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134 THE CRISIS

[[12 images in total, in rows of 3 with 6 images per page]] 

[[1st Row (Left to Right, Top of the page): JAMES BOND, Knoxville; MISS F. JONES, Knoxville; J. M. SAMPSON, Virginia Union]]

sends us the photographs of the ranking scholars of their graduating college class. The result is a group of faces looking out on the reader from these pages; strong, bright young folk who have demanded the light and received it in spite of the opinion of President Taft. Here are the "spoiled plow-hands" of Southern tradition and the top- heavy :educated-out-of-their-place" youth of newspaperdom! As a matter of fact here are a group of healthy, bright-eyed, clear-brained young folk of Negro descent, who are going to make the cheating, lynching and oppression of black folk more difficult in the future than in the past. Hinc illae lacrimae!
    These are the leaders who in scholarship head the colored college host: David, of Wilberforce; Latson, of Atlanta Baptist Col-lege; Douglass, of Lane; Rice and Miss Bothwell, of Atlanta University Jessell and Miss Hamilton, of Talladega; Sampson, of Virginia Union; Berry, of Lincoln; Bond and Miss Jones, of Knoxville; Lovette and Miss R. Jones, of Fisk. We add Edith Louise Wright, who is valedictorian in the West High School for 100 classmates, all white, and Isabella Vandervall, who gained the $50 freshman prize at the New York Medical College. If the photographs had arrived in time, who should have added to these Miss Brown, of Morgan; Miss Floyd, of Spelman; Pinson and Miss Thomas, of Benedict; Miss Gray, of Paine, and several others. 
    Besides the twenty colleges mentioned above, there are twelve other institutions that give college training to colored students, making thirty-two in all, enrolling 1,200 students.
    In former days the argument against such students and such training was that colored people could not assimilate such training. That argument has passed, but in 

[[2nd Row (Left to Right, Bottom of the page): J. W. Rice, Atlanta; ALBERT B. LOVETTE, Fisk; D. J. JESSELL, Talladega]] 

[[3rd Row (Left to Right, Top of the page): T. G. DOUGLASS, Lane; MISS S. E. HAMILTON, Talladega; E. O. BERRY, Lincoln]]

its place is a widespread belief that there is no "demand" for such persons, and that they are unable to earn a living. 
    There have been , in the years 1823-1912, over 5,000 Negroes graduated from college. Returns for a thousand living graduates indicate the following occupations: 

Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54%
Preachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20% 
Physicians. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .07%
Lawyers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .04%
Business and other occupations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15%

    As teachers the college-bred Negroes have made the Negro industrial school possible. Tuskegee is directed by them in nearly all positions of importance, from the wife of the principal (Fisk, '89) down. At Hampton, Calhoun, Kowaliga, and a score of other schools, the colored college man has given invaluable service. As leaders in social up-lift the Negro collegians have been especially valuable. Why, then, are they the object of so much criticism and innuendo? Apparently because white Americans fear them. We do not fear Negro criminals-- rather we encour-age them. We do not fear ignorance--we invite it. But trained knowledge and effi-ciency in this subject race is instinctively dreaded by a large number of people. Presi-dent Taft said yesterday at Hampton: "Although education along scientific lines is useful, vocational education for the Negro is better, for the present at least;" but "voca-tion" is a large word. What vocations does the President have in mind? The vocation of citizen, voter, molder of public opinion? Probably not. He is thinking the Memphis News-Scimitar, which says: 
    "Higher education fads find no place in the curriculum of the Memphis High School for Negroes. The while policy is to train the Negro youths of both sexes in occupa-tions which the SOuth has accorded almost entirely to the race." 
    In other words, the principal vocation in 

[[4th Row (Left to Right, Top of the page): E. W. LATSON, Atlanta Baptist; MISS A. L. BOTHWELL, Atlanta; G. F. DAVID, Wilberforce]]

Transcription Notes:
Semicolons separate each name and location