ed, and that the facilities for
higher education so far as the schools and colleges in the free States
were concerned would increase quite in proportion to the future needs
of the race.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 249.]

Douglass deplored the fact that education and emigration had gone
together. As soon as a colored man of genius like Russworm, Garnett,
Ward, or Crummell appeared, the so-called friends of the race reached
the conclusion that he could better serve his race elsewhere. Seeing
themselves pitted against odds, such bright men had had to seek
more congenial countries. The training of Negroes merely to aid the
colonization scheme would have little bearing on the situation at home
unless its promoters could transplant the majority of the free people
of color. The aim then should be not to transplant the race but to
adopt a policy such as he had proposed to elevate it in the United
States.[1]

[Footnote 1: Douglass, _The Life and Times_, p. 250.]

Vocational education, Douglass thought, would disprove the so-called
mental inferiority of the Negroes. He believed that the blacks should
show by action that they were equal to the whites rather than depend
on the defense of friends who based their arguments not on facts but
on certain admitted principles. Believing in the mechanical genius of
the Negroes he hoped that in the establishment of this institution
they would have an opportunity for development. In it he saw a benefit
not only to the free colored people of the North, but also to the
slaves. The strongest argument used by the slaveholder in defense of
his precious institution was the low condition of the free people of
color of the North. Remove this excuse by elevating them and you
will hasten the liberation of the slaves. The best refutation of
the proslavery argument is the "presentation of an industrious,
enterprising, thrifty, and intelligent free black population."[1] An
element of this kind, he believed, would rise under the fostering care
of vocational teachers.

[Footnote 1: Douglass, _The Life and Times of_, p. 251.]

With Douglass this proposition did not descend to the plane of mere
suggestion. Audiences which he addressed from time to time were
informed as to the necessity of providing for the colored people
facilities of practical education.[1] The columns of his paper
rendered the cause noble service. He entered upon the advocacy of it
with all the zeal of an educational reformer, endeavo