Note 141 — Chapter XIV

Though the Negro is not assimilable, he is here to stay; he should therefore be helped to develop along his own lines. It is desirable not to subject him to too severe a competition with whites; yet such competition, acting as a stimulus, is probably responsible for part of his rapid progress during the last century, a progress which would not have been possible in a country where Negroes competed only with each other. The best way to temper competition is by differentiation of function, but this principle should not be carried to the extent of pocketing the Negro in blind-alley occupations where development is impossible. As mental tests show him to be less suited to literary education than are the whites, it seems likely that agriculture offers the best field for him.