d that man
a Welshman, and that a Frenchman, and that a German. 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. 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. 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 common schools. Why, then, talk of the
peculiarities of the negro in this matter? There are none. He simply
shares in the temptations which beset all races, and we must reason
accordingly, and plan alike for the masses of the people, black and
white.

One should avoid extreme and disproportionate statements and
implications. 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. To one of these, a graduate of a
theological institution, aided by this Association, the District
Attorney in the part of Virginia where he now lives, recently
addressed a letter of thanks for his having wrought a moral
revolution in that county, saying: "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,