“Yes, but no place for the older ones to learn. It is quite pathetic how they yearn for knowledge,—so Herz tells me.”
“Well, my opinion is that too much learning is bad for them,” blurted out Lewis.
“Oh, Lewis!” exclaimed Douglas. “How can you say such a thing? Too much learning can’t be bad for anybody.”
“What I mean is too much and not enough. They get just enough to make them big-headed and not enough to give them any balance.”
“‘A little learning is a dangerous thing—
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring,’”
murmured Nan.
“Exactly!” said Lewis gratefully. “I don’t want to hold the darky down, but I do think he should be taught very carefully or he will get wrong notions in his head, social equality with the whites and such stuff.”
“I find Americans very strange when one gets them on the subject of social equality,” and de Lestis suddenly seemed very superior and quite conscious of his own station in life. “There is much talk of being democratic but not so much practice. Your Declaration of Independence plainly states that all men shall be free and equal, and still, while you grant the black race freedom, you deny it equality.”
“I reckon you don’t understand the South very well,” answered Lewis, his blue eyes flashing.
“Ah!” was all the count said, but he said it with a toploftical manner that irritated Lewis.