ces which, in all other instances, have decimated, if not
exterminated, inferior peoples. His plasticity to moulding forces and his
resiliency against crushing ones come from a Thalian philosophy,
unconscious and unstudied, that extracts Epicurean delights from funeral
meats.

The above traits are inborn and fundamental, belonging to the race
everywhere, in Africa as well as America. Strict correctness requires,
however, that attention be called to the fact that there are tribal
differences among African Negroes that amount almost to the national
variations of Europe; and these are reflected in American Negroes, who are
the descendants of these different tribes. There is as much difference
between the Mandingo and the Hottentot, both black, as between the Italian
and the German, both white; or between the Bushman and the Zulu, both
black, as between the Russian and the Englishman, both white. Scientific
exactness, therefore, would require a closer analysis of racial
characteristics than an article of this length could give; but, speaking
in a large way, it may be said that in whatever outward conformity may
come to the race in America by reason of training or contact, these traits
will lie at the base, the very warp and woof of his soul texture.

If, now, we turn to consider his inbred traits, those the result of
experience, conditions and environments, we find that they exist mainly as
deficiencies and deformities. These have been superimposed upon the native
soul endowment. Slavery has been called the Negro's great schoolmaster,
because it took him a savage and released him civilized; took him a
heathen and released him a Christian; took him an idler and released him a
laborer. Undoubtedly it did these things superficially, but one great
defect is to be charged against this school--it did not teach him the
meaning of home, purity and providence. To do this is the burden of
freedom.

The emancipated Negro struggles up to-day against many obstacles, the
entailment of a brutal slavery. Leaving out of consideration the many who
have already emerged, let us apply our thoughts to the great body of
submerged people in the congested districts of city and country who
present a real problem, and who must be helped to higher things. We note
some of the heritages under which they stagger up into full development:

_Shiftlessness._ He had no need to devise and plan in bondage. There was
no need for an enterprising spirit; conse