The Past, Present and Future of the Negro College

Time is a continuous quantity. The present is but a point separating the future from the past. The story of the Negro college calls for integral treatment, including yesterday, today and tomorrow. I must first qualify as an expert to discuss the assigned topic. My actual life covers the whole history of educational endeavor for my race, while my active life, involving a period of over forty years, has been devoted to this cause. While I have been located at one point during all of this time, yet I have kept my eye peeled to the whole horizon. If I can not immodestly claim to be a product of, if not a power in, the Negro college world, I can, at least, speak with authority of experience which, it must be conceded, has limited value. For never yet has experience made a wise man out of a fool. 'The past, at least, is secure and becomes the subject matter of historical digest and analysis; the present-day Negro college is the subject of observation, reflection, and judgment; while the future belongs to the domain of prophecy. In this domain all can lay equal claim to expertness. Prophecy is the easiest, most agreeable, and irresponsible exercise of the human faculty. The reputation of the prophet depends upon his sagacity in placing fulfillment far enough ahead of prediction. My observations, reflections, and conclusions upon the aim, purpose, and effectiveness of the Negro college must be judged in the light of a lifetime, now approaching the scriptural allotment of three-score and ten years, devoted to this field. I may claim the septuagenarian privilege of reviewing, revising, and, in some instances, reversing views, previously espoused and advocated

Geography · Mathematics education · Higher Education Research Studies · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · School Choice and Performance

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