can hardly be better stated than in the words of
Professor DuBois, in his book of irresistible appeal, _The Souls of
Black Folk_:

"That the present social separation and acute race-sensitiveness must
eventually yield to the influence of culture, as the South grows
civilized, is clear. But such transformation calls for singular wisdom
and patience. If, while the healing of this vast sore is progressing,
the races are to live for many years side by side, united in economic
effort, obeying a common government, sensitive to mutual thought and
feeling, yet subtly and silently separate in many matters of deeper
human intimacy,--if this unusual and dangerous development is to
progress amid peace and order, mutual respect and growing intelligence,
it will call for social surgery, at once the delicatest and nicest in
modern history. It will demand broad-minded, upright men, both white and
black, and in its final accomplishment American civilization will
triumph. So far as white men are concerned, this fact is to-day being
recognized in the South, and a happy renaissance of university education
seems imminent. But the very voices that cry hail to this good work are,
strange to relate, largely silent or antagonistic to the higher
education of the negro."

It must be remembered that in the growth of a tree the upper boughs must
have space and air and sunlight, as much as the roots must have earth
and water,--and so with a race. There is need of scholars and idealists,
as well as toilers; and for these there should be their natural
atmosphere. Again let us hear the moving words of Professor DuBois: "I
sit with Shakespeare, and he does not wince. Across the color line I
move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming
women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing
between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon
Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all
graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell
above the veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is
this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of
Georgia? Are you so afraid lest, peering from this high Pisgah, between
Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?"

Yet it is not for himself or the cultured few that he makes the
strongest plea:

"Human education is not simply a matter of schools, it is much more a
matter of