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Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

"The Souls of Black Folk"

And if this is the white South's
need and danger, how much heavier the danger and need of
the freedmen's sons! how pressing here the need of broad
ideals and true culture, the conservation of soul from sordid
aims and petty passions! Let us build the Southern university--
William and Mary, Trinity, Georgia, Texas, Tulane, Vander-
bilt, and the others--fit to live; let us build, too, the Negro
universities:--Fisk, whose foundation was ever broad; How-
ard, at the heart of the Nation; Atlanta at Atlanta, whose ideal
of scholarship has been held above the temptation of numbers.
Why not here, and perhaps elsewhere, plant deeply and for
all time centres of learning and living, colleges that yearly
would send into the life of the South a few white men and a
few black men of broad culture, catholic tolerance, and trained
ability, joining their hands to other hands, and giving to this
squabble of the Races a decent and dignified peace?
Patience, Humility, Manners, and Taste, common schools
and kindergartens, industrial and technical schools, literature
and tolerance,--all these spring from knowledge and culture,
the children of the university.


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