to the bottom of the social medium, and forms the dregs of municipal life. The individual of exceptional endowment will rise to a commanding place; but his elevation, so far, has had little influence upon the industrial lot of the mass below. The aimless drifting into the alleys and crime-dens of the large cities constitutes the most lamentable feature of the negro problem.

The twelfth census shows that there are forty-one cities with a colored population of more than 8,000, the total number of negroes in these cities reaching about one million. This exceeds the total city population of the United States in 1830, when there were twenty-six cities above the 8,000 limit, with an aggregate of 860,000 souls. The social and industrial backwardness of the negro cannot be more strikingly illustrated than by this comparison. It will require almost superhuman effort to bring these people up to the level of opportunity and efficiency maintained by their white fellow-citizens.

There are fifteen cities containing more than 20,000 negroes, with a total population of 700,000. Five of these cities exceed 60,000, namely, Washington, with 86,702; Baltimore, with 79,259; New Orleans, with 77,714; Philadelphia, with 62,613; and New York, with 60,666. The increase in these fifteen cities in the last decade has been 29 per cent. Several cities have shown surprising rapidity of growth. The negro population increased 55 per cent in Philadelphia, 111 per cent in Chicago, 74 per cent in Memphis, and 68 per cent in New York. It is not known how long these rates of growth can continue before these cities will have taken on as much of the dark element as the social medium can hold in solution without causing a black precipitation.

The most marked feature of the urban negro population is the predominance of the female element. While the negro man has no fixed place in the industrial order of the large cities, there is an almost unlimited demand for competent colored female servants in the domestic industries. There are on the average 120 negro females to every 100 negro males in the large centres. Washington has an excess of 10,000, and Baltimore of 9,000, negro females. This disproportion is a most serious factor in the urban life of the negro, and one that must be taken into account in the formulation of plans for his social betterment.

(4) A careful study of the growth and movement of the negro population shows that it is solidifying along the river courses and fertile plains where it was most thickly planted by the institution of slavery. The centre of gravity is slowly moving toward the Gulf of Mexico. The negro does not belong to a nomadic race. Ninety-two per cent of the

race is still found in the sixteen original slave States. There are eight Southern States with more than half a million negroes.

The negroes in these States outnumber the entire population of the United States in 1800, and their decennial increase exceeds the population of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. Although the negroes outnumber the whites in South Carolina and Mississippi only, nevertheless they constitute the majority in the group of States comprising South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, a continuous territory of 290,000 square miles. This area contains 4,433,605 negroes and 4,308,398 whites. The negroes gained the numerical ascendancy in 1870 and have held their own ever since. During the last census decade the negroes increased more rapidly than the whites in Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, maintained almost an exact parity in Georgia, but showed a sharp relative decline in South Carolina and Louisiana. The surprising gain of the white race in Louisiana may be explained by the likelihood that many of the light-hued colored people, of whom there were 90,000 in 1890, were returned as white. It is interesting to note, however, that outside of New Orleans the negroes constitute a majority of more than 50,000 in the State.

If we draw a line from the head of the Chesapeake Bay, bisecting Virginia and North Carolina, to the middle of the northern boundary of South Carolina, and thence along the northern boundary of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, continuing to Little Rock, Arkansas, and thence southwest to the 97th meridian, and along this meridian to the Gulf of Mexico, we enclose a region of about 400,000 square miles, in which three-fourths of the negroes reside, and where they constitute a majority of the total population. It is here that the race problem must be worked out, and the persistence of the black factor shows that it cannot be solved by elimination.

If we study the county as a smaller unit of area, several interesting

results are revealed.

The tendency of the negro to gather into "black

This Africanized area increased from 71 counties in 1860 to 108 counties in 1900. These counties would make a State of about the size and population of Georgia. The average density of the negro element within these counties is more than three times that of the whites, and is steadily increasing. Surrounding these spaces that are hopelessly black, there are 171 counties in which the negroes exceed the whites, but are less than twice as numerous. It is thus seen that there are 279 counties, covering an area of about 150,000 square miles, in which the negroes constitute the majority of the population. This modern land of Goshen, as it has been called, is quite as large as the North Atlantic division of States, and contains about 130 negroes to 100 whites. Fully half of the negro race is found in these counties. This area of total eclipse is fringed by a penumbra that fades away by imperceptible stages until its sombreness is entirely lost.

The opposite tendency of the Southern population is also noticeable. Just as the black spots are growing blacker, the white spots are growing whiter. In Virginia, where a constitutional convention is now sitting for the purpose of eliminating the ignorant negro from the governmental equation, there are ten counties in which the negro constitutes less than ten per cent of the population. In one county there are 9,687 whites and only five negroes. There is but one negro voter, and we are told that he is intelligent! The white counties writhe under the yoke sought to be imposed on the black ones, which has been the cause of not a little political friction.

As a general rule, where the negro constitutes a small fraction of the population his relative decline is notable. There is a marked tendency toward a geographical separation. This has not been brought about by any philanthropic scheme of policy, but by the sheer force of racial gravitation.

If we turn to the cities the same segregative tendency is noticeable.

In all our large centres of population there are white wards and black wards, with which the politician is as familiar as the seaman with the depths and shallows of the sea. As manufacturing industries move Southward, the country whites will be drawn' to the cities as operatives along lines of higher mechanical skill, leaving the blacks in numerical preponderance in the rural districts. Wherever possible, the whites avoid rivalry with the negroes on terms of equality, and studiously shun black communities as a place of residence. This process will continue until there are left in the black belts only a few whites who remain for purposes of philanthropy or gain.

The great mass of the negro population will be gathered into the black belts and into the corresponding wards of our large cities, from which many volatile particles will fly in all directions to be dissipated and lost. This will be due no less to internal cohesion than to the solidifying power of outside pressure. We have here a suggestion for the statesman and the philanthropist as to the wise method of treatment. The social and industrial life must be elevated. These humble people who have demonstrated a capacity for knowledge, virtue, and intelligent industry must be given an opportunity for its development and exercise. It is no reproach to say that if left to themselves they would relapse into barbarism. No people can lift itself unaided from a lower to a higher level of civilization. It is a social as well as a physical impossibility to uplift one's self by pulling against one's boot-straps. If the moral sense of the American people would not leave the distant Filipino to his pitiable fate, but impelled them to reach out a saving hand across the seas and snatch him within the ennobling circle of benevolent assimilation, how much more incumbent is it to elevate the negro who is within our gates, and is closely associated with our national destiny? It is incumbent upon philanthropy and statesmanship, alike, to devise and apply uplifting agencies so that the dark places of the South may not become a menace to the welfare of the nation.

KELLY MILLER.

THE NEED OF TRAINING FOR THE COLLEGE PRESIDENCY.

SIX years ago, when I was a professor of Greek in a New England college, it seemed to me that the president led a very easy life. He received nearly twice the salary of a professor and did scarcely any teaching; and his brow told nothing of the care within. When I finally made up my mind to accept an executive position in the West, this president's wife, who had always been a very kind friend, said: “You don't know what you are undertaking. It's a dog's life." While the latter statement was not intended to be taken literally, and has to a certain extent proved a false prediction, it is not difficult now for me to realize what was meant. My only regret, however, is that I entered on the work of administration so poorly prepared, and that it has taken so long to learn comparatively little. Possibly, if I had been taken aside by my president and told how to avoid the snares and solve the problems that would come, I should not have been altogether too conceited to listen; but this may be doubted. At any rate, when one thinks of all the difficulties of a college executive, it is a matter for surprise that no training or advice for so important a work has yet been offered. It may be interesting to review our present educational tendencies, and inquire why such provision has not been made.

The present is an era of specialties. That sounds rather trite, but it is a truth the full significance of which we sometimes fail to realize. In the college world especially, a jack-of-all-trades was never so distrusted as at present. A college teacher to-day must have studied one subject thoroughly, although, as it has been often pointed out, his general knowledge need not be limited. As a university president, I receive every year applications enough to fill each position in the institution fifty times over. An effort is made to give each letter careful examination and polite treatment, but there is one style of letter that is very trying. It comes from the man who states that his specialties are Greek, Latin, French, and German; that he can teach mathematics and chemistry; and that he feels that he would be successful with history and philosophy. It is difficult to reply courteously to such a man, as it is evident