e southern white man's opinion of the Negro and endeavor to
instill the same into the minds of their students. Their position
seems to be that because the American Negro has not in fifty years
accomplished what the master class achieved in fifty centuries the
race cannot be expected to perform satisfactorily the functions of
citizenship and must, therefore, be treated exceptionally in some such
manner as devised by the commonwealths of the South. This change of
sentiment has been accelerated too by southern teachers, who have
established themselves in northern schools and who have gained partial
control of the northern press. Coming at the time when many Negroes
have been rushing to the North, this heresy has had the general effect
of promoting the increase of race prejudice to the extent that the
North has become about as lawless as the South in its treatment of the
Negro.

Following the multiplication of Reconstruction studies, there appeared
a number of others of a controversial nature. Among these may be
mentioned the works of A. H. Stone and Thomas Pierce Bailey adversely
criticizing the Negro and those of a milder form produced by Edgar
Gardner Murphy, and Walter Hines Page. Then there are the writings of
William Pickens, and W. E. B. DuBois. These works are generally
included among those for reference in classes studying Negro life, but
they throw very little light on the Negro in the United States or
abroad. In fact, instead of clearing up the situation they deeply
muddle it. The chief value of such literature is to furnish facts as
to sentiment of the people, which in years to come will be of use to
an investigator when the country will have sufficiently removed itself
from race prejudice to seek after the truth as to all phases of the
situation.

The Negro, therefore, has unfortunately been for some time a
negligible factor in the thought of most historians, except to be
mentioned only to be condemned. So far as the history of the Negro is
concerned, moreover, the field has been for some time left largely to
those sympathetically inclined and lacking scientific training. Not
only have historians of our day failed to write books on the Negro,
but this history has not been generally dignified with certain brief
sketches as constitute the articles appearing in the historical
magazines. For example, the _American Historical Review_, the leading
magazine of its kind in the United States, published quarterly since