Again, the question is asked, why so many of these higher educational institutions?—why so many colleges?—why need of anything higher than the normal and high school? And this question is asked by people who have given largely for this work and who love it. Now what is the object—to educate all the colored people in colleges? No; but to educate those who have a desire for it and a profound capacity for it. We have graduated probably less than five hundred from all the colleges at the South so far, so there isn’t much danger of an over-supply at present of teachers and preachers. But isn’t there need of a revision of our idea of this whole matter of what the negro is to be? Let us not make at present an ideal, but ask rather what we can do for and with the negro; and as we do this, let us remember what material we have to work with, and how he has been educated by two hundred years of slavery.
In the first place, where did he come from? Not from Northern Africa; not from Southern Africa; but from the negro belt of Africa where is found the most degraded condition of the human race on the face of the globe.
He has been educated two hundred years in slavery, and not without influence upon his mental make-up. The day that the first colored regiment went from Boston in the war to the front, there was a convention of anti-slavery friends in Music Hall. There had been very severe criticism upon our Gov. Andrews because he had not put more black officers in that regiment. As Frederick Douglass was about leaving the hall, they called him back. He stood with his crumpled hat and leaned upon a chair, and talked more sense in five minutes than his white brethren had in all those hours. He said: “Gentlemen, I have as much interest in that regiment as any one here, for I have two sons in it; but I am glad that Gov. Andrews has not put more black officers into it. Here you have educated us for two hundred years for the position of servants. You have taught us that we could not guide our own steps, much less rule our fellow-men. You have wrought into the very fibre of our being a servile spirit, so that we are not fit for rule. All I ask is that when a man proves his capacity to rule, then he shall have an opportunity.”