and black precludes. A proposed method is by schools of domestic
arts, but, valuable as these are, they are but subsidiary aids to the
establishment of homes; for real homes are primarily centers of ideals
and teaching and only incidentally centers of cooking. The restoration
and raising of home ideals must, then, come from social life among
Negroes themselves; and does that social life need no leadership? It
needs the best possible leadership of pure hearts and trained heads,
the highest leadership of carefully trained men.

Such are the arguments for the Negro college, and such is the work that
Atlanta University and a few similar institutions seek to do. We believe
that a rationally arranged college course of study for men and women
able to pursue it is the best and only method of putting into the world
Negroes with ability to use the social forces of their race so as to
stamp out crime, strengthen the home, eliminate degenerates, and inspire
and encourage the higher tendencies of the race not only in thought and
aspiration but in every-day toil. And we believe this, not simply
because we have argued that such training ought to have these effects,
or merely because we hope for such results in some dim future, but
because already for years we have seen in the work of our graduates
precisely such results as I have mentioned: successful teachers of
teachers, intelligent and upright ministers, skilled physicians,
principals of industrial schools, business men, and above all, makers of
model homes and leaders of social groups, out from which radiate subtle
but tangible forces of uplift and inspiration. The proof of this lies
scattered in every State of the South, and, above all, in the
half-unwilling testimony of men disposed to decry our work.

Between the Negro college and industrial school there are the strongest
grounds for co-operation and unity. It is not a matter of mere emphasis,
for we would be glad to see ten industrial schools to every college. It
is not a fact that there are to-day too few Negro colleges, but rather
that there are too many institutions attempting to do college work. But
the danger lies in the fact that the best of the Negro colleges are
poorly equipped and are to-day losing support and countenance, and that,
unless the nation awakens to its duty, ten years will see the
annihilation of higher Negro training in the South. We need a few
strong, well-equipped Negro colleges, and we need them now,