This is not saying that the higher education is responsible for the
present condition of the negro.

Other influences have retarded his elevation and the development of
proper character, and most important means have been neglected. I only
say that we have been disappointed in our extravagant expectations of
what this education could do for a race undeveloped, and so wanting in
certain elements of character, and that the millions of money devoted to
it might have been much better applied.

We face a grave national situation. It cannot be successfully dealt with
sentimentally. It should be faced with knowledge and candor. We must
admit our mistakes, both social and political, and set about the solution
of our problem with intelligent resolution and a large charity. It is not
simply a Southern question. It is a Northern question as well. For the
truth of this I have only to appeal to the consciousness of all Northern
communities in which there are negroes in any considerable numbers. Have
the negroes improved, as a rule (always remembering the exceptions), in
thrift, truthfulness, morality, in the elements of industrious
citizenship, even in States and towns where there has been the least
prejudice against their education? In a paper read at the last session of
this Association, Professor W. F. Willcox of Cornell University showed by
statistics that in proportion to population there were more negro
criminals in the North than in the South. "The negro prisoners in the
Southern States to ten thousand negroes increased between 1880 and 1890
twenty-nine per cent., while the white prisoners to ten thousand whites
increased only eight per cent." "In the States where slavery was never
established, the white prisoners increased seven per cent. faster than
the white population, while the negro prisoners no less than thirty-nine