The Texas Standard, Volume 22, Number 1, January-February 1948 Page: 4
19 p. : ill. ; 29 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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TE X A S STANDARD
The Private College,
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even in the limited fields in which both
types of institutions serve at present; and,
it is unlikely that the gradually increas-
ing supply of higher education for Negroes
will soon match the rapidly growing de-
mand. That obvious fact deserves weight
in any attempted prediction of the future
of the private college. But the mere
availability of students offers no guaran-
tee that the private college shall occupy
a place of security and distinction in the
new program of education that is now in
the making. A more adequate answer lies
deeper in our social nature.
SURVIVAL OF THE WORTHY
A few worthy private colleges will
survive in respectability, and in significant
educational service and leadership. That is
the faith I hold, and I have no disposition
to entertain it on less sound educational
grounds.
THREE AREAS OF OPPORTUNITY
There are at least three fundamental
areas in the field of education in which
the private Negro college may make sig-
nificant contributions, thus establish its
right to survival. They are (1) the area
of academic freedom and standards; (2)
the area of citizenship training for worthy
participation in democratic governments,
and (3) the area of character education
through guided growth in morals and
religion.
"NEGRO EDUCATION"
No one questions the fact that the
Negro has made progress in education
since his emancipation. But frankly, much
of his education has been miseducative in
its total effects. The inertia of the slave
psychology and functional illiteracy of the
race is encountered on every hand, even
on all levels in our schools. "Negro educa-
tion" has not led to a mastery of the
techniques involved in the translation of
learning into life, and into the power and
action imperative to the improvement of
life. It is seriously deficient in the mastery
of the fundamental processes, even the
"Three R's," and in a working knowledge
of their social implications. Our record
in the social application of the disintegrat-
ing processes of subtraction and division,
is one of distinction, but our averages in
the application of the integrating processes
of addition and multiplication have been
consistently low, and at times embarrass-
ing.
Obviously, that is not a racial defic-
iency, but a logical achievement of our
effective system of miseducation.
THE NEW EDUCATION
The Negro college has more to do,
and to gain than any similar institution,
by becoming an excellent college by
standards unabridged by consideration of
race. It may enhance its chances for sur-
vival by providing the atmosphere, motive,
and direction for high standards of
scholarship; by inspiring within its stu-
dents the free spirit of intellectual adven-
ture and devotion to truth; and by chal-
lenging capable students to scorn the
delights of Negro college campus com-
placency and to live laborious days.
CITIZENSHIP TRAINING
General education is the key to na-
tional security and progress in a de-
mocracy. Its indispensability is the ex-
planation of our Naiton's great system of
free public education, with its major
emphasis on worthy citizenship. But with
its elaborate program of citizenship train-
ing, ours is the most lawless nation in
the world. According to J. Edgar Hoover
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
"our country is in deadly peril." The creep-
ing cancer of moral disintegration is eat-
ing at its heart. Its record of juvenile
delinquency is appalling; and adult delin-
quency is flagitious in all areas of our
national life and leadership. Racial intol-
erance is flagrant. World peace and pro-
gress are threatened by a brutal clash of
culture both within and among th* na-
tions of the earth. Democracy is engaged
in a deadly struggle that challenges its
right to exist on a single inch of ground
on earth, while the professors of the demo-
cratic faith make half hearted defense in
the suicidal presumption that the demo-
cratic principle may be applied to some
and denied other members of a common
citizenship.
These appalling social conditions are
not hopeless. They are not necessary evils.
Human nature is improvable. American
youth are susceptible and potentially loyal
to the democratic principles of world
citizenship. They are "fundamentally de-
cent, honest, co-operative, devoted to the
common good, and faithful to spiritual
ideals." If we bring them up in this way
of lue, when they become adults they will
not depart from the path of good citizen-
ship.
There are two major difficulties: (1)
the lack of integrity in the content and
spirit of our social education, and (2) the
logical fact that our marvelous achieve-
ments in science and technology have out-
distanced comparable developments in
human personality and relationships. The
two are out of balance, with men occupy-
ing an inferior position to the creations
of his head and hands.
This, in my judgment, is a second field
of unique opportunity for the private
Negro college; namely, that of equipping
Negro youth for capable courageous
participation in the common heritage of
our ever-changing, complex, democratic
society: that of magnifying the balanced
development of human personality above
everything else.
MORALS AND RELIGION
Standing out as the major lesson of
humanity's current crisis is the stubborn
fact that scientific knowledge and its de-
vices are self-destructive, unless there is
a comparable development in moral direc-
tion and religion. The sound policy of
keeping the church and state separate, in
the defense of freedom of religious faith
and practice, does not imply the neces-
sity of alienating education and religion
in the processes of human development.
Properly conceived, education is con-
cerned with the whole man: the heart as
well as the head and hand. Therefore, at
its highest and best, education is virtually
an impossible task as an exclusive state
function. Tennyson concurs in these im-
pressive words: "For what are men better
than sheep or goats that nourish a blind
life within the brain, if, knowing God, they
lift not hands of prayer."
In the state's dilemma, increasingly,
Bible study is being adopted as recognized
units of the public school curriculum, to
be taught in or apart from the public
schools. The point of emphasis is on re-
ligion merely as a source of factual
knowledge, rather than as a source of
spiritual values, a power in personality
development and a guide to Christian
action in our highly complex, chaotic
world society.
The innovation will prove fruitless, if
not positively harmful. It will be no less
disappointing than the state's citizenship
training program. Neither academic relig-
ion, nor theoretical citizenship, nor a
false democracy will save our nation or
the world from moral corruption. It is
powerless to inspire devotion to the truth,
the achievement of spiritual insight, the
acquisition of a true sense of values, and
the realization of a personal sense of one-
ness with other people and God. Whether
in religion or in education, "The letter
killeth, but the spirit maketh alive."
Education cannot rise above the dead
level of its letters, unless those letters
become flesh and blood, and personality,
and dwell among men with the undis-
putable authority of the highest and
most satisfying personal experience.
Basically, humanity's major problem is the
dual one of general education or "com-
mon sense" and Christian character.
The Christian college is peculiarly
qualified, in its historical background,
to rise to the occasion of indispensable
service in those fields. It has a rich herit-
age of courageous, sacrificial devotion to
its historical struggle for life, on the part
of its sponsors: its denominational leaders,
faculty members, students and alumni. Its
prayer for daily bread is an institutional
necessity. It is compelled to live by faith.
In the sum total of its experiences, it is
a laboratory for highly purposeful collec-
tive Christian action. As a result, the
fires of learning are kept burning at
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Colored Teachers State Association of Texas. The Texas Standard, Volume 22, Number 1, January-February 1948, periodical, January 1948; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth193747/m1/4/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Prairie View A&M University.