EDUCATION AMONG THE FREEDMEN.
Under this title appears a valuable article in the Methodist Quarterly Review, for January, by S. G. Arnold, Esq., of Washington, D. C. As an early testimony to the capacity of the African race, he cites a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1791, to Benjamin Banneker, a free negro of Maryland, who had shown remarkable inventive and constructive genius, and acquired a thorough astronomical knowledge. Mr. Jefferson says:
“Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of the want of them, is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. * * * * I have taken the liberty to send your Almanac to M. de Condorset, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society, because I consider it a document to which your whole color has a right, for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.”
The writer then gives a graphic picture of the active efforts of the Christian world, to educate and enlighten this needy and neglected class, as soon as the Emancipation Act had given access to them. From 1863 to 1866, the work in the Freedmen’s camps around Washington was, perhaps, the most conspicuous of all; so that in this latter year, 42 regular day-schools, with 71 teachers, were caring for 3,930 pupils. These were sustained from New England and the Middle States, and by Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Friends, Congregational, and various undenominational agencies.
Then came the era of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which expended some thirteen millions of dollars, and the free-school law for the District of Columbia. The history of the Normal school, established with much self-denying effort, and against great obstacles, by Miss Mytilla Miner, is given quite at length, and a full and appreciative sketch of the beginning and development of the work of the A. M. A. The story of Fisk University and the work of the Jubilee Singers is told at length. We quote from the closing paragraphs of Mr. Arnold, this impressive comparison:
“At the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, the whole population of the United States was not very different in point of numbers, from that of the colored population now residing in the Southern States. The country had then been settled for more than 200 years, and there were large interests of production and commerce and government, which would seem to demand very liberal provisions for higher institutions of learning. But it may be doubted whether the advantages for education were not inferior to those now possessed by the colored population of the South, after a probation in freedom of scarcely more than a dozen years. The only colleges which appeared to have been in existence at that time are in existence still, and can be told by the number of your fingers. We have seen that there are now in the South, for the benefit of the negro, between 30 and 40 institutions for higher education, with an annual catalogue of nearly 5,000 students; and although they do not, as yet, graduate annually through all the higher departments of learning as many scholars as were graduated from the 10 colleges that were in operation prior to the Revolutionary War, because the training is not for scholarship, but for special work, it seems probable that the educational power is greater and exerts a wider influence.
“But whether this is so or not, the result of these brief years of Christian work must be regarded as a phenomenon in the history of the world. It is often said of the movements of our time that they are only history repeating itself; but if there is anything in history like this generous outpouring of effort and means to redeem a great mass of human merchandise, and lift it up out of its squalor and wretchedness to the level of our common Christian manhood, we exhort the friends of history to produce it.”
We gladly avail ourselves of this opportunity, to recognize the generous appreciation of our work which we have always received from our Methodist friends—indeed, some of them are “ourselves”—not the least valuable indication of which is the cordial and kindly tone of the article from which we have quoted above from their leading Review.