Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
The Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund propose to publish from time totime papers that relate to the education of the colored race. These papersare designed to furnish information to those who are concerned in the administrationof schools, and also to those who by their official stations arecalled upon to act or to advise in respect to the care of such institutions.
The Trustees believe that the experimental period in the education ofthe blacks is drawing to a close. Certain principles that were doubted thirtyyears ago now appear to be generally recognized as sound. In the nextthirty years better systems will undoubtedly prevail, and the aid of theseparate States is likely to be more and more freely bestowed. There willalso be abundant room for continued generosity on the part of individualsand associations. It is to encourage and assist the workers and the thinkersthat these papers will be published.
Each paper, excepting the first number (made up chiefly of official documents),will be the utterance of the writer whose name is attached to it,the Trustees disclaiming in advance all responsibility for the statement offacts and opinions.
The purpose of this paper is to put into permanent form anarrative of what has been done at the South for the educationof the negro since 1860. The historical and statisticaldetails may seem dry and uninteresting, but we can understandthe significance of this unprecedented educational movementonly by a study of its beginnings and of the difficultieswhich had to be overcome. The present generation, near asit is to the genesis of the work, cannot appreciate its magnitude,nor the greatness of the victory which has been achieved,without a knowledge of the facts which this recital gives inconnected order. The knowledge is needful, also, for a comprehensionof the future possible scope and kind of educationto be given to the Afro-American race. In the field of educationwe shall be unwise not to reckon with such forces ascustom, physical constitution, heredity, racial characteristicsand possibilities, and not to remember that these and othercauses may determine the limitations under which we mustact. The education of this people has a far-reaching andcomplicated connection with their destiny, with our institutions,and possibly with the Dark Continent, which mayassume an importance akin, if not superior, to what it hadcenturies ago. The partition of its territory, the internationalquestions which are springing up, and the effect of contactwith and government by a superior race, must necessarily givean enhanced importance to Africa as a factor i