e has taught him, together with what little he
acquires by the senses of hearing and seeing, finding his son able to
write a neat hand, sets it down for granted that he has as good
learning as any body; the young, ignorant gump, hearing his father or
mother, who perhaps may be ten times more ignorant, in point of
literature, than himself, extolling his learning, struts about in the
full assurance, that his attainments in literature are sufficient to
take him through the world, when, in fact, he has scarcely any
learning at all!!!!

I promiscuously fell in a conversation once, with an elderly colored
man on the topics of education, and of the great prevalency of
ignorance among us: Said he, "I know that our people are very ignorant
but my son has a good education: he can write as well as any white
man, and I assure you that no one can fool him," etc. Said I, what
else can your son do, besides writing a good hand? Can he post a set
of books in a mercantile manner? Can he write a neat piece of
composition in prose or in verse? To these interrogations he answered
in the negative. Said I, Did your son learn, while he was at school,
the width and depth of English Grammar? to which he also replied in
the negative, telling me his son did not learn those things. Your son,
said I, then, has hardly any learning at all--he is almost as
ignorant, and more so, than many of those who never went to school one
day in their lives. My friend got a little put out, and so walking off
said that his son could write as well as any white man.--Most of the
coloured people, when they speak of the education of one among us who
can write a neat hand, and who perhaps knows nothing but to scribble
and puff pretty fair on a small scrap of paper, immaterial whether his
words are grammatical, or spelt correctly, or not; if it only looks
beautiful, they say he has as good an education as any white man--he
can write as well as any white man, etc. The poor, ignorant creature,
hearing this, he is ashamed, forever after, to let any person see him
humbling himself to another for knowledge but going about trying to
deceive those who are more ignorant than himself, he at last falls an
ignorant victim to death in wretchedness. I pray that the Lord may
undeceive my ignorant brethren, and permit them to throw away
pretensions, and seek after the substance of learning. I would crawl
on my hands and knees through mud and mire, to the feet of a learned
man, where I