We often hear that the advocates of higher education are mere theorists without definite, tangible plans and propositions. There has recently sprung into prominence a class of educational philosophers who deny the value of stored up knowledge. We are informed that only such information as will be honored at the corner grocery or is convertible on demand into cash equivalent is of practical value, while all else is an educational delusion and a snare. The truth is, that all knowledge which clarifies the vision, refines the feelings, broadens the conception of truth and duty and ennobles the manhood is of the highest and most valuable form of practicability. An institution which sends into the world a physician to heal the sick, a lawyer to plead the cause of the injured, a teacher to enlighten the minds of the ignorant, or a preacher to break the bread of life to hungry souls is rendering just as practical a service to the race as those schools which prepare men to build houses and plant potatoes. NEED FOR THE NEGRO COLLEGE. It is sometimes claimed that the few capable Negroes can find opportunity for higher training in the institutions of the North. It is by no means certain to what extent these institutions would admit colored students. The Northern College is not apt to inspire the colored pupil with the enthusiasm and fixed purpose for the work which Providence has assigned him. It is the spirit, not the letter that maketh alive. The white College does not contemplate the special needs of the Negro race. American ideals could not be fostered in the white youth of our land by sending them to Oxford or Berlin for tuition. No more can the Negro gain racial inspiration from Harvard or Yale. And yet they need the benefit of contact and comparison, and the zeal for knowledge and truth which these great institutions impart. The Negro College and the Northern institutions will serve to preserve a balance between undue elation for want of sober comparison, and barren culture, for lack of inspirational contact with the masses. DOES THE HIGHER EDUCATION LEAD AWAY FROM THE RACE? It is often charged that the higher education lifts the Negro above the needs of his race. The thousands of graduates of Negro Schools and Colleges all over the land are a living refutation of this charge. After the mind has been stored with knowledge it is transmitted to the place where the need is greatest and the call is loudest, and transmuted into whatever mode of energy may be necessary to accomplish the imposed task.