Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 72.djvu/466

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462

POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

We may note the advantage gained by the white people of the south if they are relieved of the education of the colored people:

In the Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1899-1900, Vol. II., p. 2501, we find that during the thirty years up to that time, from 1870, the south expended $109,000,000 on the education of the colored people, or say $3,600,000 annually. This money should be added to the educational fund for the white children, and these funds must be gradually increased until they are doubled before these children will have anything like adequate educational advantages.

The average salary of a teacher is not $30 per month, while the average salary of a brickmason is at least double this amount. Further, the facilities that these teachers have had of obtaining knowledge and of equipping themselves for teachers have been very meager, so that many of them are very poorly educated. Hence there is a dearth of knowledge as well as of money in the schools, colleges and even universities. This unfortunate condition must be admitted, when we note that out of a total of $157,000,000 of productive funds held by American colleges, the south has but $15,000,000; the valuation of grounds and buildings of southern colleges is $8,500,000 in a total $146,000,000. The total annual income available for higher education in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi-

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↑ no social circle of their own cohabit as readily with the pure black as with another mulatto. Hence, left to themselves, among every 400 children of the second generation there would probably be:

361	(blacks),
38	(three fourths black, one fourth white),
1	(one half black, one half white);
while among 8,000 children of the third generation there probably will be:
6,859	(blacks),
1,083	(seven eighths black, one eighth white),
57	(three fourths black, one fourth white),
1	(one half black, one half white).

In other words, among 400 children of the second generation, there would probably be one child that has as much white blood in it as there was in its grandmother, and among 8,000 of the third generation there would probably be one as near white as its great-grandmother. Thus negro returns to negro. In a similar manner it is seen that the number of children (three fourths white, and one fourth black) that are born in the second generation from mulatto women (one half black, one half white) is very small; while the number of those that are (seven eighths white, one eighth black) in the third generation born from women (three fourths white, one fourth black) is also small, etc. The ultimate white child is correspondingly rare. Thus even if illicit sexual intercourse between the races existed to the extent supposed in the above hypothesis, it is evident that under the present conditions negro blood can not permeate the white. Mr. Bruce ("Plantation Negro," p. 243) claims that this intercourse practically does not exist, except in the cities, and that it is on the decline in the cities. Certain it is that miscegenation in the south is meeting with little toleration.

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[1] social circle of their own cohabit as readily with the pure black as with another mulatto. Hence, left to themselves, among every 400 children of the second generation there would probably be:

361 (blacks),

38 (three fourths black, one fourth white),

1 (one half black, one half white);

while among 8,000 children of the third generation there probably will be:

6,859 (blacks),

1,083 (seven eighths black, one eighth white),

57 (three fourths black, one fourth white),

1 (one half black, one half white).

In other words, among 400 children of the second generation, there would probably be one child that has as much white blood in it as there was in its grandmother, and among 8,000 of the third generation there would probably be one as near white as its great-grandmother. Thus negro returns to negro. In a similar manner it is seen that the number of children (three fourths white, and one fourth black) that are born in the second generation from mulatto women (one half black, one half white) is very small; while the number of those that are (seven eighths white, one eighth black) in the third generation born from women (three fourths white, one fourth black) is also small, etc. The ultimate white child is correspondingly rare. Thus even if illicit sexual intercourse between the races existed to the extent supposed in the above hypothesis, it is evident that under the present conditions negro blood can not permeate the white. Mr. Bruce ("Plantation Negro," p. 243) claims that this intercourse practically does not exist, except in the cities, and that it is on the decline in the cities. Certain it is that miscegenation in the south is meeting with little toleration.

[1]