ed unquestionably exist. They may be noted even in the same
family, but these peculiarities are found in differences which lie
deeper than the skin. There is no philosopher, unless he "is joined to
idols," so bold as to base his presumption of difference in human
beings upon the skin, for then his judgment might have to depend on
whether the skin is dark, copper-colored, brown, white, yellow,
freckled, red, etc. Human differences, all will admit, are essentially
differences of _individual souls_, and this does not preclude the
importance of environment and other incidental influences.

The great fact is that mind is mind--of like origin and like
substance--and that it has been found to yield to like treatment among
all nations and in all ages. There is no system of pedagogy that would
hold together for a moment if the idea of the unity of the human race
and the similarity of mind were invalidated. Philosophy itself would
be threatened and all science would be in jeopardy. Investigation and
practice never fail to support this theory of the solidarity of the
human race. In the schools where it has been tried it has been found
not to be a matter of color, nor even of blood--and certainly the
differences have not depended on race affiliation. It has been a
question of the individual and of local environment.

But so positive and indivisible is the human identity that even the
influence of individualism and environments is overcome by the great
universal processes of education, the great processes of mind
quickening and mind development. In many of our best institutions
there sit side by side the representatives of many nationalities and
races, and it has never been found in the work of these
institutions--as far as I have been able to discover--that any one
color or race could monopolize the benefits, but, on the contrary, it
has been found that the benefits were realized according to individual
temperament and power.

My position is not one in reference to non-essentials but essentials;
it is not a contention based even so much on degree, but rather on
quality and capability. I would not contend that environment would not
make a whole group of children more or less backward, and I do not
dispute the fact that because of better environments the whites
represent as a whole a higher state of civilization. But I hold that
this is true not because of race identity but rather because of
individual embarrassment. Give a white