or thoroughly preparing themselves for the work of teaching children of
their people."

The truth of this has been strikingly shown in the marked improvement of
white teachers in the South. Twenty years ago the rank and file of white
public school teachers were not as good as the Negro teachers. But they,
by scholarships and good salaries, have been encouraged to thorough normal
and collegiate preparation, while the Negro teachers have been discouraged
by starvation wages and the idea that any training will do for a black
teacher. If carpenters are needed it is well and good to train men as
carpenters. But to train men as carpenters, and then set them to teaching
is wasteful and criminal; and to train men as teachers and then refuse
them living wages, unless they become carpenters, is rank nonsense.

The United States Commissioner of Education says in his report for 1900:
"For comparison between the white and colored enrollment in secondary and
higher education, I have added together the enrollment in high schools and
secondary schools, with the attendance on colleges and universities, not
being sure of the actual grade of work done in the colleges and
universities. The work done in the secondary schools is reported in such
detail in this office, that there can be no doubt of its grade."

He then makes the following comparisons of persons in every million
enrolled in secondary and higher education:

_Whole Country._ _Negroes._
1880 4,362 1,289
1900 10,743 2,061

And he concludes: "While the number in colored high schools and colleges
had increased somewhat faster than the population, it had not kept pace
with the average of the whole country, for it had fallen from 30 per cent.
to 24 per cent. of the average quota. Of all colored pupils, one (1) in
one hundred was engaged in secondary and higher work, and that ratio has
continued substantially for the past twenty years. If the ratio of colored
population in secondary and higher education is to be equal to the average
for the whole country, it must be increased to five times its present
average." And if this be true of the secondary and higher education, it is
safe to say that the Negro has not one-tenth his quota in college studies.
How baseless, therefore, is the charge of too much training! We need Negro
teachers for the Negro common schools, and we need first-class normal
schools and colleges to train them. This is the work