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HOWARD UNIVERSITY.
IX
per cent, in 1899-1900. In other ways, which will suggest themselves to persons
familiar with conditions in this District, the effects of the prejudice have appeared.
Fortunately, outside of the District, the white graduates everywhere and the colored
graduates in many, perhaps most places, take rank with their fellow-physicians with
out regard to race or place of graduation.
The cure of this prejudice, as of most evils against humanity, depends partly
on correct information, but mainly on the application of the golden rule, which it
may not be out of place here to recite : “Whatsoever ye would that men should do
to you, do ye even so to them.” Or, as the Declaration of Independence puts it, in
theory at least: “ We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
This theory, which is
the foundation of our Government, is sadly limited in its practical application, which
often depends on the sex, race or pecuniary condition of the individual.
The history of a third of a century of the existence of the University has dem
onstrated that racial antagonism is not so deep and strong but it may lessen and
even be extinguished by contact of educated, refined and otherwise respectable in
dividuals. And insofar as the mass of any race is raised up to a reasonable level of
education, refinement and otherwise respectability, accompanied, as such elevation
is likely to be, by acquirement of property, to that extent is racial antagonism
diminished. Dr. Patton wrote in his history: " Under such influences, little by
little, by no compulsion, through no artificial process, with slight or no strife or
bitterness, prejudice will abate and mostly disappear, and the two races will find a
gradual solution of the unhappy problem which now creates anxiety and unhappi
ness. In Howard University, the flourishing Medical Department has furnished a
noteworthy illustration of the operation of this cause. Attracted by the ability of
the Faculty, the opportunities of the adjacent United States hospital, and the cheap
ness of the tuition, white students, male and female, have gradually offered them
selves, have been content to sit by the colored students in the lecture room, and to
work with them at the dissecting table ; have competed with them for the honors,
sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, until now they largely outnumber the
negroes and form the bulk of the graduating classes. At a recent medical com
mencement [1887], in these circumstances, the valedictory address of the medical
class was delivered by a negro, that of the dental class by a white gentleman, and
that of the class in pharmacy by a white lady. The race and sex questions each
settled itself on the base of intellectual merit.” And in regard to the woman
question he also said : " For many years, and amid much ridicule, Howard Univer
sity was the only institution of higher learning or of professional instruction in the
District of Columbia which admitted lady students. Its success has induced the
other institutions to imitate its example.”