Negro Higher Education and Some Fundamental Issues Raised by World War II

Abstract

The education of Negroes has always been fraught with issues, with problems, with conflicts as to the most desirable program of action. Higher education for the is no exception. As a matter of fact, it has been, and is, the most fertile field for the cultivation and production of such issues. When one realizes the place of education in American life, that issues should be so obvious in the case of education, and that they should be aggravated in the case of the education of Negroes, are facts quite easy to understand: American education is inextricably bound up with human values. In a sense, it is the business of education to give the largest possible share of these values to every citizen. But problems arise even before the formal educative process beginsand they obviously condition it greatly. What values are desirable? For whom are they desirable? Under what conditions? And for how long? When Booker T. Washington, shortly after the Civil War, proposed a program of industrial education for virtually all Negroes and W. E. B. DuBois countered with the thesis that Negroes should encourage their talented tenth to run the gauntlet of higher education, lifting their brothers as they climbed, both were giving practical answers to these questions. When a ranking official of a Southern town proclaims that it is a mistake to give any sound technical education because this is contrary to the Southern credo, and, simultaneously, the United States Office of Education enunciates the policy that Negroes should be trained for all skilled jobs, despite the fact that. they are now found in these jobs in relatively low proportions, here, too, are answers to these' questions of values. In all cases, the answers vary because of different convictions as to what is good, who should have what is good, and, of course, how one may acquire the tools to satisfy the particular combinations of desires. One needs only to read any serious literature-frequently popular literature-to know that there is anything but unanimity in the realm of educational thought, elementary, secondary, and higher. Too, informal observation, conversation, scientific expression, the press, and introspection certainly do reveal very definitely that the Negro problem is no will-o'-the-wisp. Then, what else could one expect but issues as he looks at higher education of the and World War Number Two? All kinds of education were born in issues. World War Number Two really merely accentuates them, increases the boldness of their relief. Yet, this change in degree, in many respects, is so great as almost to cause the matter in question to appear as the species of another genus. That several