The fact is, the whole policy of treating these people otherwise than as citizens who are to be fitted for the privileges, and from whom are to be exacted the duties, of good citizens, is foolish, wicked, costly and suicidal. Is it not time for the good common sense—we say nothing of the humanity—of the American people to declare that this shall be done now; that the rights of these people shall be wisely and righteously adjusted to both our and their highest interests? * * * * * BETTER HOMES FOR THE COLORED PEOPLE. That the subject of village improvement was discussed in some of the essays presented at the closing exercises of the Hampton School last May is due, doubtless, to the fact that some of the teachers came from Stockbridge, Mass., and belong to the Laurel Hill Association, rather than to any spontaneous ideas on the part of the students themselves. The idea of village improvement comes as a development and outgrowth of such a degree of _home_ improvement as is yet unknown, not alone to the negroes, but to the vast majority of the Southern whites. Not until the log hut has been supplanted by something better, and the idea of improvement has put in floors and windows, has built a chimney and yard fence, has planted some trees and flowers about the house, can it be expected that much interest will be taken in public streets and cemeteries; neither can much be hoped for in the elevation and refinement of the people. Man is so far a chameleon that he takes his color largely from his habitat, and the observant traveler through the South is slow to believe that much has been, or can be, done for the culture of the negro so long as he vegetates, rather than lives, in the miserable shanties, devoid alike of beauty and comfort, about which flocks of children like so many crows, or scarecrows, are roosting. From such homes our pupils come, and back to such they return. It has been despairingly said that the cultivated Indian gradually, but almost inevitably, sinks back to the level of the home-life by which he is surrounded; rarely has he strength to lift others to his isolated level. This is deplorable, but not surprising. It requires a vast amount of moral heroism to stand out against the universal customs of one’s people. It requires more than the strength of one or two men or women to lift up a whole tribe, and except for an evident and wide-spread desire among the Indians to better their condition and change their modes of life, but little could be hoped for from the experiments now being made at Hampton and Carlisle; neither can we doubt that much of the culture received in our schools for the negroes will be lost, or serve only to quicken a sense of degradation, unless special efforts are made to counteract the inevitable tendencies of surroundings when these pupils return to their homes. Educational effort should be largely directed to a practical knowledge of bettering