That one wise method of doing this lies in the closer knitting
of the Negro to the great industrial possibilities of the South
is a great truth. And this the common schools and the manual
training and trade schools are working to accomplish. But
these alone are not enough. The foundations of knowledge in
this race, as in others, must be sunk deep in the college and
university if we would build a solid, permanent structure.
Internal problems of social advance must inevitably come,
--problems of work and wages, of families and homes, of
morals and the true valuing of the things of life; and all these
and other inevitable problems of civilization the Negro must
meet and solve largely for himself, by reason of his isolation;
and can there be any possible solution other than by study and
thought and an appeal to the rich experience of the past? Is
there not, with such a group and in such a crisis, infinitely
more danger to be apprehended from half-trained minds and
shallow thinking than from over-education and over-refine-
ment? Surely we have wit enough to found a Negro college
so manned and equipped as to steer successfully between the
dilettante and the fool.
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