Various

“ The old masters and the old slaves are now rapidly passing into eternity. In ten years more no one of our people, white or black, under forty years of age, will know personally anything of slavery. It then comes to this, that now and from this time forward, we white Christians must be impressed with the fact that we have here at our doors, in our houses, offices, stores and kitchens, and on our farms, not slaves, but a race of people, three-fourths of whom are but a little removed from savages in so far as their knowledge of religion is concerned. ”

“ While we have cut and trimmed and pinched with an economy that the most careful might think an unwise policy, there has yet been growth. Success necessitates development. Good schools will enlarge. One church creates another. One foothold secured in a missionary region opens districts to many who swell the cry of need to the heart of Christian compassion "come over and help us," so that with all our pruning the work has grown beyond the slight increase of funds from our churches.
We ought to push our work. Ignorant millions need the truth which we have. ”

“ But to one who understands the situation, the question of our education is of serious moment. All our institutions of higher learning are living from hand to mouth, with no endowment, and the North's purse-strings are growing tighter as the years go by. On the other hand, prejudice strikes savagely at our State appropriations. This year, in the advanced State of Tennessee, the white State-student gets one hundred dollars while the colored gets only twenty-two dollars and a half. In his poverty what can the Negro student do with this sum in the way of educating himself? ”

“ Before the Southern problem will be solved, a new stock must take the place of those who were reared in slavery; the old traditions must fade, and education, and an ethical type of Christianity, must do their work. How long will be required for that, none can tell. In the meantime, new complications may arise. The principles of socialism and anarchy are not unlikely to pervade the South, and if the masses of blacks are ever exploited by a central, unknown and irresponsible committee of agitators, the results must be a new reign of terror. The labor agitators are moving southward. ”

“ The missionary societies have found by long experience that these mission schools in which the vernacular is taught, especially in remote places, are the most effective, and in many cases the only modes by which the people can be reached by the Gospel. The pupils are taught to read the Bible and it is carried by them to their homes. Now we ask, is it the function of the Government of the United {121} States to dictate in matters so purely religious and to override the Christian churches in the choice of their most approved methods of disseminating the Gospel? ”

“ With us, the problem is not one of scattered colonies but of divergent people. There is in the United States the double problem of how to consolidate and preserve the interests of a nation with a long area north and south, and with the most diverse elements of population ever gathered under one flag. ”

“ Until the last trace of prejudice that separates brother from brother shall have been removed. How long will this thing be kept up? Until the black man feels that he is a man; until he can vote intelligently, and live wisely, and until he has the ability and the will to discriminate carefully in matters of morals. ”

“ There was a time when policy or political expediency had no effect upon the prejudices of the Southern whites, but the educational process inaugurated by the North is elevating a class of colored people to a plane where they are respected as never before. No State or Federal aid can do for us what the A.M.A. is doing. Such aid as the Blair Bill proposed would meet a certain need, and enable the men that are educated by the A.M.A. to get at the masses; but the peculiar work of preparing honest and devout Christian leaders must be otherwise provided for. ”

“ Here you have about eight millions with an ancestry which began in heathenism and has had two centuries of slavery—a people inheriting all the evils of slavery; a people who have never been trained to make moral discriminations, and whose ancestors for unknown generations have been trained still less than they; a people who have none, or at least but little, of the inspiration toward a higher moral life which comes from a healthy environment; a people whose religion is almost all emotional ”

“ Taylor would find faces in the South which, from their resemblance to lower orders of life, might weaken his faith in his demonstration.
The black race is no more degraded than our own would be under similar circumstances, but its condition is appalling. How long will it take to develop the consciousness of manhood where all the tastes, and all the tendencies, and almost all the environment, are low and in the opposite direction? The colored people have not the help of higher and refining influences. Their tendencies have been downward, and present environment increases the tendency. ”

“ The race-lines are as distinct as if the waters of a white river and a black ran in the same channel. The Hebrews are found in all parts of the world. They are industrious, and as decent as the average man; they mingle with other people, and yet almost everywhere the prejudice against them is constant and bitter. ”

“ The large school-room is filled. More than one hundred and twenty-five students are arranged in classes, most of whom are standing in their places ready to pass to recitation rooms. One of their number is at the piano. Another stands at the desk to give the word of command. Now he strikes the bell and the pupils in long file pass out, marching with their heads up. Not a teacher is in sight. Everything is orderly and is running of itself, as it does every day. ”

“ I am least of all blaming these poor and needy people; but none the less clear and strong comes the appeal for their moral and intellectual emancipation. The moralizing of a race which has such a history, how long will that require? No people ever rose more rapidly in the world's history. ”

“ He who sees his brothers and sisters pass him on the street in carriages, living in comfort and honor, while he is poor, and nothing to them, will, in proportion as he is a man, hate the social order in which they live. Until this consciousness of having been injured and degraded vanishes, the Southern question will disturb political and social life.
III. Closely allied to the consciousness of degradation is the lack of manly feeling. Appreciation of manhood is a condition of improvement. He who thinks himself only an animal will live like one. Does this condition exist at the South? ”

“ The vernacular may be used in missionary schools only for oral instruction in morals and religion, where it is deemed to be an auxiliary to the English language in conveying such instruction; and only native Indian teachers will be permitted to otherwise teach in any Indian vernacular; and these native teachers will only be allowed so to teach in schools not supported in whole or in part by the Government and at remote points, where there are no Government or contract schools where the English language is taught. ”

“ The old associations are losing their power over the rising generation. Intelligent men are seeking to supply their spiritual and moral wants. The A.M.A. has but to persist in the establishment of its school and church work among the colored people, with good strong men as ministers, and it is sure to be the leaven of the church of the future for the Negro people.
Last summer an old father, who had educated four children at Fisk University and had himself been there on one Commencement occasion, said to me:—"That Fisk school is the buildin'-up-est place to our people in the world. ”

“ In a belt of States where seventy-three per cent., and probably ninety per cent., of the population are illiterate, where they are too poor to do much except keep up the struggle for existence, where there are no traditions of culture, where it has been a crime for a black man to read, where the Nation is doing nothing, and where the State, when it does its best, provides instruction which reaches only thirty per cent. ”

“ Every year a new set of uncouth and undeveloped young people come shambling in, looking around with bewildered eyes. But they soon begin to straighten up and fall into step. Their vague ideas get settled, and their minds, slow at first, wake up. In a few years they will be made over new, not perfect, but vastly improved. They will be out teaching, spreading light from scores of new centres, and sending new pupils to "Old Le Moyne." ”

“ The aim of the missionary societies is to fulfil an imperative duty, in trying to reach the Indians with the Gospel in the most effective methods. There should be mutual respect for these aims; the Government should yield to the conscientious conviction of the missionary societies as to methods for giving religious {122} instruction, and the missionary societies should co-operate with the Government in introducing the English language as rapidly as possible consistently with their higher aim. ”

“ The complete regeneration of the South is a thing of the future. The A.M.A. must remain among us to hasten on "the harvest of the golden year."
That the Christianization of the Negro must come from without his own institutions, will be clearly seen by looking at his present religious condition. The new life that is developing cannot be crowded into the narrow limits of his church. The moral element is almost entirely wanting in his creed and doctrine. Such is the condition of the church that moral and spiritual growth are impossible. ”

“ When we realize how difficult is the task of inducing men with the environment of Christian influence at the North, and in England, to live even decent lives, the wonder is that the freedmen do as well as they do. How long before we can expect a race with such antecedents and environments to be fitted to be left to themselves? ”

“ It is very literally used as a "day of rest from labor." On every hand the people are seen resting—resting from labor in the houses, on the stoops and on the streets, instead of being in the house of God. ”

“ Education without morality is no safeguard.
Prof. Gilliam shows, from census reports, that if the population of the Southern whites increases for a century, as at present, in 1985, there will be ninety-six million whites in the Southern States, and in 1980, one hundred and ninety-two million blacks. Statistics may lie; but there is enough truth in these to give terrible emphasis to the inquiry, How long before the colored people will be sufficiently educated to need no help? ”

“ Slavery always makes thieves. The heredity of the passion for stealing is just as clearly marked as the heredity of the Roman nose or the faculty for music. The transmission of the tendency toward the gratification of the animal propensities is as definite as, and stronger than, the tendency for insanity and consumption to reproduce themselves. ”

“ So long as one-half of the American republic is inhabited by those whose interests are alien to the other half, there can be no permanent prosperity. It has been said that there are three essentials to the {128} permanent unity of a nation; viz., unity of language, unity of interest and unity of religion. There is a common language between the blacks and whites, but the unity of interest is not recognized, and agreement in religion is only in name. The religion of the poor whites in the South is mechanical, and unintelligently doctrinal; the religion of the blacks is emotional and fantastic ”

“ It is around the fireside, and in the conduct of the children, that your noble work is manifesting itself so clearly. The intellectual, moral and spiritual life found there are the true and only guarantees that old things are passing away. ”

“ While then we have the right to thank God and his people, and reason to take courage, we should be false to the churches and to ourselves should we fail to accentuate the necessities of our work, and the demand upon those in whose name we stand. ”

“ When people ask us how we can bear to teach "niggers," they generally have in mind those tattered, lazy persons, who are most wont to show themselves on the street corners, and so make the deepest impression on the average white mind. ”

“ Such an avowal is the most significant of all things, anytime, anywhere, but here we know that every life is to be one of toil and bitter struggle, a fight in which the odds are, to appearances, all against them ”

“ If the blacks increase on an average fourteen per cent. faster than the whites, and to the South there is little immigration, how long will it be before the blacks preponderate? They will go neither to Africa, to Mexico, nor to the West Indies. They are here to stay. They are multiplying faster than their white neighbors. They are growing in consciousness of power faster than in intelligence. What is the sure result of conscious but blind power? The story of Samson answers. The problem is the new-birth of a rapidly increasing race. ”

“ It has been said that colored people have no tendencies toward socialism and anarchy. I am no prophet, but I will hazard the prediction that it will not be long before the socialistic agitator will stir up a commotion at the South that will make employers of labor and people of wealth tremble. ”

“ A large number of young people from the Sabbath-school as well as from the day-school have started on the new life. The teachers say that a marked change is observable and that the young converts seem to be trying their very best to live up to their profession. Forty-six were received into the church and will have the instruction that is so much needed by young converts. ”