Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/590

 574 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

infusion of white blood, which was discussed above. Just as a new invention breaks up the old cake of custom in the social world, so, breeders tell us, the infusion of a new strain of blood breaks up the cake of heredity, induces variability, and gives plasticity to the stock, all of which are the very conditions of progress. The strain of white blood now in our negro population is bound to become widely diffused (is so already, in fact), and is the best ground for the hope in the plasticity and improvability of the race in the future. A second influence which is at work modifying negro racial character in the United States is natural selection. Natural selection, biology teaches us, may often work very rapidly in a new environment. That it is at work very rapidly among the negroes of the United States is shown conclusively by their high death-rate ; and it is doubtful if their high death-rate shows anything more than this. The stupid, unintelligent and vicious negro is being eliminated in competition with the white. The hope of the negro is that this natural elimina- tion of inferior elements through competition will continue. Progress everywhere waits on death the death of the inferior indi- vidual and nowhere more so than in racial problems. A third influence which is modifying negro racial character is education. For all education which is worthy of the name is, not merely a train- ing of the individual, but is a kind of artificial selection ; and this Professor Smith forgets when he argues against the value of educa- tion for the racial improvement of the negro. The educative process is primarily a selective process ; only it selects the best instead of merely eliminating the worst. Working along with the two influ- ences named above, a rationally devised system of education might accomplish much for the improvement of the race.

Thus one can give full weight to the biological factor in the race problem, and still remain relatively optimistic regarding the future of the negro. Moreover, beyond racial heredity, however much weight we may give to it, we all recognize the possibility of training the individual, and thereby providing the mass of the race with a social equipment, which through tradition and imitation shall be passed from generation to generation, and become finally an acquisition of the race itself. Of this I have said nothing, and shall say nothing, because I have preferred to criticise Professor Smith upon his own ground, along the line of the argument which he adopted.

To sum up : I would say that the book is all right as a plea for