but, war or no war, the coming of the new Negro was as inevitable as the coming of the springtime. Any attempt to hold him back will be ultimately as effective as a similar attempt to stop the rising of the sun. The stage has been set for a new act and the forces behind it are such that, while the performance may be marred by unsympathetic auditors, nothing can permanently delay the presentation. Quietly, and most effectively because quietly, the Negro is insisting that he be treated as a man. He believes that he has demonstrated physically, morally, and intellectually that he is entitled to that consideration. The fawning "hat-in-his-hand" Negro belongs to another generation; the alert, intelligent, capable, self-reliant Negro characterizes the present. The danger, and without doubt there is real danger, arises when we insist on treating the second as though he were still the first.

Fortunately there is an awakening to this very important situation. A noted Southern orator recently recognized this change when from the platform he said: "Yes, friends, we understand the 'nigger,' but I want to tell you that we do not understand the Negro."

HUNGER FOR EDUCATION

And one of the characteristics of the new Negro is his hunger for an education. He understands better than the Negro did a generation ago the sacrifice and labor involved in getting an education, but he also understands its value, and he is content

to pay the price. It is little short of amazing to see the patient, long-continued, and diligent effort which a colored boy or girl will put into the getting of and the paying for an education, and yet, although many of the pupils are extremely poor, one may go from school to school without ever hearing a story of poverty unless he diligently searches it out. The students are not given to complaining, but they are determined to get an education in spite of handicaps. And the opportunities are not equal to the demand made upon them. It is not only the Methodist schools but also others which are crowded beyond capacity. One school reports a thousand advance applications; some are taking registrations for several years in advance, and others maintain extended waiting lists.

THE ABILITY OF THE NEGRO

Many curious ideas are afloat as to the native ability of the Negro. Some insist, even to-day, with due gravity, that the Lord never intended the Negro to be developed intellectually beyond the merest rudiments of an education. Others claim with equal solemnity that no colored man except a mulatto ever gained distinction, and other similarly unfounded theories are widely circulated. As a matter of fact we have as yet no satisfactory basis for comparing the intellectual achievements of the black man and those of the white man. It is very easy to attribute to natural limitations conditions which grow out of an entirely inadequate diet, out

of bad and unstimulating home conditions, and out of almost utter lack of preparation for the task at hand. Multitudes of Negroes have never had a chance to learn to read and write, and it is hardly fair at the moment to consign them unheard to the class of the mentally incapacitated. The important question, however, is not to determine whether the black man is intellectually inferior to or superior to the white man, but whether, as a child of the living God and a citizen of this free nation, he is to have a chance to make the most of himself. Professor W. H. Crogman of Clark University spoke wisely for his own race when he said: "When you begin to educate a human being, it is hard to tell to what altitude he may rise. Let him feel that the earth is beneath him, God above, and nothing in the intermediate space to check his growth or chill his aspirations, and then you may begin to teach him the alphabet." It would indeed be premature to begin to draw limits for the development of the Negro. Already individual Negroes have done almost everything that a white man has ever done, from the painting of a picture to traveling to the North Pole or dying patriotically for their country. Time alone can tell how far the race will travel along paths of culture and intellectual development.

MINGLING OF THE RACES

The shibboleth of "racial purity" has been the watchword of many who have opposed the granting of opportunities for development to the Negro. The

implication has been that education tended to break down the difference between the races. In this connection Bishop Robert E. Jones has recently called to our attention the pertinent fact that in the more than half a century of Methodist educational work in the South, during which members of both races and both sexes have mingled freely in the common work of the schools, there has never in all that time been a case of intermarriage between the races or a scandal involving individuals of opposite race.

In this connection it is interesting to note that although the schools of the Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church are all co-educational the moral conduct of the pupils has been of a very high order. Strict supervision, emphasis upon the training of the religious life, and the fact that most of the pupils are in school to secure a better start in life, has made the question of discipline a relatively simple matter.

THE NEGRO SHOULDERS RESPONSIBILITY

In the beginning of the work all of the teachers and other workers were white men and women from the North. Professor W. H. Crogman was the first colored teacher to be employed by the Freedmen's Aid Society. He began his work at Claflin University in 1870. Since that time the number of colored workers in the schools has steadily increased. Already more than half of the school presidents and principals and more than three fourths of all the teachers are Negroes. These colored workers

have measured up in a most satisfactory manner to the responsibilities placed upon them. The Negro, too, very quickly assumed a portion of the financial burden of the schools. Buildings have been erected from money contributed by Negroes, poor colored people have, out of their poverty, contributed to the work of the schools, colored teachers have refused more alluring offers elsewhere in order to stay by their tasks, and pupils have paid both board and tuition from the very first. In fact scholarships in the schools have been conspicuous chiefly for their absence.

RESULTS AND ASPIRATIONS

The story of the achievements of the schools under the auspices of the Board of Education for Negroes, of the Methodist Episcopal Church has never been told and never will be told; it is too extended a tale for that. Its record is to be found in the nearly quarter of a million students whose lives have been directly touched by the work and in the millions of others who have in turn been touched by them. The schools have been a most important factor in making possible the present Negro constituency of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which to-day consists of more than two thousand ministers and more than a third of a million church members who in the first year of the Centenary of Methodist Missions contributed nearly half a million dollars to the Centenary fund. The influence of the schools has, however, gone far beyond the