of interpreting the world in dollars. The old leaders of Negro
opinion, in the little groups where there is a Negro social
consciousness, are being replaced by new; neither the black
preacher nor the black teacher leads as he did two decades
ago. Into their places are pushing the farmers and gardeners,
the well-paid porters and artisans, the business-men,--all
those with property and money. And with all this change, so
curiously parallel to that of the Other-world, goes too the
same inevitable change in ideals. The South laments to-day
the slow, steady disappearance of a certain type of Negro,
--the faithful, courteous slave of other days, with his incor-
ruptible honesty and dignified humility. He is passing away
just as surely as the old type of Southern gentleman is passing,
and from not dissimilar causes,--the sudden transformation
of a fair far-off ideal of Freedom into the hard reality of
bread-winning and the consequent deification of Bread.

In the Black World, the Preacher and Teacher embodied
once the ideals of this people--the strife for another and a
juster world, the vague dream of righteousness, the mystery
of knowing; but to-day the danger is that these ideals, with
their simple beauty and weird inspiration, will suddenly sink
to a question of cash and a lust for gold. Here stands this
black young Atalanta, girding herself for the race that must
be run; and if her eyes be still toward the hills and sky as in
the days of old, then we may look for noble running; but
what if some ruthless or wily or even thoughtless Hippomenes
lay golden apples before her? What if the Negro people be
wooed from a strife for righteousness, from a love of know-
ing, to regard dollars as the be-all and end-all of life? What if