What is the chief need for the building up of the Negro public school in
the South? The Negro race in the South needs teachers to-day above all
else. This is the concurrent testimony of all who know the situation. For
the supply of this great demand two things are needed--institutions of
higher education and money for school houses and salaries. It is usually
assumed that a hundred or more institutions for Negro training are to-day
turning out so many teachers and college-bred men that the race is
threatened with an over-supply. This is sheer nonsense. There are to-day
less than 3,000 living Negro college graduates in the United States, and
less than 1,000 Negroes in college. Moreover, in the 164 schools for
Negroes, 95 per cent. of their students are doing elementary and secondary
work, work which should be done in the public schools. Over half the
remaining 2,157 students are taking high school studies. The mass of
so-called "normal" schools for the Negro, are simply doing elementary
common school work, or, at most, high school work, with a little
instruction in methods. The Negro colleges and the post-graduate courses
at other institutions are the only agencies for the broader and more
careful training of teachers. The work of these institutions is hampered
for lack of funds. It is getting increasingly difficult to get funds for
training teachers in the best modern methods, and yet all over the South,
from State Superintendents, county officials, city boards and school
principals comes the wail, "We need TEACHERS!" and teachers must be
trained. As the fairest minded of all white Southerners, Atticus G.
Haygood, once said: "The defects of colored teachers are so great as to
create an urgent necessity for training better ones. Their excellencies
and their successes are sufficient to justify the best hopes of success in
the effort, and to vindicate the judgment of those who make large
investments of money and service, to give to colored students opportunity
for thoroughly preparing themselves for the work of teaching children of
their people."