onal glory. As far back as
history runs, we find nations, classes and races, pointing out
different things as the stronghold, the ground work, the pillars on
which their fame rests.

The thing to which the Negro can point with most pride, is the
activity and progress made in the development of an ideal home life
and the providing of a liberal education for his people. Indeed, it is
worthy of note, that in both church and state, there is a growing
interest in behalf of extending to all classes the privileges and
benefits of at least a limited education. Nations that once thought of
nothing but war and conquest are throwing their influence in the scale
of popular education.

Countries that have long wielded the scepter of power, and held
thousands subject to the will and opinion of one man or set of men,
are being aroused to the importance of individual thought and
individual responsibility. Churches and organizations that necessarily
began their work with one or two as leaders, who had to do the
thinking for hundreds of others, are now turning their attention to
the work of training and developing the faculties and character of
each one so as to enable him to think and act intelligently for
himself; this is the spirit of the present age. In this lies the hope
and destiny of all classes and all races.

Hence, if there be any particular problem as connected with the Negro
race, in my opinion the solution of that problem will come only by
following the rule of action applied to the uplifting and development
of others.

The Negro is no new specie of nature; he is no new issue in the
category of life; no new element in the citizenship of this country,
and needs no special prescription to suit his needs. His case is one
common to a people whose surroundings and environments have placed, or
caused them to be placed, in a dependent attitude, and his only hope
for rising above the common level of a menial slave is to so husband
his resources as to change these environments and become the master
of, rather than the helpless creature, of circumstances. The faithful
pioneers who carried the torch of knowledge into darkened regions and
cheered the lives of thousands with rays of hope and promise, opened
the way for the liberation of great forces that had long lain dormant
and smothered. Knowledge has been the torch in the civilizer's hand,
and carrying this still we can find treasures still unearthed and
truths still unlearned.