state aid to negro education
TRANSCRIPT
State Aid to Negro EducationSource: Journal of Social Forces, Vol. 1, No. 5 (Sep., 1923), pp. 587-588Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3005141 .
Accessed: 12/06/2014 22:06
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal ofSocial Forces.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 62.122.73.86 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:06:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The Journal of Social Forces 587
put the college within reach of larger numbers of colored youth. Then too the callings toward which the more ambitious negroes have aimed, not
to mention the newer fields opening to them, are
demanding superior training of the youth. A col?
lege education is fast becoming the requisite amount of training for negro youth who would
enter the professions, the higher forms of busi?
ness developing among negroes, social service, or
teaching in the high schools and smaller colleges. In this connection it is interesting to note that the
South, which formerly either opposed or gave but
scant approval to college education for negroes and provided practically none for them, is now
demanding college degrees of negro teachers in
public high schools and of teachers of home eco?
nomics, of agriculture and of the mechanical arts
in other schools and colleges. The states make
the same high requirements also of negro candi-
dates as of others who would enter the pro? fessions.
"It is altogether probable then that the negro
college and university will be called upon to serve
a steadily increasing number of young colored men and women. For a number of reasons it is
desirable that they take their college work mainly in the South. The southern college ought to be
better able than any other to adjust its work to
the particular needs of the negro and its section
of the country. But such a college must offer
strong courses with a considerable range of sub?
jects, if it would make an effective appeal to the
more capable colored youth. If then these negro
colleges and universities are to render the great? est possible service, it is necessary that a reason-
able number of them be so strengthened financially and otherwise that they many become efficient institutions of genuine college grade.
"By virtue of their location, ampler means,
superior equipment, and general efficiency such
schools as Howard University, Lincoln University, Pa., Fisk University, Virginia Union University, and Morehouse College and Wiley College al?
ready occupy conspicuous places in this group of
schools. If they, and a few other institutions
perhaps, could be so f ully and definitely developed as to place them entirely out of serious compe- tition with the weaker schools of college grade, the unfortunate duplication of college work would be greatly lessened and the opportunities for real
advanced training of negroes would be materially increased."
Early Industrial Education
The third study is entitled "Early Effort for
Industrial Education" and has been prepared by
Benjamin Brawley, author of "A Social History of the American Negro." The paper "endeavors
simply to call to mind one of the half forgotten chapters in the history of the education of the
negro, and to show that even before the Civil
War there was emphasis on industrial training."
Says the author, "Such efforts as these (as re?
ported in the study) give only a faint idea of the
interest that there was in the subject of industrial
or vocational training in the years before the
Civil War. In the course of the great struggle itself came the rapid growth of schools for the
freedom throughout the South, and in a few
years the great development of Hampton Insti?
tute under General Armstrong. Several years were yet to pass, however, before the idea of in?
dustrial training was to take firm hold of the
popular mind. In 1882 was established the Slater
Fund, whose 'singulary wise administration' was
some years ago remarked by Dr. DuBois as 'per? haps the greatest single impulse toward the eco? nomic emancipation of the negro.' In 1884 Henry Edwards Brown, secretary of the International
Committee of the Young Men's Christian Asso-
siation, circulated an interesting letter that looked toward the founding of an industrial school for
negro young men and women in the far South.
It was not then realized that the institution was
already in existence; but of course Tuskegee in
1884 was by no means the place that it became
after Mr. Washington's epoch-making speech in
1895."
STATE AID TO NEGRO EDUCATION
The importance of private and denominational
aid to negro education has been emphasized in
previous papers. Professor Fisher in the Jan- uary Journal called it "Multiplying Dollars for
Negro Education" in an able article in which he
pointed out the value of such aid in bringing about a larger cooperation of state departments.
Progress has been rapid. But it is well to examine
the situation as it is in order to keep on working out better and better correlations between state
This content downloaded from 62.122.73.86 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:06:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
588 The Journal of Social Forces
funds and private agencies. In an unpublished study made at the University of North Carolina last year Mr. Y. Maeshima points out an inter?
esting sort of correlation between the larger negro population in certain states and the small state appropriations for education. The size of the problem may be seen from an examination of his table supporting the statements made.
Annual Expenditures for Vublic Schools by States
Total expenditures Average expcnd- *? "?* itures per child e^h ?^ of school age pg^Qn
States
Alabama .... Arkansas ... Delaware ... D. of Columbia Florida . Georgia . Kentucky Louisiana ... Maryland ... Mississippi .. Missouri..... N. Carolina . Oklahoma ... S. Carolina . Tennessee .. Texas . Virginia _ W. virginia .
NEGRO TEACHERS AND RACE RELATIONS
Twelve hundred colored teachers recently heard the message of inter-racial good will at the fourth annual meeting of the Colored Division of the Tennessee Inter-Racial Commission. The
meeting was held at the Agricultural and Indus? trial State Normal at Nashville, on July 11th, while the summer term was in session.
Reports from over the state showed that dur?
ing the past year more than a score of excellent
buildings for colored schools had been erected as a direct result of the efforts of inter-racial com? mittees and that participation of colored schools had been secured in a number of bond issues. Wide and effective observance of Negro Health Week was reported. The committee adopted resolutions asking for better accommodations for
colored people in public carriers, for recognition of properly trained colored teachers by equal pay for equal work, and for the abandonment of the
use of churches for public school purposes. Plans
were made for three divisional conferences to be
held in September, to which school officials and
representatives of churches and other welfare
agencies should be invited.
Addresses were made by Prof. P. L. Horned, State Commissioner of Education, Miss Mar-
garet Ambrose, of the University of Tennessee, and by a number of representative colored
leaders.
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION NEEDED
Statistics recently made public by the Depart? ment of the Interior which has jurisdiction over
Howard University, one of the few institutions
in the country for the higher education of the col?
ored race, show that the death rate among the
colored people in the United States is 17 to each
1,000 or 70 per cent in excess of the death rate
of the white race.
The figures further show that while the col?
ored physicians and surgeons only increased 633, or 23.07 per cent in the last ten years, the number
of colored undertakers have increased during the
same period by 605, or 60.9 per cent.
Students of this situation attribute the constant
increase in colored undertakers to the insufficient
number of physicians to apply preventives against diseases and to care for the afflicted and claim
that the only solution is to provide the necessary facilities so that colored men and women may
acquire the professions of medicine, dentistry, and
nursing to work among their people. The same laws of health and sanitation, they
assert, apply to both of the race alike and the
same safeguards, preventives, and trained espion-
age of colored physicians, surgeons, dentists, and
nurses should be applied to the colored race as
are applied to the white race in the United States.
Failure of the colored race, it is explained, to
produce these necessary professional men and
women is due to the lack of educational institu?
tions, there being only two in the country gradu-
ating physicians, surgeons, and dentists. One of
them, Howard University, is unable to receive
and instruct one-fifth of those applying for train?
ing with the result that the number of graduates has been limited to an average of 20 physicians, 22 dentists, and 13 nurses annually during the
last ten years.
This content downloaded from 62.122.73.86 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:06:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions