Various

“ But in great questions of principle and method touching humanity, such as education and religion, we drop race and nation, and act upon simple manhood. If we do not, we are sure to err. The true idea in the case before us is, not to think perpetually of the black skin and the African blood, but of the man, and to use with the negro precisely the measures which should be used with white men in the same circumstances of ignorance and poverty, and with the same responsibilities as citizens. ”

“ Here are the plantations in this Southland around many of which yet cluster the stains of slavery, and to look upon them in all their degradation is enough to cause a young man or woman who was once acting in accordance with their sinfulness, but now trying to aim higher, to give up and declare that it is useless to try to elevate the great mass of our people to a high standard of citizenship and usefulness, and it is only when we remember that the hand of the great God is in the work, that one can have any hope. ”

“ The region that knows no race distinctions in its schools will have the advantage in intelligence. The region that is color-blind on its public conveyances and in its places of business, will have the advantage in business, for it can equip and run steamboats and railroads more economically and conduct factories at lower cost, while its higher average intelligence will make it a producer of better goods. All these elements will conspire to give the impartial community precedence in wealth, in literature, in art, in social attractiveness, as well as in a high average intelligence ”

“ Under the A. M. A. and other associations, schools and colleges are erected in the South for our advancement and training. Here is Straight University, founded at the very centre of bitterness. From the regions round about she gathers young men and woman, teaches them the truths of Christianity, educates them, and then sends them abroad to fill the pulpits, to gather in the lost ones. Trained by those who have had the best education the North could give them, they go out to teach the children, who, but for them, could have no good teaching. ”

“ Your boldness in condemning the wrong and asserting and approving the right has not only impressed the colored, and influenced their conduct in the right direction, but it has at the same time won for you the confidence and esteem of all the thinking portion of the white race, who are interested in good government and a well-ordered and law-abiding community ... for which this community ought to be profoundly grateful. ”

“ Many who are exceedingly anxious to become students have in early life lost their parents, and, being poor, are unable to provide for themselves, and unless some helping hand is stretched forth, must remain in ignorance. There are others, who, though in good circumstances, are not able to appreciate the value of learning, and so care nothing for it. Again, there are many communities in which the people, ignorant themselves, care nothing about the education of their children, and will make no provisions for schools. ”

“ Ignorant parents, unless persuaded, are not apt to attend to the education of their children. It is a disadvantage to any one aiming to prepare for future usefulness to meet with either of these unfavorable circumstances that I have mentioned, and yet it is the case with thousands of our boys and girls. The principles which ought to be impressed upon the children's minds while young are neglected, and false ideas and degraded impressions are allowed to govern them. Thus, they are robbed of an early training in those things which are the true foundations of a noble character. ”

“ The very stones of the field are in league with those who are on the side of equity and fairness. Any region, small or large, that persists in a separation of races in its hotels, railroads, schools and churches, dooms itself to an inferior rank in all the departments of its life—in its business as effectively as in its intelligence and its piety. ”

“ To join with Communists, labor-unions, and other discontented classes, in a chorus of fault-finding and censure, because we cannot have everything we want, is to take the sure road to the defeat of our most cherished objects." These are timely words, and they reveal a state of feeling among colored people which finds all too fertile a soil in the tendency to ignore, or discriminate, or, at best, grant but a supercilious recognition, which still in great measure controls Southern sentiment. The colored people are naturally loyal and conservative. ”

“ A successful pastor—an able preacher, having had experience and success as a teacher, and in addition possessing already considerable knowledge of our work, he will enter the field with the opinions of all those who know him best united that he will make it a success. We welcome him to the ranks of our fellowship in the glorious cause of bringing the light of the gospel and Christian education to the poor ”

“ It is a great encouragement, not only to us but to our parents also, to know that we are acquiring an education from the hands of these Christian helpers, so that we can become useful in the world, good citizens, skilled in art and science, and in all branches of knowledge; to become recognized in the best society, and to secure comfortable homes for ourselves ”

“ The spirit of those who have labored with these ardent aspirants for higher, better, nobler things has so entered into and permeated their very being, that it cannot lie dormant. Arouse and cultivate the best there is in this race, and you have something worth making a sacrifice for. God is showing us, by the way, that this is His own blessed work. We do not have to wait long years to reap; the sheaves are abundant every year. In one of our late prayer-meetings special causes for thanksgiving was the topic. There were many expressions of gratitude "for the Christian influence of our school." ”

“ For in scattered farming communities, the districts must be so large under the double system that many families are out of reach of the school. And the number of towns that can have graded schools is greatly reduced by the requirement that no school shall receive pupils of more than one race. Normal schools are also made more difficult to maintain, and teachers' institutes rendered less efficient. A lower average of intelligence is as inevitable under such adverse conditions in the educational machinery of a State, as slower speed in a racehorse is inevitable when he carries heavy weight. ”

“ The industrial classes take a good share of my time. I am much pleased with the progress the girls have made in sewing. They have a deal of pride in doing their work nicely, and are always willing to take it out if not well done. They have made ladies' and children's aprons, undergarments, children's dresses, etc. Whenever they enter the sewing room with torn or ragged garments I have them mend them the first thing, trying to teach them that a stitch in time saves nine, and that a penny saved is the same as a penny earned—two things hard for them to learn. ”

“ How must every good work be retarded if, in addition to the separation of Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and others which we find nearly everywhere, there must also be a further separation of these by races; if in every neighborhood, however scattered the population, there must be a white Methodist church with its white Methodist preacher, and also a colored Methodist church with its colored Methodist preacher, a white Baptist church and preacher, and also a colored Baptist church and preacher, a white Presbyterian church and preacher, and so on through the list. ”

“ The sentiment, that to work is an honor, to be idle a disgrace, is so infused into their daily life that we fully believe greater progress will be seen in the coming years than has been seen in the past. ”

“ The same writer runs a tilt against all education for the negro above the most rudimental, and says: "I have failed to see one who has been made a better man or a better citizen by this higher education; on the contrary, I know of very many who have been morally and socially ruined by it." We are sorry that his acquaintance has been so unfortunate with this class. Others have had the happiness to know scores and hundreds of well-educated colored people who are doing great credit to their race as ministers, physicians, editors, lawyers, teachers and authors. ”

“ II. Sacramento.—It was good to come into the warm spiritual atmosphere of our Sacramento mission. The tokens of God's blessing on our work there are unmistakable. Our readers have heard recently from our helper, Chin Toy, and I forbear going into details. The best result of my visit was in the decision of one of our pupils who had been highly commended to me by his brethren and by Mrs. Carrington, to enter into missionary work. His name is Chin Kel. I am all the more hopeful about him because he is distrustful of himself. ”

“ The idea is given out that a great mistake has been made by the societies and philanthropists that are seeking the elevation of the freedmen. It would relieve the quite unnecessary alarm of objectors if they would consult the United States census for the statistics of the negro population, and then compare with its six millions of colored people the few thousands of them found in the colleges, academies, high schools, theological seminaries, medical and law schools of the land. Probably not more than one negro in a thousand is receiving anything beyond the very simplest instruction. ”

“ The feeling is too prevalent, even among Christians, that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." If parents would put into the hands of their children reports of our missionaries, so they could see what is being done for the Indians, instead of letting them get their opinions of the Indian race from newspaper articles and from books of Indian wars, in which the rifle and scalping knife were the only arguments used, much prejudice would be removed and the missions among Indians would be better sustained. ”

“ For the present, the State must devote her energies to the building of school-houses, and the establishment and maintenance of common schools, without attempting very much in the line of higher education. ”

“ The Alpine traveler knows that he will meet many a rugged steep, that he must cross many a mountain torrent on slender footing, make his way through many a gloomy valley. He does not give up, but presses forward with eagerness and courage, until he reaches the summit and gazes as a victor on the glorious scenes around. ”

“ To such an extent had our church work been systematized under Superintendent Roy, and our school work under Superintendent Salisbury, that when we had to transfer the one to the Western District Secretaryship, and had to lose the other, we felt that the two positions might possibly be merged. The very success of these workers had made this practicable. Not that the work of the two could be done by any one man. They are not that kind of men, as our constituents well know. They are both of them drivers. It is almost enough to discourage any ordinary man to see either of them work. ”

“ Nowhere in New England need you look for a nicer-kept cabin and yard than some of those on the little homesteads lately purchased by President Pope, for one of his ideas of missionary work is to help the colored man get a home, having for corner-stones "Industry, Economy, Temperance, and Family Virtue." ”

“ He meets discouragements and back-sets which seem to him sometimes insurmountable, and he will need all his courage to keep on to the end. In our Southern country there are, it seems to me, many difficulties which do not exist in all parts of our land; but as I hear our teachers tell of their struggles and trials, I conclude there is no broad, smooth way along which one may walk comfortably up to the temple of knowledge. ”

“ The complaint everywhere heard in the Northern States is, that the common people are being so highly educated as to become dissatisfied with labor. The young men and young women refuse to work at manual industries, and take to trade and the professions, or else become dissipated idlers. Hence attempts are making to attach industrial education to our [Pg 218] common schools. Why, then, talk of the peculiarities of the negro in this matter? ”

“ These will naturally be found in their men of education and property, in their ministers, physicians, lawyers, editors, teachers and political representatives. It is idle and wrong to repress or ignore the ambition of negroes of talent to be something more than laborers and servants, bootblacks and whitewashers. They must have the chance that others have, in proportion to their numbers; no more, no less. And all these rising colored men must have correspondingly intelligent wives, for their comfort and improvement and for the training of their children. ”

“ And yet, long before the objectors had spoken, these same educators had begun to add industrial training to book learning, and they are now pushing this branch as fast as the pecuniary means are furnished.
Nor should we overlook the vast and pressing necessities to which the higher education stands related. There is a loud and general call for competent colored teachers, instead of there being such a surplus as the aforementioned writer found when he says, "There was only one vacancy where there were fifty teachers." ”

“ And it is singular that objectors to our work do not seem to be aware that the precise difficulty which they emphasize respecting the black masses at the South has been equally emphasized by others respecting the white masses at the North. ”