, will produce the same results. In
answering the question as to whether the Negro has demonstrated his
intellectual equality with the white man during the century just
closed, our inquiry must necessarily be confined to the closing third
of that century; for prior to the emancipation of the race the colored
people were generally in an enslaved condition. Opportunities for
education, citizenship, and the development of manhood, were few, and
at best could apply to but few of the race. Although our inquiry is
limited to only one-third of the century just closed, nevertheless we
can safely assert that in that short period the Negro has demonstrated
by actual results his intellectual equality with the white man.

1. The Negro has demonstrated in thirty-five years a capacity for
education equal to that of the white man. This remark does not apply
alone to his primary education, but also to the highest. He has
entered already every intellectual field that is open to him, and he
is achieving success in every one that he has entered. Within a third
of a century one hundred and fifty-six institutions for the higher
education of the Negroes have been founded, and from these and
Northern colleges there have been more than seventeen thousand
graduates. These colleges are located chiefly in the South, and their
courses of studies are as high as their neighboring white colleges; in
some instances they are higher. Some of these graduates have evinced
great ability and brilliancy in mastering the most difficult studies
included in the curriculum. The existence of Negro colleges and the
successful graduation of Negroes therefrom is a strong argument for
his intellectual equality. Nor has the Negro simply demonstrated his
ability to master the literary courses of the college, but also his
capacity to acquire the knowledge and training to fit him for life in
the various professions. Within a third of a century the race has
produced thirty thousand teachers, five hundred physicians, two
hundred and fifty lawyers, and a large number of others who have
entered the ministry, politics, and editorial life. If there is doubt
on the demonstration of the Negro's ability to acquire education in
his own colleges, we need only to mention the fact that his ambition
has led him to some of the leading Northern universities where he
studied at the side of white men, and even there he has demonstrated
his essential intellectual equality with the white ma