Some Major Implications of the Fifth Yearbook of the Journal of Negro Education

Abstract

It is not the purpose of this chapter to summarize each of the twentythree studies and discussions that constitute Parts I and II of this Yearbook, but to present certain observations and conclusions by way of general summary and by way of comment upon some of the larger aspects of the vital issues that the Yearbook opens up. The contributors deserve commendation, at the outset, upon the general evenness, clarity, and cogency of their discussions. It could be wished, however, that at least one of the selected contributors to the symposium (Part II) had been a person less closely associated with the education of Negroes than any of those represented. All of the thirteen Negro and three of the eight white contributors are, or have been, members of the administrative or teaching staffs of Negro schools or of organizations concerned exclusively with Negro education, while the other five white contributors have for a number of years been more or less closely associated with Negro education and its problems. It may be that their very closeness to the situation makes them, in spite of themselves, less objective and impersonal in their interpretations and conclusions than could be desired, and if so, that the points of view they present might be corrected or modified, for the lay reader, by comparison with the views of one or more equally competent students whose chief or sole interest is in the general American scene, without special interest in the welfare of Negroes, the education of Negroes, or philanthropic aid to the education of Negroes. Certainty of perspective, above all else, is needed when longdistance planning is being projected.