THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. My dear boys and girls, I have written nearly one hundred stories for this book and I have not said one word about the so-called Race Problem. I have done this on purpose. I believe that the less you think about the troubles of the race and the less you talk about them and the more time you spend in hard and honest work, believing in God and trusting him for the future, the better it will be for all concerned. I know, of course, that the sufferings which are inflicted upon the colored people in this country are many and grievous. I know that we are discriminated against in many ways--on common carriers, in public resorts and even in private life. The right to vote is being taken away from us in nearly all the Southern states. Lynchings are on the increase. Not only our men but our women also are being burned at the stake. What shall we do? There are those who say that we must strike back--use fire and torch and sword and shotgun ourselves. But I tell you plainly that we cannot afford to do that. The white people have all the courts, all the railroads, all the newspapers, all the telegraph wires, all the arms and ammunition and double the men that we have. In every race riot the negro would get the worst of it finally. But there is a higher reason than that. We cannot afford to do wrong. We cannot afford to lose our decency, our self-respect, our character. No man will ever be the superior of the man he robs; no man will ever be the superior of the man he steals from. I would rather be a victim than a victimizer. I would rather be wronged than to do wrong. And no race is superior to the race it tramples upon, robs, maltreats and murders. In spite of prejudice; in spite of proscription; in spite of nameless insults and injuries, we cannot as a race, afford to do wrong. But we can afford to be patient. God is not dead. His chariots are not unwheeled. It is ordained of God that races, as well as individuals, shall rise through tribulations. And during this period of stress and strain through which we are passing in this country I believe that there are unseen forces marshalled in the defense of our long-suffering and much-oppressed people. “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.” What should we care, then, though all the lowlands be filled with threats, if the mountains of our hope and courage and patience are filled with horses and chariots of Divine rescue? THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.