Black people according to the 1911 Britannica

lack people in America according to the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911):

• evolutionary plane: low: measurements of their skulls and bones show that they are closer to apes than to white people – though white people do have more apelike hair.
• hair: more like wool than “true hair”.
• intelligence: “the mental inferiority of the negro to the white or yellow races is a fact”. Black children were “sharp, intelligent and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence. ” Causes:
  • psychological: “the arrest or even deterioration in mental development is no doubt very largely due to the fact that after puberty sexual matters take the first place in the negro’s life and thoughts.”
  • physical: “the growth of the brain is … arrested by the premature closing of the cranial sutures and lateral pressure of the frontal bone.”
  • evolutionary: “the easy conditions of tropical life and the fertility of the soil have reduced the struggle for existence to a minimum.”
• better than whites: “negroes far surpass white men in acuteness of vision, hearing, sense of direction and topography.”
• temperament: “very similar to that of a child, normally good-natured and cheerful, but subject to sudden fits of emotion and passion during which he is capable of performing acts of singular atrocity, impressionable, vain, but often exhibiting in the capacity of servant a dog-like fidelity which has stood the supreme test.”
• morals: Crime rate is the “best available index of moral progress or retrogression”. In 1904 in the South blacks were 5.5 times more likely to be put in prison than whites; in the North, 9 times. Records show that the black crime rate had dropped considerably since 1890, but that is probably a mistake.  Also keep in mind that “the comparativeinfrequency of crime among slaves, even if it existed, is noproof of the absence of criminal tendencies and actions.”
• on the loss of the vote in the South: “On the part of the overwhelming majority of negroes this practical disfranchisement has aroused no protest, while it has tended to improve the government…”
• wealth: In 1904 the average black person had a wealth of $34 (58 crowns). For whites in 1900 it was $1320 (2,112 crowns) or 39 times more.
• education: half can read, up from 8% for slaves. In the South for every $1.00 spent on a white student, $0.40 is spent on a black student.
• slavery: it civilized blacks and “furnished industrial training to many slaves”.
• freedom: the lowest tenth is “perhaps … worse off than in slavery.” It is “too early to say” whether blacks will be “serviceable” and remain “a vital and essential part of the life of the nation”, as they were as slaves.
• mulattoes: 17% to 33%  of all blacks. “The recognized leaders of the race are almost invariably persons of mixed blood, and the qualities which have made them leaders are derived certainly in part and perhaps mainly from their white ancestry.”
• Leading causes of death: tuberculosis, pneumonia.

(Source: abagond.wordpress.com)