HOWARD UNIVERSITY shares with Fisk, Atlanta and Wilber-force the proud tradition of over half a century of service in the liberal education of Negro youth. To-day, after years of painstaking advance, it shares with a dozen or more such Negro colleges the rank and standing of an institution of standard and certified collegiate grade. But just as surely as there is a need and place for each,—and for that matter more, of these institutions, just so certain is it that one of them must eventually become the conscious and recognized center of the higher life and cultural inspiration and aspiration of the race. Such by reason of its origin, location, constituency, maintenance and objective, Howard Unversity aspires to be. Largest, oldest as an avowed university in plan and pattern, national in scope and support, Howard University already has advantages that make plausible its claim to be “the Capstone of Negro Education.” But with the rapid development and maturing of the race life of the Negro to-day, and the almost floodlike surge of race consciousness and purpose, the competition for primacy among Negro institutions of learning is swift and will be to the swift. The title and prestige must eventually go to that institution that incorporates most readily the progressive spirit of the new generation, best focuses the racial mind, and becomes the center radiating the special influence of leadership and enlightenment which a culturally organized people needs.

The Negro in America constitutes a community far more separate and distinct in needs, aims, and aspirations than any other racial or sectarian element of our national life. The Catholic, Jewish and Protestant denominations develop their own local, and national institutions to foster the peculiar genius and aspirations of their several communions, apart from the general educational life of the nation as a whole, in which they share on equal terms with the rest. In a much deeper sense, under the present conditions of his group life, does the Negro stand in need of local schools and colleges with a national university as a capstone devoted to racial aims and objectives. Howard University assumes the title and function of the national Negro University without egotism or vain boasting, and with the appreciation of the place and importance and special spheres of influence of other worthy institutions of learning and service in the same field. Chartered in 1867 by the Congress of the United States, it is located at the National Capital, and is supported in large part by government appropriations. The current catalogue carries an enrollment of 2,046 students of the colored race drawn from thirty-six states and eleven foreign countries. Its essential objective from the beginning has been to develop a leadership for the reclamation and uplift of the Negro race through the influence of the higher culture. Further, Howard University can modestly claim that it is the only institution of its class that maintains the full complement of standardized academic and professional departments which go to make up the normal American university. With over two thousand students in its collegiate and professional schools, it does not operate any courses below the collegiate level. This would easily duplicate the enrollment in all the other Negro institutions combined in courses of like grade and character. Advantage and opportunity confer obligation. Howard University must, therefore, by sheer force of circumstances, assume first place in the higher learning and life of the Negro peoples or fall below the level of its opportunity and popular expectation.

All Negro schools and colleges are emergencies from the same background. They grew out of the smoke and fire of the Civil War, and the patriotic missionarism of emancipation. General O. O. Howard, a well-known hero of the Civil War, was the founder and first President of this University which bears his name as well as the impress of his spirit. He was at the time Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and focussed upon the task of Negro education the patriotic, religious, and philanthropic sentiment of the American people. It might be said that the University was reared on these three pillars. The fundamental aim of the founders was to build up an enlightened leadership within the race. To do this it was necessary to refute derogatory dogmas hoary with age and tradition. An enslaved people had not been permitted to taste of the tree of knowledge, which is the tree of good and evil. This coveted tree has been zealously and jealously guarded by the flaming sword of prejudice, kept keen and bright by avarice and cupidity. It was said that the Negro could not be educated. The missionaries refuted the charge by educating him. Phyllis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker and Frederick Douglass were looked upon as freaks of nature. Experience soon showed that Negro youth fresh from the yoke of slavery could master the white man’s knowledge, so-called, in the same length of time and with comparable degree of thoroughness, as the most favored youth of the most favored race.

Nowhere in all history has education so fully vindicated its claim as the process of unlocking and releasing the higher powers and faculties of human nature. The circumstances amid which this work had its inception read like the swiftly moving scenes of a mighty drama. In track of the victorious army of the North there followed a valiant band of heroes and heroines to do battle in a worthier cause. Theirs was no carnal warfare; it was the battle against the powers of darkness entrenched in the ignorance and poverty of an imbruted race. A worthier or more heroic band has never furnished theme for sage or bard. They were sustained by an unbounded zeal amounting almost to fanaticism, and were drunk with the new wine of human enthusiasm. They gave the highest proof that the nineteenth century furnished, that the religion of the Christ was not a dead formula of barren abstract moralism, but a living vital power. The pen of the beneficiary never tires portraying the virtues of the benefactor. Their monument is builded in the hearts and hopes of a race struggling upward from ignorance to enlightenment, from incompetence to efficiency. It was in this wise that Howard University and its sister institutions were born.

Howard University assumed the name and rank of a university from the beginning. To project an institution of learning on the highest intellectual standards for a race that had not yet learned the use of letters was an astounding feat of faith. But the faith of the founders has been abundantly vindicated by the fruits of their foundation. Howard University not only assumed the name, but the several departments with range and reaches of studies which justified the title of university according to the prevailing standards of American institutions of learning. In addition to the regular collegiate courses, it carried departments of agriculture, theology, law and medicine. These have been continued practically as projected down to the present time. This institution, like all others of its class, had to begin with the primary grades of instruction, as it was intended to meet the needs of a race at the zero point of culture. But by reason of the rapid progress of the education of the Negro race at large, it soon found it expedient to eliminate the lower grades one by one, until it now operates only degree courses of a collegiate and professional character.

Howard University has thus modernized and extended its curriculum until it now has a recognized place in the sisterhood of American colleges. It is on the accredited list of the Association of Schools and Colleges of the Middle States and Maryland, which includes such nationally known institutions as Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.

Howard University was chartered as a university for the education of youth in the liberal arts and sciences. At that time education was extolled chiefly in its cultural and humanitarian aspects. The stress of emphasis was laid on manhood rather than mechanism. The man was educated for his worth rather than his work. To be somebody counted for more than to do something. Produce the man, the rest will follow. The chief aim of the founders of Howard University as of other Negro institutions of like character was to develop a body of Negro men and women with disciplined faculties and liberalized powers with the hope and expectation that they would quickly assume their place as leaders of the life of the masses by virtue of the rightful claim and authority of the higher culture. There has been a great change in educational thought and opinion since that day. The older advocacy was much more complimentary to the inherent claims and dignity of humanity than the modern vocational point of view. The vocational objective of education, however, has proved the more persuasive, so that our entire educational fabric is more or less dominated by the modern bias. Howard University, along with the rest, has had to shift the basis of its plea in harmony with the newer demand. But the motive, reason, end in view remain the same. Its new objective as the old is to develop leaders for the wise guidance and direction of the masses of the Negro race. Wherever the blind lead the blind, the whole procession is headed for the inevitable ditch. For want of vision the people still perish. Howard University merely interprets the old ideal in terms of the modern day requirements. The Negro race has as yet no leisure class. There are no scholars or literati devoted to the pure love of learning whose ulterior aim is to influence public thought and opinion through the subtle influence of letters. By reason of the material poverty of the race every educated Negro must first make a living for himself. The necessities of a livelihood absorb a large part of his energies. He must exert his leadership in connection with his vocation. On scanning the last catalogue one might be disposed to look upon Howard University as a purely vocational school. Its departments comprise the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Education, the College of Applied Sciences, the School of Commerce and Finance, the School of Music, the School of Public Health, the School of Religion, the School of Law, the School of Medicine, the School of Dentistry and the School of Pharmacy. The vocational aim is connoted in the very captions of the departments into which the work is divided. Perhaps not a single one of those who receive the pure arts degree will devote himself to non-vocational scholarship but will enter immediately upon the study of one of the professions or upon some practical pursuit.

The last commencement program contains the list of 330 graduates, distributed as follows: Bachelor of Arts, 52; Bachelor of Science, 43; Bachelor of Science in Commerce, 9; Bachelor of Music, 6 ; Bachelor of Science in Architecture, 1; Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, 2; Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, 1; Bachelor of Science in Architecture, 1 ; Bachelor of Theology, 4; Diplomas in Theology, 4; Master of Law, 1 ; Bachelor of Law, 26; Doctor of Medicine, 72; Doctor of Dentistry, 26; Pharmaceutical Chemists, 11; Master of Arts, 3; Master of Science, 2; Second Lieutenants, U. S. R. C., 34. Of the three hundred and thirty graduates who completed their courses last June, 234 were prepared to enter immediately upon their profession or practical pursuit while the other ninety-six are making ready to follow in their train. The leadership of the Negro race must be found in professions which furnish the leader a livelihood in the meantime.

The great responsibilities that devolve upon the Negro professional man and woman make it all the more imperative, however, that their preparation should be laid upon a double basis of exact knowledge and liberal culture. Howard University does not insist less now than formerly upon the cultural idea in education, but rather that this culture should reach and ramify the professional and practical vocations. The ideal of Howard University, as the writer has interpreted it through the years, is to inculcate upon the mind of Negro youth a conscious sense of manhood through the influence of the higher culture. This aroused sense of the highest human values will manifest itself in whatever mode of service the world for the time may need. The writer in this connection may be permitted to quote what he has said in another place. “Man is more than industry, trade, commerce, politics, government, science, art, literature or religion; all of which grow out of his inherent needs and necessities. The fundamental aim of education, therefore, should be manhood rather than mechanism. The ideal is not a working man, but a man working; not a business man, but a man doing business; not a school man, but a man teaching school; not a statesman, but a man handling the affairs of state; not a medicine man, but a man practicing medicine; not a clergyman, but a man devoted to the things of the soul.” Only upon such a platform, the writer submits, could Howard University justify its claims as the national University of the colored race.

A university which claims to embody, express and impart the aims and aspirations of any group must necessarily be a social institution. It must assemble on its staff those who embody in their own personality the traditions, aims and aspirations of the community for which it is established. The Catholic University of America must be under the leadership and direction of Catholic sages, statesmen and scholars. The Jewish University whether in America or Palestine must derive its genius and inspiration from the elders of Israel. But here, as elsewhere, the anomaly of the Negro situation obtrudes itself. At the time of the foundation of Howard University and other institutions of its character the Negro race had to depend upon vicarious leadership, because it had not at that time produced a competent body of men in its own ranks with developed capacities for competent and efficient self-expression and wise self-direction. Then came the missionaries from the North with the love for God in their hearts and with the Bible in the right hand and the school books in the left. They regarded themselves, not as superior creatures, but as elder brothers. They voluntarily divested themselves of all superior claims and pretensions in order that they might the more effectually serve those who needed their help. They planted Howard University and projected it as the national institution for the training of leaders of the benefited race. They understood that their tenure was temporary.

The members of one group cannot furnish ideals for another, if they must needs live a life apart from those whom they would serve. The sentiment of the times has changed. Crystallized laws and customs, in sections where the Negro colleges are located, now make it impossible for the white man to identify his life and interests with the colored race, even if he desires so to do. The two races cannot ride in the same car, send their children to the same school, or attend the same church, and must perforce walk the streets apart. Under such circumstances a perfect meeting of minds is impossible. Any national Negro enterprise must derive its future leadership and guidance from within the race.

A national enterprise for any group is ordinarily supposed to derive its support from internal sources. There can be no stable equilibrium so long as the center of gravity falls outside. Interestingly enough, Howard University, almost from the beginning, has rested on the material maintenance of the Negro race, through its own contributions by way of tuition, and through governmental grants based upon the just dues of the Negro from the public treasury. Quite unfortunately, as the writer feels, general philanthropy that has done so much for other institutions has all but neglected the claims of this institution. The last report of the treasurer shows that for the fiscal year 1923-4, the students contributed in tuition and in other fees, $179,000. Cóngress appropriated $190,000, while donations from all other sources amounted to only $27,000. During the past two years, the Negro race has contributed $250,000 for the endowment of the Medical School to meet a like contribution from the General Education Board. And yet Howard University makes the strongest possible appeal, not merely to the self-support of the Negro himself, but for the vicarious help of American statesmanship, philanthropy and religion combined. The great objective of philanthropy in this field is to help the Negro to help himself, and to relieve the national tension around the issue of race. There is no institution in the land that is so well calculated to deal effectually with the Negro problem as a national issue as is Howard University. The right type of leadership is essential to any attempt at solution. Howard University, as we have seen, furnishes in very large part the leadership for the race.

In 1879, the President of Howard University persuaded Congress to vote a grant of $10,000 to aid Howard University because of the national character of the type of work it was doing. From that time to the present the annual congressional grants have gradually increased, until the fiscal year 1924, the allotment amounted to $365,000. The total sum appropriated during the forty-six years amounts to the magnificent sum of $3,568,815. As result the University has sent into the field already white unto harvest over six thousand graduates who are distributed over the entire range of the professional and practical callings and are scattered over the entire area wherever any considerable number of Negroes reside. Congress is challenged to isolate a like sum that has resulted in so much national service and advantage as the amount devoted to this national University of the Negro race.

But a national Negro university must be a conscious and recognized center of the higher life and cultural interests of the race. Howard University has gathered about itself more than a hundred Negro educators, who are filling its various chairs of instruction. There cannot be duplicated anywhere in the world such an aggregation of Negro educators, scholars and thinkers. With such a nucleus, Howard must become in due time the recognized center of Negro scholarship, especially for the fostering and development of those special studies of race history and of the pressing contemporary problems of race relations which are, in last analysis, the special field and functions of such an institution. There exists as yet no such center in spite of the obvious need for one. Every group, coming into cultural maturity, needs its Forum and its Acropolis. A national Negro university must shed the light of reason on the particular issues of Negro life and add the guidance of science to the tangled issues of race adjustment. A body of intellectual, moral and spiritual élite, consecrated to these ideals and co-operating in this aim, is calculated to put a new front on the whole scheme of racial life and aspiration. Under the stimulus of such a conception of its mission, Howard University, or the institution that most zealously undertakes it, will become the Mecca of ambitious Negro youth from all parts of the land and from all lands.

It is the internal urge of this service, racial and national, that more than any external pressure or urgency of educational segregation gives the Negro college of the present its truest reason for being. What is the need of Howard University, one might ask, when every first-class university in the North and West is open to any candidate qualified to meet its requirements without regard to race or color? The very fact that an institution would exclude a candidate who measures up to its intellectual, moral and financial standards, merely on the basis of race, is ample proof that it is not first class. Few institutions that are zealous to maintain good repute in the eyes of the world would have the candor to acknowledge such basis of exclusion without apology. Colored youth in increasing numbers are entering Northern institutions and are gaining distinction in both the intellectual and in the athletic arenas. Some go so far as to deprecate the existence of distinctively Negro colleges and universities, claiming that capable colored youth can find accommodation in institutions, which can furnish superior advantages and facilities to those any Negro school is likely to possess. It would be absurd for Howard University or any other Negro school to claim that it can match the material and intellectual facilities of those great educational establishments with millions of wealth and centuries of tradition. One might as well ask, or had better ask, the rationale of Jewish Seminaries or of Methodist colleges and universities. These racial and denominational schools impart to the membership of their community something which the general educational institution is wholly unable to inculcate. But for the Negro college, Negro scholarship would decay, and Negro leadership would be wanting in effectiveness and zeal. The Negro college must furnish stimulus to hesitant Negro scholarship, garner, treasure and nourish group tradition, enlighten both races with a sense of the cultural worth and achievement of the constituency it represents, and supply the cultural guidance of the race.

The insurgence of race consciousness is indeed the most noticeable feature in the trend of modern day tendencies. With it, the place of the Negro in the general scheme of things is growing more defined. The primary need of the race is a philosophy of life, whereby hope, courage and ambition can be maintained amidst an environment which seems hostile and crushing. This philosophy must be based upon the fundamental principles of democracy and human brotherhood, yet it must reckon with those existing circumstances and conditions which would frustrate these great ideals. The Negro race must live and move and have its being amidst the difficulties and vicissitudes of the tangled issues of race adjustment. Ambitious and high-minded Negro youth must preserve the spirit of optimism and hope. Pessimism enfeebles the faculties, paralyzes the energies and sours the soul. The race must be redeemed from the fatuity of supine self-surrender and the impotency of despair. The national Negro University should supply this defensive philosophy. Every minor and suppressed group in the world looks to its central seat of learning for the emission of that kindly light by which they are to be led to the goal after which they strive. Howard University must keep the race spirit courageous and firm, and direct it in harmony with ideals of God, country and truth.

Howard University, located at the seat of government by which it is fostered and encouraged, deriving its student body from thirty-six states and eleven foreign countries, justifying its claim for patriotic and philanthropic support, appealing to all right-minded Americans for sympathy and co-operation in carrying out its great mission, is destined to become in truth and deed the National Negro University. From this unique center of advantage and opportunity its lines reach to the remotest ramification of our national domain. From this wide area it draws the picked youth of an awakening race and sends them forth to recruit the high places of racial service and leadership.

Such is the function and mission of Howard University. To this end it appeals to the interest, encouragement and support of all who believe that in the scheme of human development, the mind must quicken, stimulate, uplift and sustain the masses.