Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/421

 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 405

A question of importance arises as to the economic condition of the southern negro.' An analysis of the number of the colored race owning land shows that one-sixth of the negroes are tax- payers on their own property. This includes mortgaged farms, as the fact of a mortgage does not change the statistics of taxa- tion. This brings out the significant fact that one-fourth of a million colored men have changed within forty years from chattel slaves to property-holders. 32 Further, there are about 1,059,991 colored renters. These in an indirect way also pay taxes, since rent always includes taxes. The negro without doubt is entitled to his equal share in all educational benefits. It is plain that the South still rests largely on negro labor. Every state shows a higher percentage of negroes than of whites engaged in the occu- pations. Of negroes, 414 out of every 1,000 are employed; of whites, 309 out of every 1,000.

It is in the South that the problem of negro education is to be worked out. Over 92 per cent, of the nine million negroes still remain in the South, segregating gradually into the " black belt " in the county and the "colored wards" in the cities. In the cities the question of negro education is not so difficult. Here the opportunities are more clearly equal. It is in the rural districts that the same difficulties that face the white children surround the colored child, only greatly intensified. 33

The most-discussed phase of negro education at present is as to the relative value of manual training and higher education. This has opened up the whole subject of the intellectual capacity of the negro a subject far too wide for discussion here. Not- withstanding numerous assertions denying anything but a low degree of mentality to the negro, colored youths have succeeded in mastering the work required in the higher institutions of learning.

There are hundreds and thousands of black men in this country who in capacity are to be ranked with the superior persons of the dominant race, and

"Ibid., p. 760.

tions," gives a thorough study of the rural schools in each state of the South. This is edited by W. E. B. DuBois.
 * The Negro Common School, No. 6 of the " Atlanta University Publica-