e have a contempt for slaves. The sole reason of the
persistence of the caste feeling is that the black man belongs to a race
which has been enslaved." The inference is, "therefore your character is
a servile character."

The common judgment has been that the prejudice is against color. A
little observation, however, will show that Southern people have no
prejudice against color as such. Color ceases to be repugnant when it
ceases to be unfamiliar.

I have been led to conclude that a great part of what is called the
color prejudice, may be charged up to the fact of feature. The features,
in the people of every race, are offensive when they are coarse and
carnal. For example, among a class of the Irish peasantry long ignorance
and lowdown life have given to the children an heredity of ingrained
coarseness. It is visible in a certain stamp of the features. Education
and elevation will gradually reduce the animalism of the face. With good
breeding, in generations the lips grow thinner; the face takes on
character and even changes in shape.

The Negro condition at present is one of immaturity. The Uncle Rastus
side of Negro character and life may be seen every day in the Southern
Negro. The immaturity of the race and its revelation and expression in
feature and in character, repel more than color does. The antipathy
against color in the South is reduced to its very lowest terms, as facts
prove.

The way to destroy the prejudice which exists both by association with
the ideas of bondage and by features which are not refined, is a common
one. Education is the only way. I have been surprised to see how rapidly
education, especially religious education and the refining influence of
good associations, are eliminating both the idea that color is a badge
of a servile mind, and the inherited coarseness of features. The
educated children of educated parents are in many instances already
showing in their faces the mettle of their pasture. There is a
perceptible growth away from immaturity and coarseness of feature, along
with the growth away from immaturity of mind.

Twenty-five years, indeed, is a short time for a study of this sort. It
is hardly to be counted in the history of a race. A century is but a
unit in the problem of a people's history. We have no right to form our
judgments yet, as to the place the Negro people may take. What three or
four centuries may do for the race is to be settled too remotely for us
to testify