, in order that neither may fall a sacrifice to the "Nemesis of
Neglect." And the race must sustain its leaders of thought and action.
There is no time to lose, none to wast