Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/55

Rh there were but two colored men in the district who could read and write, and the law requires three officers), I have received a number of written applications for the position as teacher, some from graduates of normal schools and universities (?), all with examiners' certificates of ability, etc, but I do not remember seeing any one of these applications which was grammatically expressed or orthographically correct. Still, as the applicants were capable of teaching the rudiments of education, these trifling defects were never permitted to stand in the way of their employment. It is not asserted that all the graduates of these normal schools and universities are equally deficient; it is quite probable that the better sort find places in cities, while the country must content itself with what is left.

The social problem in the South does not so immediately concern the wealthy as it does the poor whites. The rich man can send his children to academies and colleges; he can seek society wherever it is congenial; but the poor man, tied to one spot, must be governed by circumstances beyond his control. At present the poor white and black people work together in the fields and shops and live on friendly terms without hitch or jar until the white asserts in some way his feeling of superiority, which, both being equal in means, education, and political power, is based on nothing more substantial than the mere color of the skin. Then the negro stands on his dignity, and is ready for combat. In peaceful neighborhoods, there is but little assumption of superiority, and it is only manifested in a silent way by the steady refusal of the white to permit his children to sit at school or in church with the children of the black; they may play together, work together, and treat each other as equals, until church or school is mentioned, and there the line is drawn. So long as this passive ostracism works his children no absolute evil, the negro, with his own schools and his own churches, cares nothing for it. It is perhaps vain speculation as to the future of this problem; only it seems certain that if the white children are not educated and taught refinements, and the black children are, it will be difficult in the future, even if desirable, to maintain any distinction of classes in the South, and especially any favorable distinction, which will be based on nothing more substantial than the absence of color in the epidermis, unless African nature is irredeemably bad; unless the vicious qualities attributed to him in this paper are irreparable, it is absolutely certain that, with the aids which now surround him, he will rise greatly in the scale of humanity, and a generous world will show its favor to the intelligent individual, no matter how black his skin, who has lifted himself out of the mire and contempt of centuries, rather than extend a helping hand to one who has had the fortune to be born of a higher race, but who proved unworthy of his lot.

Scientists and the world admit the natural superiority of the white races over the colored, and it seems incontrovertible that, with equal