# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1906_S51
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1906. 51

whites were present. On the basis of Matt. 7:24–27 I spoke on that occasion on "The Two Great Educational Institutions of Our Country — State and Church" [printed in English] and drew a comparison between the education offered by the State and that offered by the Church.

With a short service the institution was opened on Monday morning. About half of the expected pupils were present at the opening. The stragglers arrived one after another in the course of the next two months. Coming late is an evil with which all Negro institutions in the state have to contend, and indeed without being able to abolish it. In part the Negroes only slowly accustom themselves to punctuality and fixed orders, in part they must also work as long as possible in order to earn the necessary means for a few months' stay at a higher institution. We live in the hope that in a few years we shall be strong enough to shut the institution's doors on the chronic stragglers. When the savings they have brought along are used up — usually after about three months — one must either let them go to work or grant them support. The one is as agreeable to most of the present Negro generation as the other. To loaf around for a few months at a school many a Negro youth regards as a pleasant recreation. He then returns to his surroundings, puts a gold-rimmed pair of spectacles on his nose, plays the scholar, throws about Latin vocabulary and big words whose meaning he does not know, and the ignorant Negro world gapes at him with open eyes and mouth. He has admission to the houses of the best families; the finest chicken is roasted for him; the Negro girls quarrel over him, for he plays the gentleman; his hair is anointed with oil and perfumed, he wears shirts from the laundry and polished shoes; he can recite, tell stories, perhaps also sing and play the guitar. The preacher of the largest church in the little town sees the student on the last bench of his church, where he has naturally seated himself out of modesty, and he is invited "to come higher up" [printed in English]. He does so reluctantly, but he follows the invitation and greets the preacher with elegant manners, shakes the hands of the elders condescendingly, nods smilingly to the women and girls of his acquaintance, and now takes out notebook and pencil to write down notes. The next day a eulogy of the pastor, his sermon and his congregation appears in the newspaper. Incidentally it is also remarked that the student N. was present, who has studied at the university or the college and is now enjoying a necessary rest with his mother, Mrs. X. What does he live on? On his "wits" [printed in English] or on the sweat of his old mother, a washerwoman, who denies herself much in order to help her "gifted" son complete his studies, but who long before — for he never finishes — knocks at the door of the poorhouse. This is the story of thousands of young Negroes who on the benches of higher schools some