or two races so diverse to live
on a plane of equality, and the burden of education upon the South has
been so heavy and the race qualities of the negro so discouraging,
that progress in the solution of the negro problem has been slow.

The problem of the colored race is not one of assimilation or of
conflict. In spite of an admixture of blood that affects possibly a
third of the American negroes, there never will be race fusion.
Assimilation of culture was partly accomplished in slave days, and it
will go on. There is no serious conflict between white and colored,
when once the question of assimilation is understood. The problem is
one of race adjustment. Fifty years have been insufficient to perfect
the relations between the two races, but since they must live
together, it is desirable that they should come to understand and
sympathize with each other, and as far as possible co-operate for
mutual advancement. The problem is a national one, because the man of
color is not confined to the South, and even more because the South
alone is unable to deal adequately with the situation. The negro
greatly needs efficient social education. He tends to be dirty, lazy,
and improvident, as is to be expected, when left to himself. Like all
countrymen--a large proportion live in the country--he is backward in
ways of thinking and methods of working. He is primitive in his
passions and much given to emotion. He shows the traits of a people
not far removed from savagery. It is remarkable that his white master
was able to civilize him as much as he did, and it is not strange that
there has been many a relapse under conditions of unprepared freedom,
but it is only the more reason why negro character should be raised
higher on the foundation already laid.

The task is not very different from that which is presented by the
slum population of the cities of the North. The children need to be
taught how to live, and then given a chance to practise the
instruction in a decent environment. They need manual and industrial
training fitted to their industrial environment, and every opportunity
to employ their knowledge in earning a living. They need noble ideals,
and these they can get only by the sympathetic, wise teaching of their
superiors, whether white or black. They and their friends need
patience in the upward struggle, for it will not be easy to socialize
and civilize ten million persons in a decade or a century. Such
institutions as Ha