The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1909 no. 187

              Number 187                                       Atlanta, Georgia                                    January, 1909 The Southern Educational Association Negro Education The question of Negro education was given a prominent place in the program of the recent meeting of the Southern Educational Association in Atlanta, an entire morning session being given to its consideration. We regret that the local newspaper reports failed to convey the liberal spirit which characterized the discussion. The prevailing sentiment was decidedly in favor of more and better work for the Negroes and there was general recognition of the sad limitations which characterize their present public school opportunities. It was held that the burden of Negro education must fall largely on the Southern people, and in this connection the missionary schools established and largely supported by people from the North met with some criticism. The question was raised as to whether people who lived in another section of the country could possibly understand the needs of the Negro race and prepare them for useful life as effectively as the Southerners among whom their lot is cast. Rev. George Sale, D. D., was on the program to speak upon The Past, Present and Future of Mission Schools in the South for the Education of the Negro. He used the opportunity this afforded to meet the criticisms which had been made. He showed the relation which these schools bore to the whole system of Negro education, being, as they are, the training schools for the teachers. He showed, moreover, that the development of character and of the spirit of service was fundamental in the purpose of all such institutions, and said that criticism of them was usually based upon misapprehension. He urged the people of the South to acquaint themselves more fully with the work of such schools. When the meeting was open for discussion Pres. G. R. Glenn, of the North Georgia Industrial School, spoke. Dr. Glenn was formerly Commissioner of Public Schools of the state of Georgia. There is no man more familiar with the problems of education in the South than he. In a few words, beautifully chosen, he expressed, as a Southern man, his deep appreciation of the work that had been accomplished in the mission schools and his admiration for the young people who had, as missionaries, come to the South in the '60's and '70's, and devoted themselves to so unpopular a cause as Negro education. Mention should be made also of the forceful address of Ex-Governor W. J. Northen. He earnestly advocated education as a means for the prevention of lawlessness and would have the state of Georgia introduce compulsory education for all her people of school age, both white and black. Some Phases of the Negro Problem (Quoted from Mr. Taft's speech before the North Carolina Society) The proposal to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment is utterly impracticable and should be relegated to the limbo of forgotten issues. It is very certain that any party founded on the proposition would utterly fail in a National canvass, and that the hope is futile. What we are considering is something practical, something that means attainable progress. It seems to me to follow, therefore, that there is or ought to be a common ground upon which we can all stand in respect to the race question in the South, and its political bearing, that takes away any justification for maintaining the continued solidity of the South to prevent the so-called Negro domination. The fear that in some way or other a social equality between the races shall be enforced by law or brought about by political measures really has no foundation except in the imagination of those who fear such a result. The Federal Government has nothing to do with social equality. The war amendments do not declare in favor of social equality; all that the law or Constitution attempt to secure is equality of opportunity before the law and in the pursuit of happiness, and in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. Social equality is something that grows out of voluntary concessions by the individuals forming society...... Ultimately, of course, the burden of Negro education must fall on the Southern people and on Southern property owners. Private charity and munificence, except by way of furnishing an example and a model, can do comparatively little in  this direction.   It may take some time to hasten the movement for the most generous public appropriations for the education of the Negro, but the truth that in the uplifting of the Negro lies the welfare of the South is forcing itself on the far-sighted of the Southern leaders. Primary and industrial education for the masses, higher education for the leaders of the Negro race, for their professional men, their clergymen, their physicians, their lawyers, and their teachers, will make up a system under which their improvement, which statistics show to have been most noteworthy in the last forty years, will continue at the same rate.   .   .   . Public Schools in Atlanta When a city becomes its own severest critic there is great hope of improvement. The following paragraphs are quoted from the annual address of Mr. Asa G. Candler, President of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce: All the school houses are overcrowded, and in several the board of education, in order to accommodate the children who have sought entrance, have been compelled to use ill-lighted and poorly ventilated basements for class rooms. The wooden buildings are heated by stoves ; their only means of ventilation are windows through which cold drafts of vitiated air come, inviting and producing disease and death to our children, if in the providence of a merciful God they escape cremation by a burning building. Poor and perilous as are these buildings, they are wholly inadequate even if they were such structures as they ought to be. Atlanta has about 20,000 children of school age, boys and girls, between the ages of six and fourteen. The total enrollment in our overcrowded and ill-housed schools is less than 14,000. It is reliably estimated that 7,200 children of school age are not in school at all.   Of these 2,800 are white and 4,400 black. Gentlemen, take note, the spring time of life comes but once and when gone, is forever gone, with all its solemn eternity of meaning. Can any community afford to take such chances on the young life of future generations? Can we blast the seed time and hope for the harvest? Prof. George Norton Ellis, of Berea College, visited us the last day of the old year and spoke to the students at morning chapel.