Education

Alice Dunbar-Nelson on African American Education - 1902

From Jone Johnson Lewis,
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Essay by Alice Dunbar-Nelson, 1902

The essay below is reprinted from Twentieth Century Negro Literature, edited by D. W. Culp, published 1902. The biographical sketch of Alice Dunbar-Nelson (here called "Mrs. Paul L. Dunbar") is presumably written by Culp. Related articles on this site include:

Is It Time for the Negro Colleges in the South to Be Put Into the Hands of Negro Teachers?

BY MRS. PAUL L. DUNBAR.

Mrs. Paul Laurence Dunbar (Alice Ruth Moore) was born in New Orleans, La., July 19, 1875. Attended public schools there and Straight University, and was graduated from the latter institution in 1892. Taught in the public schools of New Orleans until 1896, when she went to Boston and New York for study, taking a course in Manual Training at the Teachers' College. Was appointed a teacher in the public schools of Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1897, and taught there until her marriage to Mr. Paul Laurence Dunbar, in March, 1898.

In 1895, Mrs. Dunbar's first book, "Violets and Other Tales," was published by the Monthly Review Publishing Company, Boston. The next book, "The Goodness of St. Rocque," published by Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, in 1899, was favorably received by some of the best critics. Mrs. Dunbar has written a number of short stories for some of the leading magazines and newspapers in the country, among them McClures, the Smart Set, Ladies' Home Journal, the Southern Workman, Leslie's Weekly, the New York Sun, Boston Transcript, and for over a year did regular work on the Chicago News.

While teaching in Brooklyn, Mrs. Dunbar was actively interested in mission work on the East Side of New York, conducting classes in manual training and kindergarten after the regular hours of public school work was over. Since her marriage, Mrs. Dunbar has resided in Washington, and has done some of her best work in short story writing, as well as acting as secretary and general helpmeet for her husband.

It seems a rather incongruous fact that so many of our Negro colleges in the South, whose purpose is avowedly the insistence of higher education of Negro youth, should deny that youth not only the privilege of teaching in the very institutions which have taught him, but also deny him the privilege of looking up to and reverencing his own people. For so long have the whites been held up to the young people as the only ones whom it is worth while taking as models; for so long have the ignorant of the race been taught that their best efforts after all, are hardly worth while, that wherever possible, it behooves us to place over the masses those of their own race who have themselves attained to that dignity to which the education of the schools tend.

It has been my good or ill fortune to number among my acquaintances a number of young boys and girls who could rattle off with fluency the names of Greek philosophers of ancient days; who could at a moment's notice tell you the leading writers of the Elizabethan period, or the minor Italian poets of the fifteenth century, but who were hopelessly ignorant of what members of their own race had done. They had, perhaps, a vague idea of an occasional name here and there, but what the owner of that name had done was a mystery. Happily these instances are decreasing in proportion as our schools are filled with teachers of our own race who can teach a proper appreciation of, and pride in the deeds of that race.

It is unreasonable to suppose that any teacher of another race, no matter how conscientious and scrupulous, is going to take the same interest in putting before his pupils the achievements of that people in contradistinction to the accepted course of study as laid down by the text books. How many young students of history in the white-taught schools remember being drilled to revere the glorious memory of Lincoln, and Sumner and Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and how few remember being drilled to remember Crispus Attucks and the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth Massachusetts? How many students of literature are taught of the first woman writer in America to earn distinction, Margaret Hutchinson, but how few are reminded of her contemporary, Phyllis Wheatley? How many students remember the lachrymose career of Byron and how few know of his contemporary, Poushkin? The student of natural science is taught about Franklin, but not of Benjamin Banneker; the elocution classes remember Booth and Macready, and even how excellent an actor was Shakespeare, but they seldom hear of Ira Aldridge. How many of the mathematical students remember that Euclid was a black man? And the elementary classes in art, how glibly they can discuss Turner and Ruskin and the pre-Raphaelites and the style of Gibson, but they are likely not to know the name of the picture that the Paris Salon hung for Henry Tanner.

It is unreasonable, of course, to expect any Caucasian to remember these things, or if remembering them, to be able to point them out with the same amount of pride and persistence that a Negro in the same position would. And therein lies the secret of the foundation of a family, a government, a nation—pride. Pride in what has been done, in what may be done, in the ability to reach the very highest point that may be reached. With that quality instilled in the young from the very first, the foundation for individual achievement is firmly laid; and what more can we ask of any education?

It has been said that Negro boys and girls hearing of the deeds of some great man or woman have exclaimed, "Oh, well, no colored person could do that!" Fortunately, there are few of these now, but how much it is to be regretted that such an expression could ever have been made—at least within the last thirty years?

By all means let us have Negro teachers in our Negro schools and colleges. Let the boy who wants to be a farmer carry with him the memory of successful Negro farmers and of a Negro who knew enough about scientific agriculture to teach him to compete with the best white farmers in the country. It will be easier for him to reach his goal, and he will have more respect for his own ability and less cringing, servile admiration for his Caucasian rivals. Let the boy or girl whose inclinations tend to a profession get their instruction from some one whose complexion is akin to their own. It is a spur to ambition, a goal to be reached. The "what man has done, man may do" is so much easier from a successful brother than from a successful, though supercilious, neighbor.

Of course, the good effect of Negro teachers upon the youthful minds is the only point thus far touched upon. The other side of the question is obvious. What is the use of training teachers, of spending time and money acquiring college training if there is no place to use such training? There is room, and plenty of it, for the college bred man and woman, and for every place filled by our own teachers there is so much more money saved to our own race.

The closer the corporation, the wealthier it is. The tighter the lines drawn about distributing money outside our own great family the more affluent our family becomes. Every cent is an important item. More money for ourselves, a better opinion of our own achievements and ability to do more, higher regard for the raising of Negro ideals, and a deeper sense of the responsibility imposed on each individual to do his part towards leavening the lump; these things are dependent upon our teachers in our own schools.

By all means let us have Negro teachers in Negro colleges.

The essay above is reprinted from Twentieth Century Negro Literature, edited by D. W. Culp, published 1902. The biographical sketch of Alice Dunbar (here called "Mrs. Paul L. Dunbar") is presumably written by Culp.