There is a very real criticism here, one deliberately frank and even harsh, but deserving of attention. If we understand it, it says in substance that the Negro in America has not yet developed the great creative or organizing mind that points the way of civilization. He has so far produced no Plato, no Jonathan Edwards, no Pierpont Morgan, no Edison. The larger thought here will be considered in our next chapter. Just now let us observe that the argument makes the familiar assumption that because a thing never has been it never will be. All America is crude, however. While she has made great advance in applied science, she certainly has not as yet produced a Shakespeare or a Beethoven. If America has not reached her heights after three hundred years, she ought not to be impatient with the Negro after only fifty years of opportunity. Furthermore, all signs go to prove the assumption fundamentally false. We know of some of the younger men of to-day who have not only mastered language and science, but who have outshone brilliant groups of white students in pure philosophy. It would be a miracle if this were the everyday occurrence. It is not; but the fact that it is an occurrence at all means that the Negro is at least capable of the highest things. Furthermore, it is not true that everything that the Negro has written may be dismissed with a wave of the hand as school boy exercises, though we grant that only a beginning has been made. Give us time. Give us time! Within the next fifty years we shall astound you! VIII THE PROMISE OF THE NEGRO So far we have lightly touched upon some of the most important phases of the life of the Negro people in America. We have looked at a people whose ancestors were brought to the country against their own will and suddenly thrust into the rising civilization of a new nation, and we have looked at some of the more hopeful features of their life as well as at some of their greatest problems. Even now, however, in spite of untoward conditions there are those who honestly ask if the effort and money that have been expended have been wisely invested. Those who have spent most time on the problem only wish that ten times as much had been done. Nevertheless for the sake of the honest seeker after truth, we wish to answer one or two fundamental questions.