American citizenship, involving as that
citizenship does the relationships, obligations and duties which
devolve upon freemen and equally binding upon him as upon the whites
in a democratic society or in a country of the people, for the people
and by the people, it is evident that such a system must have
structural affinity with such a system of education carried on by the
whites and for the whites. In other words, such must be his education
that his whole being is developed and in him there is the largest
generation of capacity, insight, foresight, the power to think with
proportions so as to give him that mastery over his environments and
over the questions of common good which will enable him at all times
to do the right things, the wisest things, the best things under any
given circumstances in the midst of which he may be thrown. Any
educational system that has an aim short of this as its end will
certainly fail to prepare the Negro for the high duties which belong
to a free individual in a democratic society.

Why should the Negro be given an education different from that given
to the whites? Is he not a man? Is he not a free man? Is he not a
citizen? Is he not held responsible by society for the performance of
duties enjoined upon him by law? Is he not a subject of government? As
a subject of government, ought he not participate in the affairs of
the government? I think it will be admitted by all fair-minded men
that all governments are for the welfare of the governed. Now, since
the Negro is more interested in his own welfare than anybody else is
and since to have a thing well done you had better do it yourself,
since also his welfare is shaped by any government under which he
lives, it must necessarily follow that his best good requires that he
participate in the affairs of that government if he is to continue to
be a free man. It is argued--and that not without some degree of
reason--by part of the more favored people in this country, that the
gift of the high privileges of citizenship carries with it the demand
that the recipients of these gifts possess the capacity to exercise
them for the common good of all who belong to the body politic. They
also argue that human conditions for government are grounded in
intelligence, virtue and property. So good, so well. But how is the
Negro to acquire intelligence, virtue and property according to the
American standard if his education is to be according to an
un-Amer