Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/418

 402 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

In discussing the question of child labor in the South it must be remembered that it is largely northern capital that is behind the southern cotton-manufacturing industry, and that is increas- ing at the expense.of child labor. Social preservation alone would demand that the South protect its children from conditions that must bring physical and mental deterioration and premature death.

V. NEGRO EDUCATION.

In approaching the subject of negro education, the student of sociology finds himself in a much-debated field. Many assertions have been made, but slight proof has been furnished, in these dis- cussions of the negro problem. The topic has been one difficult to divest of personality and to treat in a scientific manner. It is encouraging to note that the subject is passing into a new phase ; that careful and able studies of the negro race are being carried on under the direction of the Department of Labor. A demand has arisen for accurate data, that can be obtained only through these sociological and ethnological investigations, before theorizing is carried any farther. Atlanta University forms also a center of such investigations. These are under the direction of Professor W. E. B. DuBois, "a careful, accurate student of the race problem, who is doing more than any other worker in the field to supplant by scientific method guesswork and vagaries he approaches the subject with the best approved methods of socio- logical inquiry." 28

The extent of the education of the negro race during the period of slavery is difficult to state. How far they acquired a knowledge of reading and writing will never admit of accurate estimation. Some slaveholders taught their slaves to a slight degree, but it seems fair to conclude that the number doing so was very small. Where it was done it was in direct opposition to the laws of the southern states.

While there had existed a few schools for negroes before 1830, practically all these were closed after that date, owing to the fact that slavery was becoming a decidedly important factor in the industrial world. It was perceived that the educating of

" Report of Department of Interior, 1901, Vol. I, p. 772.