many inquiries to find out what was being done outside of the public schools by the white people toward training the Negro either morally, industrially or intellectually—and I was astonished to find that it was next to nothing. The Negro is, of course, not welcome at the white churches or Sunday schools, and the sentiment is so strong against teaching the Negro that it is a brave Southern man or woman, indeed, who dares attempt anything of the sort. I did find, however, that the Central Presbyterian Church of Atlanta conducted a Negro Sunday School. Of this Dr. Theron H. Rice, the pastor, said:

[Pg 55]“The Sunday School conducted in Atlanta by my church is the outcome of the effort of some of the most earnest and thoughtful of our people to give careful religious training to the Negroes of this generation and thus to conserve the influence begun with the fathers and mothers and the grandfathers and grandmothers of these coloured children when they were taught personally by their devoted Christian masters and mistresses. The work is small in point of the number reached, but it has been productive of sturdy character and law-abiding citizenship.”

[Pg 55]

A white man or woman, and especially a Northern white man or woman, in Atlanta who teaches Negroes is rigorously ostracised by white society. I visited one of the Negro colleges where there are a number of white teachers from the North. We had quite a talk. When I came to leave one of the teachers said to me:

“You don’t know how good it seems to talk with some one from the outside world. We work here year in and year out without a white visitor, except those who have some necessary business with the institution.”

Explaining the attitude toward these Northern teachers (and we must understand just how the Southern people feel in this matter), a prominent clergyman said that a lady who made a social call upon a teacher in that institution would not feel secure against having to meet Negroes socially and that when the call was returned a similar embarrassing situation might be created.

Apologising for Helping Negroes

Just in this connection: I found a very remarkable and significant letter published in the Orangeburg, S. C., News, signed by a well-to-do white citizen who thus apologises for a kind act to a Negro school:

I had left my place of business here on a business trip a few miles below, on returning I came by the 

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