I do not hesitate to affirm, that while the work done by the charitable for the black citizen of this Republic has been of the most incalculable benefit to him, it has also done him injury which it will take years upon years to eradicate.  The misrepresentations resorted to, to obtain money to “lift him up,” have spread broadcast over the land a feeling of contempt for him as a man and pity for his lowly and unfortunate condition; so that throughout the North a business man would much rather give a thousand dollars to aid in the education of the black heathen than to give a black scholar and gentleman an opportunity to honestly earn a hundred dollars.  He has no confidence in the capacity of the black man.  He has seen him pictured a savage, sunk in ignorance and vice—­an object worthy to receive alms, but incapable of making an honest living.  So that when a black man demonstrates any capacity, shows any signs of originality or genius, rises just a few inches above the common, he at once becomes an object rare and wonderful—­a “Moses,” a “leader of his people.”—­It is almost as hard for an educated black man to obtain a position of trust and profit as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  The missionaries, the preachers, and the educators, assisted by the newspapers and the magazines, have educated the people into the false opinion that it is safer to “donate” a thousand dollars to a colored college than it is to give one black man a chance to make an honest living.

Let us now look at the system of education as it has been operated among the colored people of the South.

It cannot be denied that much of the fabulous sums of money lavishly given for the education of the Freedmen of the South, has been squandered upon experiments, which common sense should have dictated were altogether impracticable.  Perhaps this was sequential in the early stages of the work, when the instructor was ignorant of the topography of the country, the temper of the people among whom he was to labor, and, more important still, when he was totally ignorant of the particular class upon whom he was to operate—­ignorant of their temperament, receptive capacity and peculiar, aye, unique, idiosyncrasies.  Thus thousands upon thousands of dollars were expended upon the erection and endowment of “colleges” in many localities where ordinary common schools were unknown.  Each college was, therefore, necessarily provided with a primary department, where the child of ten years and the adult of forty struggled in the same classes with the first elements of rudimentary education.  The child and the adult each felt keenly his position in the college, and a course of cramming was pursued, injurious to all concerned, to lessen the number in the primary and to increase the number in the college departments.  No man can estimate the injury thus inflicted upon not only the student but the cause of education.  Even unto to-day there are colleges in localities in the South which run all year while the common school only runs from three to eight months.