lves for usefulness and business; that the men may enter into
merchandise, trading, and other things of importance; the young women
may become teachers of various kinds, and otherwise fill places of
usefulness. Parents must turn their attention more to the education of
their children. We mean, to educate them for useful practical business
purposes. Educate them for the store and counting-house--to do everyday
practical business. Consult the children's propensities, and direct
their education according to their inclinations. It may be that there
is too great a desire on the part of parents to give their children a
professional education, before the body of the people are ready for it.
A people must be a business people and have more to depend upon than
mere help in people's houses and hotels, before they are either able to
support or capable of properly appreciating the services of professional
men among them. This has been one of our great mistakes--we have gone
in advance of ourselves. We have commenced at the superstructure of the
building, instead of the foundation--at the top instead of the bottom.
We should first be mechanics and common tradesmen, and professions as a
matter of course would grow out of the wealth made thereby."[1]

[Footnote 1: _The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of
the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered_,
Philadelphia, 1852, P. 45.]

In professional life the Negro had by 1860 made a noteworthy beginning.
Already he had been forced to give attention to the law, though as yet
little by way of actual practice had been done. In this field Robert
Morris, Jr., of Boston, was probably foremost. William C. Nell, of
Rochester and Boston, at the time prominent in newspaper work and
politics, is now best remembered for his study of the Negro in the early
wars of the country. About the middle of the century Samuel Ringgold
Ward, author of the _Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro_, and one of the
most eloquent men of the time, was for several years pastor of a white
Congregational church in Courtlandville, N.Y.; and Henry Highland
Garnett was the pastor of a white congregation in Troy, and well known
as a public-spirited citizen as well. Upon James W.C. Pennington the
degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred by Heidelberg, and generally
this man had a reputation in England and on the continent of Europe as
well as in America. About the same time Bishops Daniel A. Payne a