We cannot all be with Peary at the North Pole, nor die the death of the hero, Scott, on the frozen Antarctic continent. It is not given to us to be explorers; it is not given us to be pioneers; we may not discover vast continents, name great lakes, nor gaze with wonder-stricken eyes upon the rolling of a mighty unknown river. But to each and all of us comes the divine opportunity to carve for himself a niche, be it ever so tiny, in the memories of men. We can heed the admonition of Carlyle, "Be no longer a Chaos, but a World, or even a Worldkin. Produce! Produce!

Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee, out with it then!"

The life of service; the life of unselfish giving--this must Livingstone's life mean to us. Unselfish, ungrudging lavishing of life and soul, even to the last drop of heart's blood. Service that does not hesitate because the task seems small, or the waiting weary; service that does not fear to be of no account in the eyes of the world. Truly, indeed, might Wordsworth's apostrophe to Milton be ascribed to him:

"Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea; Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way In cheerful godliness, and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on itself did lay."

EDUCATION FOR MANHOOD[48]

BY KELLY MILLER

[Note 48: Reprinted from _Kelly Miller's Monographic Magazine_, April, 1913.]

We must keep clearly in mind the proposition that the educational process is always under domination of contemporary opinion. The education prescribed for any class is likely to be conditioned upon the presumed relationship of that class to the social body. When woman was regarded as an inferior creature, whose destiny was to serve as a tool and plaything of man, she was accorded only such education as would fit her for this subsidiary function. Any other training was regarded as unnecessary and mischievous. It is only within comparatively recent times, when man began to realize the essential human quality and powers of the female sex, and deemed it not mockery to place her on the same footing with himself, that the comprehensive education of woman has become a possibility.

The traditional relation of the American Negro to the society of which he forms a part is too well known to need extensive treatment in this connection. The African slave was introduced into this country as a pure animal instrumentality to perform the rougher work under dominion of his white lord and master. There was not the remotest thought of his human personality. No more account was taken of his higher qualities than of the higher susceptibilities of the lower animals. His mission was considered to be as purely mechanical as that of the ox which pulls the plow. Indeed, his human capabilities were emphatically denied. It was stoutly contended that he did not possess a soul to be saved in the world to come nor a mind to be enlightened in the world that now is.

Under the dominion of this dogma, education was absolutely forbidden him. It became a crime even to attempt to educate this _tertium quid_ which was regarded as little more than brute and little less than human.

The white race, in its arrogant conceit, constituted the personalities and the Negro the instrumentalities. Man may be defined as a distinction-making animal. He is ever prone to set up barriers between members of his own species and to deny one part of God's human creatures the inalienable birthright vouchsafed to all alike. But the process was entirely logical and consistent with the prevailing philosophy.

The anti-slavery struggle stimulated the moral energy of the American people in a manner that perhaps has never had a parallel in the history of vicarious endeavor. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

In dealing with fundamental principles of human rights and human wrongs involved in the issue of slavery, these moral reformers found that the Negro was a human being, endowed with heart and mind and conscience like as themselves; albeit these powers of personality had long been smothered and imbruted by centuries of suppression and harsh usage.

These philanthropists believed in the essential manhood of the Negro.

This belief was the chief dynamic of their endeavor. Upon this foundation they not only broke the Negro's chain, but clothed him with political and civic prerogative as an American citizen. They established schools and colleges and universities for him because they believed in his higher susceptibilities. To-day we are almost astounded at the audacity of their faith. They projected a scheme of education comparable with the standards set up for the choicest European youth for a race which had hitherto been submerged below the zero point of intelligence.

These schools and colleges founded and fostered on this basis were the beginnings of the best that there is in the race and the highest which it can hope to be.

But, alas, as the passion engendered by the war grew weaker and weaker, the corresponding belief in the Negro has also declined, and the old dogma concerning his mission as a human tool has begun to reassert itself. In certain sections the white race has always claimed that the Negro should not be encouraged in the development of personality. The denial of the designation "mister" is suggestive of this disposition.

With them the term "mister" is made to mean a direct designation of personality. There is no objection to such titles as "doctor,"

"reverend" or "professor," as these connote professional rather than personal quality.

Our whole educational activities are under the thrall of this retrograde spirit. We are marking time rather than moving forward. The work is being carried on rather than up. Our bepuzzled pedagogues are seriously reflecting over the query, _Cui bono?_--Is it worth while? Few, indeed, are left who have the intensity of belief and the intrepidity of spirit to defend the higher pretentions of the Negro without apology or equivocation. The old form of appeal has become insipid and uninspiring; the ear has become dull to its dinging. The old blade has become blunt and needs a new sharpness of point and keenness of edge. Where now is heard the tocsin call whose key-note a generation ago resounded from the highlands of Kentucky and Tennessee to the plains of the Carolinas calling the black youths, whose hopes ran high within their bosoms, to rise and make for higher things? This clarion note, though still for the nonce, shall not become a lost chord. Its inspiring tones must again appeal to the youth to arise to their higher assertion and exertion. If you wish to reach and inspire the life of the people, the approach must be made not to the intellectual, nor yet to the feelings, as the final basis of appeal, but to the manhood that lies back of these. That education of youth, especially the suppressed class, that does not make insistent and incessant appeals to the smothered manhood (I had almost said godhood) within, will prove to be but vanity and vexation of spirit. What boots a few chapters in Chemistry, or pages in History, or paragraphs in Philosophy, unless they result in an enlarged appreciation of one's own manhood? Those who are to stand in the high places of intellectual, moral, and spiritual leadership of such a people in such a time as this must be made to feel deep down in their own souls their own essential manhood. They must believe that they are created in the image of God and that nothing clothed in human guise is a more faithful likeness of the original. This must be the dominant note in the education of the Negro. If the note itself is not new, there must at least be a newness of emphasis and insistence. The Negro must learn in school what the white boy absorbs from association and environment. The American white man in his ordinary state is supremely conscious of his manhood prerogative. He may be ignorant or poor or vicious; yet he never forgets that he is a man. But every feature of our civilization is calculated to impress upon the Negro a sense of his inferiority and to make him feel and believe that he is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of other men. A race, like an individual, that compromises its own self-respect, paralyzes and enfeebles its own energies. The motto which should be engraved upon the conscience of every American Negro is that which Milton places in the mouth of His Satanic Majesty: "The mind is its own place and of itself can make a heaven of hell; a hell of heaven." To inculcate this principle is the highest mission of the higher education. The old theologians used to insist upon the freedom of the will, but the demand of the Negro to-day is for the freedom and independence of his own spirit. Destroy this and all is lost; preserve it, and though political rights, civil privileges, industrial opportunities be taken away for the time, they will all be regained.

By the development of manhood on the part of the Negro nothing is farther from my thought than the inculcation of that pugnacious, defiant disposition which vents itself in wild ejaculations and impotent screaming against the evils of society. I mean the full appreciation of essential human qualities and claims, and the firm, unyielding determination to press forward to the mark of this calling, and not to be swerved from its pursuit by doubt, denial, danger, rebuff, ridicule, insult, and contemptuous treatment. While the Negro may not have it within his power to resist or overcome these things, he must preserve the integrity of his own soul.

The higher education of the Negro up to this point has been very largely under the direction and control of philanthropy. The support has come almost wholly from that source. The development of this sense of manhood should be the highest concern of a wise, discriminating philanthropy, for if this is once developed the Negro will be able to handle his own situation and relieve his philanthropic friends from further consideration or concern; but, if he fails to develop this spirit of manhood, he will be but a drag upon the resources of philanthropy for all times to come.

The Negro must develop courage and self-confidence. A grasp upon the principles of knowledge gives the possessor the requisite spirit of confidence. To the timid, the world is full of mystery manipulated and controlled by forces and powers beyond their ken to comprehend. But knowledge convinces us that there is no mystery in civilization. The railroad, the steamship, and the practical projects that loom so large to the unreflecting, are but the result of the application of thought to things. The mechanical powers and forces of Nature are open secrets for all who will undertake to unravel the mystery. And so it is with essential and moral principles. The one who will have himself rooted and grounded in the fundamental principles of things can look with complacence upon the panorama of the world's progress. The Negro should plant one foot on the Ten Commandments and the other on the Binomial Theorem: he can then stand steadfast and immovable, however the rain of racial wrath may fall or the angry winds of prejudice may blow and beat upon him.

The educated Negro must learn to state his own case and to plead his own cause before the bar of public opinion. No people who raise up from out their midst a cultivated class, who can plead their own cause and state their own case, will fail of a hearing before the just judgment of mankind.

The educated Negro to-day represents the first generation grown to the fullness of the stature of manhood under the influence and power of education. They are the first ripened fruit of philanthropy, and by them alone will the wisdom or folly of that philanthropy be justified. The hope of the race is focused in them. They are the headlight to direct the pathway through the dangers and vicissitudes of the wilderness. For want of vision, the people perish; for want of wise direction, they stumble and fall. There is no body of men in the world to-day, nor in the history of the world, who have, or ever have had, greater responsibilities or more coveted opportunities than devolves upon the educated Negro to-day. It is, indeed, a privilege to be a Negro of light and leading in such a time as this. The incidental embarrassments and disadvantages which for the time being must be endured are not to be compared with the far more exceeding weight of privileges and glory which awaits him if he rises to these high demands. For such a privilege well may he forego the pleasure of civilization for a season.

His world consists of 10,000,000 souls, who have wrapped up in them all the needs and necessities, powers and possibilities, of human nature; they contain all the norms of civilization, from its roots to its florescence. His is the task to develop and vitalize these smothered faculties and potentialities. His education will prove to be but vanity and vexation of spirit, unless it ultimates in this task. He is the salt of the earth, and if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? If the light within the racial world be darkness, how great is that darkness?

The highest call of the civilization of the world to-day is to the educated young men of the belated races. The educated young manhood of Japan, China, India, Egypt, and Turkey must lift their own people up to the level of their own high conception. They must partake of the best things in the civilization of Europe and show them unto their own people. The task of the educated American Negro is the same as theirs, intensified, perhaps, by the more difficult and intricate tangle of circumstances and conditions with which he has to deal.

He cannot afford to sink into slothful satisfaction and enjoy a tasteless leisure or with inane self-deception hide his head under the shadows of his wings, like the foolish bird, which thereby hopes to escape the wrath to come. The white race, through philanthropy, has done much; but its vicarious task culminated when it developed the first generation of educated men and women. They must do the rest.

These philanthropists spoke for us when our tongues were tied. They pleaded our cause when we were speechless; but now our faculties have been unloosed. We must stand upon our own footing. In buffeting the tempestuous torrents of the world we must either swim on the surface or sink out of sight. The greatest gratitude that the beneficiary can show to the benefactor is, as soon as possible, to do without his benefaction. The task of race statesmanship and reclamation devolves upon the educated Negro of this day and generation. Moral energy must be brought to bear upon the task, whether the Negro be engaged in the production of wealth or in the more recondite pursuits which minister to the higher needs of man.

The white race is fast losing faith in the Negro as an efficient and suitable factor in the equation of our civilization. Curtailment of political, civil, and religious privilege and opportunity is but the outward expression of this apostasy. As the white man's faith decreases, our belief in ourselves must increase. Every Negro in America should utter this prayer, with his face turned toward the light: "Lord, I believe in my own inherent manhood; help Thou my unbelief." The educated Negro must express his manhood in terms of courage, in the active as well as in the passive voice: courage to do, as well as to endure; courage to contend for the right while suffering wrong; the courage of self-belief that is always commensurate with the imposed task. The world believes in a race that believes in itself; but justly despises the self-bemeaned. Such is the mark and the high calling to which the educated Negro of to-day is called. May he rise to the high level of it.

Never was there a field whiter unto harvest; never was there louder cry for laborers in the vineyard of the Lord.

A FEW REMARKS ON MAKING A LIFE[49]

BY ROBERT E. JONES, LL. D.

_Editor Southwestern Christian Advocate, New Orleans, La._

[Note 49: Extracts from Commencement address delivered at Tuskegee Institute, May 29, 1913.]

I have a story to relate, and at once I want to present to you my hero,--a hero more inspiring than Achilles of the "Iliad," or Odysseus of the "Odyssey," or aeneas of the "aeneid."

My hero is not a myth, not a creation of literature, not a tradition, but not unlike the Grecian hero in that he sprung from the union of a god and a mortal. My hero is not reckoned among the high and mighty nor will his name ever be carved on stone or raised on bronze. Neither has my hero accomplished startling feats. As a hero he may be a paradox.

Inconspicuous, humble in station, modest, hid far away from the maddening, jealous, curious, bickering, taunting, striving, restless crowd of life. Too long already I have held him from you. His name? I do not know. His birthplace? I do not know. His age? I do not know. Is he living now? Here my ignorance is painful. I do not know. My hero, however, is an actual man of flesh and blood. I met him but twice in life, but was so charmed I did not ask his name. His personality thrilled and he in a measure has become my patron saint. He is not a hero of large and commanding stature, but a cripple--doubly so. His arms were palsied and turned in so that he could not use a crutch, his lower limbs turned in also. He sat in an ordinary cane-bottomed chair and could easily move himself about by throwing the weight of his body from one back leg of the chair to the other, lifting the front legs at the same time. I saw him along the train side at Spartanburg, S. C.

A beggar? No, my young friends, beggars are seldom heroes. He was a merchant prince. He carried his goods around his neck and shoulders and in his outer coat pockets. He was selling shoe-strings and pencils. If you gave him a dime he would insist on your taking one or both of the articles he had for sale. In his activities he was a fine lesson of the first requirement of life. He was self-sustaining. By the sweat of his brow he earned his bread.

Did he complain of his lot? Not a bit of it. His handicap he did not make nor could undo. He therefore accepted his condition philosophically; he was self-respecting. He knew his limitations; he knew what he could do and what he could not do; he was self-knowing.

Knowing his handicap and that it was quite unlike any other man's and that he needed a means of locomotion, he found it; he had, therefore, initiative. He leaned not upon the strength of others, but used his own resources; he was therefore self-reliant. He did not wait for business to come to him, he put himself in the path of business; he was a hustler. He saw life through a cheerful lens and kept a stout heart; he was optimistic. He recognized his own personality apart from the personalities of the crowded throng through which he passed; he was a self-contented individual. He had but one life to live and he was making the most of life. When I left him I crowned him, honored him, and I love him for his worth as a true man.

"I like a man who faces what he must, With step triumphant and a heart of cheer; Who fights the daily battles without fear; Nor loses faith in man; but does his best, Nor ever murmurs at his humble lot, But, with a smile, and words of hope, gives zest To every toiler; he alone is great Who by a life heroic conquers fate."

When once away from my hero, as I thought of him in my deepest soul, I cried:

"Thou art my chastiser and my inspirator. Thou art simple yet great; untaught thyself, thou art the teacher of all. Henceforth thou shalt be my hero and guide. Doubting myself, bemoaning my limitations, depressed by my failure, ashamed of my achievements, my seeing you has given me a new interpretation of life. I own you my friend, my life's inspiration and hero."

There is my hero. You ask his color? What difference does it make? Men have often refused to recognize worth because of color. But to satisfy you I will tell you. He is a Negro. Give a seat of honor to my hero.

Gather inspiration and learn from him the lessons of life, if you will.

Here is an individual doubly afflicted, without a word of complaint, or a fret or whine, depending upon his own initiative and resources, making the most of life under the circumstances which surround him.

Upon the basis of what has been said, in closing this address to the graduating Class of 1913 of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute I desire to offer a personal word:

In the first place, you will know a year from now, more than you can realize at this present moment, that this is a commencement. This is not the climax of your life. It is but the beginning, and however paradoxical it may seem, you are not at the top of the ladder, you are at the foot. We are here to applaud you to-day not so much on what you have already accomplished as to give you a send-off for the strenuous tasks that lie before you. To be frank with you, young men and young women, the life in earnest that awaits you without will tax every bit of your strength. Your moral strength will be drawn upon, as well as your intellectual resources.

Secondly; had I my way I would have each of you burn your diploma and never refer to it as an indication of what you are and what you know. Do not attempt to pass through the world on your diploma or your class standing. The world cares little for these. I would urge that you prove to the world what you are by what you can do--that you let your achievements point to your diploma.

Thirdly; you go forth to-day as a representative of this institution, mantled with all the sacred honors, prestige, and commendation that this institution, State, and your admirers can bestow. See to it that you keep the honors of this hour unsoiled and that you disgrace not the noble history of your alma mater.

Fourthly; I do not believe that this institution is fostered with the idea that the few students who gather here from time to time only shall be reached. I rather suspect that the dollars that come from the State and generous friends come with the hope that as you have been helped and lifted to culture and refinement, you in turn will carry culture to those who may never be permitted to stay in these walls. You are to carry light into dark places and unto those who sit in darkness. By your arm of strength you are to lift the poor who are beneath you. And then your education comes not for self-culture, not for self-enjoyment, not for self-use, but for the betterment of those who are about you.

Fifthly; you go forth as the embodiment of a new generation. You stand to-day upon the foundation built by those who have gone before you. They have wrought well. By their toil and suffering you are blest. You are to carry your generation one notch higher and thus help the onward march of the world's progress. Be thou faithful. Lift your eyes heavenward and aspire to do the best and be the noblest according to God's heritage to you. There are no chosen depths, no prescribed heights to which you may climb.