ized--so despoiled and naked, would be in the position they are
now? In spite of the proud, supercilious, and dictatorial bearing of
their teachers, in spite of the hampering of unsympathetic, alien
oversight, in spite of the spirit of dependence and servility
engendered by slavery, not only have individual members of the race
entered into all the offices of dignity in [257] Church and State, as
subalterns--as hewers of wood and drawers of water--but they have
attained to the very highest places. Here in the West Indies, and on
the West Coast of Africa, are to be found Surgeons of the Negro Race,
Solicitors, Barristers, Mayors, Councillors, Principals and Founders of
High Schools and Colleges, Editors and Proprietors of Newspapers,
Archdeacons, Bishops, Judges, and Authors--men who not only teach those
immediately around them, but also teach the world. Members of the race
have even been entrusted with the administration of Governments. And
it is not mere commonplace men that the Negro Race has produced. Not
only have the British Universities thought them worthy of their
honorary degrees and conferred them on them, but members of the race
have won these University degrees. A few years back a full-blooded
Negro took the highest degree Oxford has to give to a young man. The
European world is looking with wonder and admiration at the progress
made by the Negro Race--a progress unparalleled in the annals of the
history of any race."

To this we may add that in the domain [258] of high literature the
Blacks of the United States, for the twenty-five years of social
emancipation, and despite the lingering obstructions of caste
prejudice, have positively achieved wonders. Leaving aside the
writings of men of such high calibre as F. Douglass, Dr. Hyland Garnet,
Prof. Crummell, Prof. E. Blyden, Dr. Tanner, and others, it is
gratifying to be able to chronicle the Ethiopic women of North America
as moving shoulder to shoulder with the men in the highest spheres of
literary activity. Among a brilliant band of these our sisters,
conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out but a
solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and of
giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. The
allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This
lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds
effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. Bu