14                      THE REVIEW




                             II
                ALAIN LeROY LOCKE.


     Had it been known that Alain LeRoy Locke was a candi-
date for the Cecil Rhodes Oxford Scholarship, whatever of
surprise there might have come in the result of such examina-
tion, to those who knew him, it would only have come through
a knowledge of failure.  The fact of his candidacy came with
the newspaper accounts of the decision of the examining board.
Scores of persons scarcely knew of the existence of this young
man; but there were some who had followed  his  fortunes
through a long line of triumphs, through personal interest,
from the kindergarten up; who would have discounted the cli-
max without the least fear of its being misplaced.  Human
kind delights in results, but is equally delighted at antecedents.
We all want to know of momentum and processes,and now that
young Locke is an international figure, anterior considerations
share the fact of the moment The editorials in the Philadel-
phia Press and Inquirer laid great stress on a well equipped
ancestry, for three generations.  That was on the paternal
side.  The maternal line takes us back to Charles Shorter, a
freeman born about 1790, and an enlisted soldier in the war
Of 1812.  His wife (born Daffin) was also free born.  They
both possessed schooling equal to the best of their kind nearly
one hundred years ago.   This advantage was improved upon




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 24, Num. 1

Alain LeRoy Locke

C.

Volume:  24
Issue Number:  01
Page Number:  14
Date:  07/1907