有才能的十分之一 The Talented Tenth

    必須使黑人種族中有才能的十分之一成為本民族的思想領袖及文化傳教士。

    W．E．B．杜波伊斯(1868－1963)是20世紀上半葉最有影響的黑人知識份子，出生於麻塞諸塞州的大巴靈頓，畢業於菲斯克大學，獲哈佛大學哲學博士學位。1903年，在其最著名的著作《黑人的靈魂》中，杜波伊斯準確地預言到：「二十世紀的問題是種族歧視下的膚色界線問題。」由於發現社會科學不足以反抗歧視黑人的法律，不足以反抗剝奪公民權、私刑以及其他種族歧視的行為，杜波伊斯為了影響公眾輿論而轉向政治活動。作為全國有色人種協會(1909)的創建者之一，杜波伊斯從l 9l0年至1934年一直擔任該會會刊《危機》的主編。杜波伊斯的一生，大部分時間都在與自己的矛盾傾向作鬥爭，一種為證明自己作為非裔美國人的身份而陷入的矛盾衝突。他在《黑人的靈魂》一書中寫道： 「一個人總感到自己的雙重性──一方面是美國人，另一方面是黑人；兩顆靈魂，兩種思想，兩種無法妥協的抗爭，在同一個黑人身軀中兩種衝突的理想；只是其自身的頑強毅力才免使自己的身軀被撕得破碎。」

    在1903年發表的《黑人問題》中，杜波伊斯批判了布克‧T‧華盛頓對黑人進行工藝教育的主張。問題的分歧在於什麼樣的教育才能最有效地使黑人從貧困中擺脫出來，獲得平等。杜波伊斯主張，黑人中「有才能的十分之一」應接受大學教育，使他們成為整個黑人種族的領袖。

    黑人種族，與其他任何一個種族一樣，將由本民族的非凡人材來拯救。因此，黑人的教育問題應首先解決其中「有才能的十分之一」。這一問題牽涉到如何培養黑人種族中的精英，使他們能夠帶領群為脫離本民族及其它民族中劣等人的致命感染。訓練人 才是項艱巨複雜的任務，其技巧是教育專家的研究課題，其目的則體現了預言家的遠見。假如金錢作為訓練目的，我們將培養出賺錢的東西；假如我們將技術工藝作為教育目標，我們將擁有工匠，而從本質上看，並非人 才。只有將塑造人格作為學校工作的目標，我們才能擁有人才。人格的培養目標包括：智力，寬厚的同情心，昨天與今天的世界知識，以及人類與世界關係的知識。這才是構成真實生活的高等教育所需的課程……打一開始，就是由黑人種族中受過教育的有識之士來領導和推動群眾。使他們的努力受阻、難以成功的唯一障礙是奴役制及種族偏見，因為奴役制除了將弱者的存在合法化，除了使種族內部領導的自然作用消失外，還能是什麼呢?……

    今天有一種時髦的說法，……認為，假如擁有自由，黑人領袖本來應產生 於莊稼漢，而不是產生於參議院。這是一種愚蠢而又有害的謊言。黑奴服苦役二百五十年之久，直到參議院通過戰爭修正案，他們的苦役一無所獲。今天半自由的黑奴，除非贏得政治權利，獲得有正當保護的公民地位，否則再過二百五十年，他們可能仍然在地裏服苦役，仍然像現在這樣，貧困交加、愚昧無知，成為流氓手中的玩物。這一點頭腦清醒的人嘴裏不敢說，但心裏卻很清楚……

    那麼，一個正在鬥爭中的民族如何才能培養出自己的領袖，如何使已經站立起來的少數人增強手中的力量呢? 答案只有一個：青年中最有能力的最佳人選必須接受本國的大學教育。我們不願為黑人大學到底該教什麼以及怎樣教而爭論──我們倒願意承認，每個人，每個民族都需要自己獨特的課程。然而有一點是肯定的，即，大學是人類的發明，它通過訓練聰明正直的人，使知識和文化一代代傳下去。人類的其他發明擔當不起這項工作，即使是職業和工藝學校也擔當不起。

    不是所有人都能上大學，但一部分人必須上大學。每個分離的團體，分離的民族都必須要有自己的「酵母」，必須為少數有才能的人建立培訓中心，在中心裏，人不必為了生存而從事繁重的勞役，「以致頭昏眼亂，以致除了果腹別無更高追求，以致崇拜金子勝過崇拜上帝。在中心裏，有真正的教育，起先只有自由人當中的上帝寵兒才能受到的教育。我們一開始本應從哪 裡著手建設呢? 老鼠把眼睛埋在土裏含糊其詞地說：「當然從底層開始。」不錯！就是要從底層開始，從最底一層開始，從知識大廈的最後一層開始，從知識海洋的最底層開始；在那裏，正義的根須深深地紮進真理土壤的最底層。人們起初就是照此開始行動的。他們創辦了大學，大學又萌發出師範學校，師範學校送出了教師，師範教師的周圍又聚集著一批批其他教師，他們前往公立學校任教。一所大學可使二千人學會希臘語、拉丁語及數學，這二千人可在道德與行為舉止方面培養出五萬人，這五萬人又可使五百萬人學會勤儉，學會字母。就是這五百萬人今天擁有三十億元的財產。這種培訓曾經創造出奇跡：十九世紀最為壯觀的和平之戰。可今天人們卻一笑置之，並且擺出一副盛氣淩人的架子告訴我們，這種做法令人驚訝，純粹是一種錯誤；還告訴我們，要建立一種教育制度，恰當的做法首先是把兒童召集在一起，給他們買上書本和鋤頭，然後可去尋找教師，假如碰巧找到了，就讓他們去教兒童怎麼勞動。至於生活，他們帶著茫然的神色反問道：「怎麼，勞動與生活有聯繫嗎?」

    一個受過大學教育的黑人……是群眾領袖，理所當然的領袖。他為自己的生活社區樹立了理想，指導本社區的思想，指明本社區社會運動的航向。幾乎無需再爭論了，黑人要比大多數其他團體更需要社會領導，他們沒有可以仰靠的傳統，沒有根深蒂固的習俗，沒有緊密的家庭紐帶，沒有明確的社會等級。所有這些東西都要經過漫長、痛苦的演化而成。即使在戰前，牧師就是黑人團體的領袖，教堂則是黑人最大的社會機構。自然，牧師是無知的，而且常常是缺德的。由受過更好教育的人來取代老式的人一直是個難題。受過大學教育的牧師，通過自己的工作，以及對其他牧師與教徒的直接影響，有機會進行改革，給人以道德啟發。這麼做具有莫大的意義。

    但是，黑人大學的特殊作用卻在於培養教師。很少有人意識到靠這種作用人們完成了多重的任務，完成了多大的革命。在一代人中，為五百萬甚至更多的無知的人提供他們同族、同血統的教師，不僅是項艱巨的任務，而且是項極其重要的任務，因為它幾乎在每個黑人的眼前展現出一個可望追求到的理想，它使黑人群眾與現代文明接觸，使他們社區擁有自己的黑人領油。擁有新一代的訓練員。在這一工作中，受過大學教育的黑人先成為教師，然後是教師的教師。這裏的關鍵所在是，大學教育提供的廣博文化具有獨特的價值。缺乏生活知識，不瞭解其更廣泛的意義是黑人愚昧無知的最根本原因。培養出為了人類文化而不僅僅為養家餬口的教師，對於教育這些人來說，具有難以估價的意義……

    就南部黑人而言，主要問題是：在目前情形下，現有的教育制度該做什麼來盡可能提高黑人的文明程度? 答案似乎很清楚，即，必須強化黑人的品性，增加黑人的知識，教會他們如何謀生。毫無疑問，這些事不能同時並舉，一揮而就，同時也不能專顧某個人而忽略其他人。我們可以讓黑人兒童找到活幹，但僅僅這點還不能使先前為奴隸的種族文明化；我們也可以增加他們的世界知識，但這並不一定能使他們誠實地運用這些知識；我們也可以努力強化黑人的品性和意志，但要是他們沒吃沒穿，這又有何用? 學校建築不是教師──磚頭、灰漿與機器不能造就出人才。受過訓練，經過長期的研究與思考，有造詣的活靈魂，才能給男女兒童注入真正的生活氣息，使他們成為真正意義上的人，不管他們是黑人還是白人，是希臘人、俄羅斯人還是美國人……

    我不否認(或者似乎只是眼下否認)教會黑人工作的絕對必要性，教會黑人不斷熟練地工作的必要性。我似乎欣賞不了工藝學校為達到這一目的必定能起到的重大作用。但我的的確確要說，而且堅持認為，展望成功而被衝昏頭腦的工業主義者只是憑想像以為他們的工作能得以完成，而根本不需要為男女提供廣博的文化教育，使他們成為教師的教師，以此類推又培養出公立學校的教師……

    我是極力倡導為黑人兒童、同時也為白人兒童提供體力勞動培訓及職業教育的。我認為，戰後，除了創辦黑人辦學，黑人教育中最有價值的就是為黑人兒童增加工藝訓練。但我堅持認為，一切真正教育的目的不是使人成為木匠，而是使木匠成為人材。要使木匠成為人 才，有二種同等重要的做法，一是讓他們在自己勞動的社團和社區中擁有受過文科教育的教師和領導，讓這些人給他們及其家屬講明生活的意義，二是讓他們提高智力和技術工藝，使他們成為有效率的勞動者。要達到第一個目標需要有黑人大學以及受過大學教育的人 才──不需要很多這樣的大學，而只需要幾所質量上乘的大學；不需要太多受過大學教育的人才，但要有足夠的數量能使「麵團」發酵，能激勵群眾。使其中「有才能的十分之一」成為領袖。要達到第二個目標需要有一個完善的普通學校體系，教學質量好，地點方便，設備齊全……

    美國同胞，你們眼前的問題很清楚：這且是一個由你們罪惡、愚蠢的祖先移植來的種族。不管你們喜歡與否，數百萬黑人已在此地，並將繼續呆下去。假如你們不將他們拉起來，他們就將把你們拖下去。教育與工作是提高民族素質的槓桿。除非有正確理想的鼓舞，有智慧的指引，否則，僅有工作是不行的。教育不能只教工作──教育必須教會生活。必須使黑人種族中有才能的十分之一成為本民族的思想領袖及文化傳教士。沒有其他人能勝任這項工作，因此黑人大學必須為之培養人 才。黑人種族，跟其他任何民族一樣，將由本民族的非凡人才來拯救。

The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools－intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it－this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. . . . From the very first it has been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people that have led and elevated the mass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and retarded their efforts were slavery and race prejudice; for what is slavery but the legalized survival of the unfit and the nullification of the work of natural internal leadership? ...

      It is the fashion of today to. . . say that with freedom Negro leadership should have begun at the plow and not in the Senate－a foolish and mischievous lie; two hundred and fifty years that black serf toiled at the plow and yet that toiling was in vain till the Senate passed the war amendments; and two hundred and fifty years more the half-free serf of today may toil at his plow, but unless he have political rights and righteously guarded civic status, he will still remain the poverty-stricken and ignorant plaything of rascals, that he now is. This all sane men know even if they dare not say it. . . .

      How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained and the hands of the risen few strengthened? There can be but one answer: The best and most capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land. We will not quarrel as to just what the university of the Negro should teach or how it should teach it－1 willingly admit that each soul and each race-soul needs its own peculiar curriculum. But this is true: A university is a human invention for the transmission of knowledge and culture from generation to generation, through the training of quick minds and pure hearts, and for this work no other human invention will suffice, not even trade and industrial schools.

      All men cannot go to college but some men must; every isolated group or nation must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where m－n are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold. This is true training, and thus in the beginning were the favored sons of the freedmen trained.... Where ought they to have begun to build? At the bottom, of course, quibbles the mole with his eyes in the earth. Aye! truly at the bottom, at the very bottom; at the bottom of knowledge, down in the very depths of knowledge there where the roots of justice strike into the lowest soil of Truth. And so they did begin; they founded colleges, and up from the colleges shot normal schools, and out from the normal schools went teachers, and around the normal teachers clustered other teachers to teach the public schools; the college trained in Greek and Latin and mathematics, 2,000 men; and these men trained full 50,000 others in morals and manners, and they in turn taught thrift and the alphabet to nine millions of men, who today hold $300,000,000 of property. It was a miracle －the most wonderful peace-battle of the nineteenth century, and yet today men smile at it, and in fine superiority tell us that it was all a strange mistake; that a proper way to found a system of education is first to gather the children and buy them spelling books and hoes; afterward men may look about for teachers, if haply they may find them; or again they would teach men Work, but as for Life－why, what has Work to do with Life, they ask vacantly. . . .

      The college-bred Negro . . . is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who sets the ideals of the community where he lives, directs its thoughts, and heads its social movements. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon, no long-established customs, no strong family ties, no well-defined social classes. All these things must be slowly and painfully evolved. The preacher was, even before the war, the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their greatest social institution. Naturally this preacher -was ignorant and often immoral, and the problem of replacing the older type by better educated men has been a difficult one. Both by direct work and by direct influence on other preachers, and on congregations, the college- bred preacher has an opportunity for reformatory work and moral inspiration, the value of which cannot be overestimated.

      It has, however, been in the furnishing of teachers that the Negro college has found its peculiar function. Few persons realize how vast a work, how mighty a revolution has been thus accomplished. To furnish five millions and more of ignorant people with teachers of their own race and blood, in one generation, was not only a very difficult undertaking, but a very important one, in that it placed before the eyes of almost every Negro child an attainable ideal. It brought the masses of the blacks in contact with modern civilization, made black men the leaders of their communities and trainers of the new generation. In this work college-bred Negroes were first teachers, and then teachers of teachers. And here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value. Knowledge of life and its wider meaning has been the point of Negroes' deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been simply for breadwinning, but also for human culture, has been of inestimable value in the training of these men. . . .

      The main question, so far as the Southern Negro is concerned, is: What, under the present circumstance, must a system of education do in order to raise the Negro as quickly as possible in the scale of civilization? The answer to this question seems to me clear: It must strengthen the Negro's character, increase his knowledge, and teach him to earn a living. Now it goes without saying, that it is hard to do all these things simultaneously or suddenly, and that at the same time it will not do to give all the attention to one and neglect the others; we could give black boys trades, but that alone will not civilize a race of ex-slaves; we might simply increase their knowledge of the world, but this would not necessarily make them wish to use this knowledge honestly; we might seek to strengthen character and purpose, but to what end if this people have nothing to eat or to wear?. . . Schoolhouses do not teach themselves－piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian, or American. . . .

     I would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem to depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play in the accomplishment of these ends, but I do say, and insist upon it, that it is industrialism drunk with its vision of success to imagine that its work can be accomplished without providing for the training of broadly cultured men and women to teach its own teachers, and to teach the teachers of the public schools. . . .

      I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black boys, and for white boys, too. I believe that next to the founding of Negro colleges the most valuable addition to Negro education since the war has been industrial training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men; there are two means of making the carpenter a man, each equally important; the first is to give the group and community in which he works liberally trained teachers and leaders to teach him and his family what life means; the second is to give him sufficient intelligence and technical skill to make him an efficient work- man; the first object demands the Negro college and college-bred men－not a quantity of such colleges, but a few of excellent quality; not too many college-bred men, but enough to leaven the lump, to inspire the masses, to raise the Talented Tenth to leadership; the second object demands a good system of common schools, well-taught, conveniently located, and properly equipped....

      Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work－it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.