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CAMPUS MIRROR
4
The World Student
Service Fund
The World Student Service Fund,
which represents the Far Eastern Stu
dent Service Fund and the European
Student Service Fund, is campaigning
to raise $100,000 from American stu
dents for the relief of students who are
suffering because of the war and for the
future educated leadership in Asia and
Europe. The opportunity to help pro
vide for the education of the two conti
nents is purposefully opened to stu
dents of this country. More enthusiasm
has been evident on the part of the givers
and on the part of the receivers when
there is self-denial among students.
There has been some help going from
this country which the receivers thought
came from the government or some phi
lanthropists.
In China, the approximately 41.000
students have seen their universities
blown into bits or occupied by the ene
my, their libraries burned and their lab
oratories shattered. There is a limited
teaching personnel. Often the students
and teachers must work together on the
basis of memory and old notes. The
spirit of the Chinese students is notable
in the fact that though in need of relief
themselves, they sent a small but sacri
ficial gift to help European student re
lief.
In Europe, the needs are even more
complicated. Arrangements need to be
set up among three groups, namely, (1)
the refugee students. Among these are
the ones who are in countries other than
their own and who cannot return home.
These are without funds, often without
the right to work for their own support.
(2) The victims of war who are concen
trated in camps without many of the
ordinary necessities for existence, and
(3) the interned soldiers.
In addition to the interned prisoners,
and refugees, there are women students
who are dependent on aid. This problem
is immeasurably increased by the fact
that the victims of war are not restricted
to combatants.
The money sent to the World Student
Service Fund may be earmarked for any
section of the work. Of the funds not
so directed, 50% will be sent to China
and of the amount allotted to Europe, a
part may be appropriated to meet the
needs of refugee students in the United
States.
Opportunity is open to Spelman stu
dents to accept the challenge to help
fellow-students who are suffering.
“Learning without thought is labour
lost; thought without learning is peril
ous.”—Lun Yii.
The Stuff That Southern
History Is Made Of
Horace Mann Bond, President of Fort
Valley State College, and eminent Ne
gro American educator, lectured in the
Atlanta University Convocation, Feb
ruary 13, on the subject “The Stuff That
Southern History Is Made Of”.
According to Mr. Bond, Southern his
tory since the Civil War has been dis
torted and misconstrued by historians;
it has been gathered up and set down
not as it is, but as the men in the South
would have it. In consequence, it has
glaringly portrayed the Negro as the
corrupt politician of post-war southern
legislatures responsible for the vast in
justices of reconstruction. Otherwise
painting him as the source of Southern
destitution and suffering, it has com
pletely perverted the truth, and left stu
dents in a state worse than ignorance—•
as the recipients of false and twisted
knowledge. It has further failed to re
cord the merits of Negroes as contribu
tors to Southern history. Such things as
the proved story of Dangerfield Newby,
the first of John Brown’s men to be killed
in the raid at Harper’s Ferry are omitted.
He is an example of the courage and
great bravery characteristic of Negroes.
It is k nown to historical research that
Dangerfield Newby had received from his
wife in Virginia shortly before the raid a
letter begging him to come and buy her
and their baby out of slavery. The effect
of this letter would surely have its in
fluence on Brown’s men in their prepara
tion for the raid, and it is believed that
Newby carried the letter on his body
when he was shot.
A typical illustration of the way that
southern history is taught, was vividly
brought out by Mr. Bond in his account
of the Louisiana Negro school-room, one
of the probable many that he has visited,
where students of African and French
background whose ancestors had fought
valiantly at the Battle of New Orleans
with Andrew Jackson in 1814 and at
Vicksburg, were taught to scandalize the
Negro as a vicious and ignorant burden.
Said Mr. Bond, “That schoolroom
paradoxically expressed scandal and
glory.” It was not the fault of the teach
er that the glory of the Negro was
ignored, and the scandal waved on high,
but rather the fault of the text books
which communicated the stuff that south
ern history is made of.
According to Mr. Bond any real and
valid interpretation of the history of the
South must be based upon an analysis of
the social, psychological, and economic
conditions. The social history must be
drawn from the mores, customs, and tra
ditions of the South. The key to economic
conditions can be found in the docu-
The University Players
In Fine Performance
On F riday and Saturday evenings, Feb
ruary 7 and 8, the University Players
presented Time and the Conways by .1.
B. Priestly, designed and directed by Mr.
Owen Dodson, costumes by Miss Anne
M. Cooke.
The cast included: Carol Conway
played by Katherine McKinney; Hazel,
by Carol Phillips; Alan, by Hadley Cox:
Madge, by Dorothy Stalnaker; Kay, by
June Strong; Mrs. Conway, by Jennie
Strickland; Joan Helford, by Bessie
Sampson; Gerald Thornton, by Ernest
Saunders; Ernest Beevers, by Murray
Townsend, and Robin Conway, by Ben
jamin Scott.
The play was the “sort” as Mrs. Con
way would say, that gets under one’s
skin, and makes one think and wonder.
The general theme was this: people in
planning their futures never have any
space in their plans for possible diffi
culties or unhappiness, and as a result
they are caught unprepared to meet these
things when they arise. But as Alan
said in the last act, the sooner we learn
that joy and woe go hand in hand, the
easier life will become.
Each character was portrayed dis
tinctly and emphatically.
ments of sales of Southern lands to
Northern profiteers for investment in
railroads and other interests after the
war; the investors purchased land for
little or nothing. Their responsibility for
the resulting low economy and destitu
tion in the South is an unwritten page
in Southern history. Psychologically an
interpretation of Southern history must
recognize that history is neither noble nor
ignoble because it deals with people who
are human and grasping. The Negro in
reconstruction politics was no more cor
rupt than the whites would have been
under the circumstances. Virtue in high
political places is hard to discover among
whites and Negroes in any section. The
reconstruction period from 1865-1876
parallels the period from 1928-1941 for
corruption in politics.
The real crux of Mr. Bond’s very fine
lecture lay in his emphasis upon the need
of determining the social, economic, and
psychological conditions of Southern his
tory before recording it. “History is life,”
he said, “and cannot be drawn solely
from wars, biographies, and facts.” His
great challenge to students, especially
Negro students, to push back the stone
of ignorance and to discover the truth in
the history of the South was truly in
spiring.