TABLE 23.-Degrees and certificates granted in negro land-grant colleges in 1928

As shown by the tabulation, a total of 296 degrees was granted by 11 of the institutions in 1928. While seven different types of degrees are awarded by the colleges, by far the greater proportion is either bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degrees. Seven institutions granted bachelor of arts degrees, the total being 60. The largest award by any college was 18, while in the remainder the number varied from 9 to 3. Bachelor of science degrees were granted by 9 institutions and exceeded in number all other types of degrees. The total was 200 of which 100 were awarded by one institution and 42 by another. In the remaining 7 colleges the number ranged from 13 to 5. Only two colleges granted bachelor of science degrees in agriculture, the number being 5 in one and 7 in the other, while bachelors' degrees in mechanics and home economics were awarded by 2 other institutions. Two bachelor of arts degrees in business education, 6 bachelor of arts degrees in education, 1 bachelor of science degree in education, and 2 bachelor of science degrees in music were granted by another college. Of the total number of degrees, 53 per cent were granted to men students and 47 per cent to women students.

There

Certificates granted by the negro land-grant colleges in 1928 totaled 409. All of the institutions with three exceptions awarded certificates. One institution granted as high as 138 certificates. were three other colleges that granted between 40 and 50 certificates, one between 30 and 40, two between 20 and 30, four between 10 and 20, and three fewer than 10. Authority for granting of degrees or certificates varies in the different colleges. In six institutions the board of trustees authorizes the awarding of degrees at their regular sessions. This authority is delegated to the president in 3 colleges, to the president and a committee in 1, to the president and the faculty in 1, to the local administration in 1, and to the classification committee in 1.

Summer Sessions

The operation of summer sessions is one of the important educational services rendered by the negro land-grant colleges to their States.

With the work largely concentrated in education, the institutions provide opportunity for negro public-school teachers to secure additional training during their summer vacation. All the colleges with one exception conduct summer sessions. Figures have already been presented on the enrollments which indicate that attendance at the schools is very large.

The summer session is administered by the president of the institution in 11 cases, by the dean of the college of arts and science in 2, by the dean of the teacher training in 1, and by a special director in 2. Three of the colleges report that the summer session is oper ated as a separate enterprise from the regular college program. In 11 others it is conducted as a part of the collegiate work of the institutions. Two colleges did not submit information on this point. Regular college credit is allowed students attending in the summer sessions in most instances. The maximum number of semester hours for which the student may register varies in the different schools, depending on the length of the summer session. The amount ranges from 8 semester hours in the 5-weeks summer session to 13 hours in the 8-weeks summer session. The teaching staff is fairly well organized in the summer schools, the number of instructors being sufficient to meet the needs. In some cases the teachers are lacking in training. An inquiry into the subject revealed that the academic standing of the work in the summer session of eight institutions is on the same basis as the regular college work while in the seven others a difference exists. The negro land-grant colleges do not exchange professors for summer-session work, a practice which would prove mutually beneficial both to the teachers and the students.

Chapter V. Conclusions and Recommendations

In the foregoing chapters the present status of the 17 negro landgrant colleges has been described in its broader aspects. Some comparisons have been made showing tendencies of growth. From the standpoint of the future of these institutions it is necessary to consider the influences that have a bearing on their development and on the improvement of their service.

Because of the conditions under which the institutions were established and under which they have grown, the program of the negro land-grant colleges constitutes a unique and highly important educational experiment. Instead of coming into being as the result of a slow and steady period of evolution with educational programs crystallizing after a long period of trial and error and with a large and growing body of well-prepared college students supporting them, the negro land-grant colleges were established for the most part in haste and without an adequate supporting student body. For years the attempt to bring the negro land-grant colleges to the full stature of agricultural and mechanical colleges has failed because of an inadequate medium in which to grow and because of artificial remedies used to develop them.

The negro land-grant colleges have nevertheless gained strength and prestige. It still remains to be seen whether collegiate curricula strongly infused with vocational courses can prove their worth as a compromise between the stricter types of professional courses in agriculture and the mechanic arts and those purely vocational in character. The experiment is not the same for each institution or for each State.

During the past decade the negro land-grant colleges became conscious of the need for higher and more uniform concepts of collegiate training as they apply to the major training divisions. This has been brought about by the demands for standardized courses in teacher training and premedical work and by the desire to bring technical training to the same level as that given in the white landgrant colleges. Having become conscious of their responsibilities as colleges the program for the coming decade must be one of diversification, not on the basis of opinions or traditional views, but rather

111490°-30-VOL II- -58

909

on the basis of scientific knowledge of the needs of both the negro and white populations in each State.

The problem of the negro land-grant colleges in terms of the law and in terms of the needs of the people is to universalize self-support and individual development for the rising generation of negro youth not on the single level of effort which was formerly emphasized, but on higher educational planes that are now open and that are gradually opening to those who are adequately prepared. Emphasis should also be placed on the importance of cooperative effort in the realm of business endeavor.

The leaders of negro land-grant colleges must, therefore, refocus their objectives. With the cooperation of their States they must prepare leaders and teachers who will be devoted to the complete rehabilitation of the economic, social, and spiritual activities of their people. Fortunately, two forces are now actively at work in strengthening the negro land-grant colleges. The student medium is rapidly increasing through the increased support of negro elementary schools and high schools. Educational standards are being set up for the institutions by the State boards of education, regional accrediting organizations, and the professional schools.

Furthermore, the negro land-grant colleges should look forward to an exceptional period of development within the next decade because of the rapid growth of industrial activity in the Southern States. The increase in wealth resulting from these activities should continually release opportunities for those who are prepared.

It should continually be borne in mind that the negro land-grant colleges are designed to give both technical and general training. However, as nearly two-thirds of the students in negro colleges are taught in privately endowed colleges and universities which emphasize cultural and religious training, it is particularly incumbent upon the negro land-grant colleges to give the proper stress to technical objectives and in no case allow these objectives to be lost to sight.

To this end it is desirable that the authorities of the negro landgrant colleges develop a program of publicity which will make clear to negro parents and youth the advantage of the types of training that are offered in these colleges. Particular attention should be given in the future to the selection of officials of all ranks who are not only in sympathy with the technical programs of these colleges, but who have been thoroughly trained in technical fields and who have had sufficient experience with the agricultural, industrial, and educational activities of the Southern States. Confidence may thus be developed in the special work of these schools.

If the negro land-grant colleges are to fulfill their destiny, if they are to become the prime instruments of development of the Negro

race, and if they are to achieve a joint contribution with white universities and colleges in the development of an intelligent and prosperous citizenship, the leaders of both races must have a greater understanding of the functions of the negro land-grant colleges. When the leaders have come to appreciate their significance, the public can then be taught that the State has provided and will provide an education and training which will give to every ambitious negro youth a chance to attain his fullest development at a minimum cost of money.

No one who has regularly visited the negro land-grant colleges over a long period of years can fail to be impressed with the great changes that have been wrought in the character of the students, in their personal appearance, their attitudes toward work and study, and their increasing sense of responsibility. This is caused in a large part by the improvement in teaching. A decade past much of the college work was formal and vague. It was out of "adjustment with real life," with the purpose of the land-grant college. This vagueness of knowledge led to pretentiousness, and in some cases a flippancy which was discouraging to those who had been induced to support higher education for the negroes. To-day the negro student comes in contact with men and women of better preparation; teachers who are capable of imparting scientific truth, and imparting a true love of knowledge for its own sake and with some consciousness of the meaning of intellectual honesty. In the decades past humility of the student was obtained largely through social restraint both in and out of the college; to-day there is a quietness and dignity entering the negro student body developed through a clearer knowledge of the laws of nature and of the historic forces that are advancing or retarding civilization. The confraternity of white and negro college students in leading centers of the South working in behalf of civic betterment is a recent development which points the way to greater opportunities in which the negro college graduate may participate in building up a common life.

As the future points to an unlimited economic development in the South, it appears that the well-trained negro youth can look forward toward a greater participation in the different kinds of work which this development promises. The negro land-grant colleges should unite more closely with the white land-grant colleges in establishing their programs of agricultural training. Surveys should be made in the industrial fields which will disclose new openings for those with training in the mechanic arts or in the trades, and at the same time expand and develop opportunities already open. Home-economics education should create high standards of home living that will eventually bring increased happiness to thousands of families who