and aspirations of their several communions, apart from the
general educational life of the nation as a whole, in which they
share on equal terms with the rest. In a much deeper sense,
under the present conditions of his group life, does the Negro
stand in need of local schools and colleges with a national
university as a capstone devoted to racial aims and objectives.
Howard University assumes the title and function of the national Negro University without egotism or vain boasting, and
with the appreciation of the place and importance and special
spheres of influence of other worthy institutions of learning
and service in the same field. Chartered in 1867 by the Congress of the United States, it is located at the National Capital,
and is supported in large part by government appropriations.
The current catalogue carries an enrollment of 2,046 students
of the colored race drawn from thirty-six states and eleven
foreign countries. Its essential objective from the beginning
has been to develop a leadership for the reclamation and
uplift of the Negro race through the influence of the higher
culture. Further, Howard University can modestly claim that
it is the only institution of its class that maintains the full
complement of standardized academic and professional departments which go to make up the normal American university.
With over two thousand students in its collegiate and professional schools, it does not operate any courses below the collegiate level. This would easily duplicate the enrollment in
all the other Negro institutions combined in courses of like
grade and character. Advantage and opportunity confer obligation. Howard University must, therefore, by sheer force
of circumstances, assume first place in the higher learning and life of the Negro peoples or fall below the level of its opportunity and popular expectation.
All Negro schools and colleges are emergencies from the same background. They grew out of the smoke and fire of the Civil War, and the patriotic missionarism of emancipation. General O. O. Howard, a well-known hero of the Civil War, was the founder and first President of this University which bears his name as well as the impress of his spirit. He was at the time Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, and
