The arguments against negro education destroy each other; they assume both that the Negro is too little and too much affected by the education that he receives. On one side we are told that he is incapable of anything more than the rudiments; on the other side, that education is a potent force making the Negro dangerous to the world. The incompetent can never be made dangerous by training into competence. Education cannot change the race weaknesses of the Negro; but it can give a better chance to the best endowed. CHAPTER XXIV POSTULATES OF THE PROBLEM That the South confronts a complexus of problems difficult and almost insoluble is clear to all onlookers, Northern or Southern, candid or prejudiced. So far this book has undertaken to deal rather with conditions than with remedies, to state questions without trying to answer them, to separate so far as may be the real aspirations and progress of the Southern people of both races from conventional beliefs and shop-worn statements which overlie the actualities. Such an analysis of the physical and human elements of Southern life prepares the way for a discussion of a different nature. Shall the thriftless part of the Southern community remain at its present low average standard of productivity? Are the lower Whites and the still lower Negroes moving upward, however slowly? Can the two races come to an understanding which will mean peace in our time? Are there positive remedies for a state of things admittedly alarming? Any attempt to answer these questions means some repetition or restatement of things already treated at greater length. A first step may well be to summarize the whole Southern problem as it presents itself to the writer's mind. (1) The South as a whole, on any basis of material advancement, is below the average of other parts of the Union and of several foreign countries; it is poor where it ought to be rich; it needs economic regeneration. (2) Measured by intellectual standards also the white South is below the other sections of the Union; the high standing of its leaders does not bring up the average of the more numerous elements. Any radical improvement, therefore, must include the uplift of the lower stratum of Whites. (3) The South is divided between two races, one of which is distinctly inferior to the other, not only in what it now does, but in the potentialities of the future. (4) The lower race is so far behind, and so likely to lag indefinitely, that it is necessary for the welfare of the community that the two be kept separate; and this stern edict applies not only to the pure African race, but also to the two millions of mixed bloods, many of whom in aptitude and habits of thought are practically white men. (5) Both these races are improving, the Whites in great numbers and rapidly; fewer of the Negroes proportionally, and more slowly.