This education should be of the kind best adapted to the great body of those for whom it is provided. The wisest and most conservative teacher of the Negro race, following the precepts of his own great teacher, General Armstrong, has attained his distinction largely by the success he has achieved in applying methods of industrial, rather than of mere literary education. In this view he is bitterly opposed by many, perhaps by most, of the “educated Negroes,” who are fond of declaring that they act upon principle; that the object of education is to make men, not to make potatoes, or even to make carpenters; little realizing that “men,” in the sense in which the term is, or should be used, are no more made by the superficial and counterfeit education which most of their so-called college graduates display, than are vegetables or mechanics. It has taken a generation and something like $150,000,000, including the entire input from public and private sources, to produce one Booker T. Washington, and—to select from the other school—one Professor Du Bois, though I take pleasure in stating my belief that there are a considerable and possibly an increasing number of modest, unassuming, faithful, and devoted teachers and representatives of both schools not so distinguished, but, perhaps, not less worthy than these. But, the question arises, or should arise, How many thousands are there who, in the making of these, have been ruined for the life for which they were fitted? It might seem that the true principle should be elementary education for all, including in the term “industrial education,” and special, that is, higher education of a proper kind for the special individuals who may give proof of their fitness to receive and profit by it. A college education should be the final reward and prize only of those who have proven themselves capable of appreciating it and who give promise of being able to use it for the public good. To ignore rules founded on such plain common sense is worse than folly. The money so expended is not merely thrown away; this might be tolerated; it is an actual and positive injury. It unfits the recipient for the work for which alone in any case he might be fit, and gives him in exchange only a bauble to amuse himself with, or a weapon with which to injure himself and others. Finally, and as the only sound foundation for the whole system of education, the Negro must be taught the great elementary truths of morality and duty. Until he is so established in these that he claims to be on this ground the equal of the white, he can never be his equal on any other ground. When he is the equal of the white, it will make itself known. Until then, he is fighting not the white race, but a law of nature, universal and inexorable—that races rise or fall according to their character. FOOTNOTES: [100] Twelfth U. S. Census; Bulletin 8, p. 17. [101] See Appendix. [102] See Appendix. APPENDIX SOUTHERN TAXATION AND EDUCATION.