centuries the cherubim of
social pollution and moral degradation stood at the school-house gate
with sword-like lash in hand, under governmental authority, to defy
the return of the Negro to his pristine eminence in literary culture
and moral probity held many years prior to the rise and supremacy of
his now dominant kinsman. It was the northern missionaries, for such
they are, who threw open the wicket-gate of opportunity unto the
despairing Negro causing him to reach forth his hand unto the tree of
life manifesting itself in the development of the higher faculties of
a being with God's image. The Negro colleges in the South, with
scarcely an exception, were built up by Northern philanthropy. They
are the best institutions available to a great majority of those
seeking the fullest possible development of their intellectual powers.
As a rule, they are superior in equipment, in both standards of
scholarship and discipline at least. This is true by virtue of the
power vouchsafed to their management and teaching force through
superior years of splendid environment. Under such circumstances the
Northern missionary teachers are in their normal condition in
prosecuting the work of Negro education. They are usually dispensers
of exact scholarship, consecrated service, and broad culture. It is
scarcely possible that the Negro, in less than forty years, a creature
of misfortune many years prior to his enslavement, should now be the
equal of his more favored brother in the acquisition of knowledge or
his over-match in teaching ability. Physiologists are quite unanimous
in making the Negro a member of the human race. He, therefore, has the
same faculties and susceptibilities as other members of the human
family. He is governed by the same laws of thought. In what then is
the Negro constitutionally a better educator of the Negro? There is
absolutely nothing in his skin nor sympathies that makes him a
superior teacher of the Negro. Other things being equal preparation is
the only synonym for superiority in teaching. If now the race has
idiosyncrasies entirely different from the rest of the human family,
as some wiseacres would imply by their persistency in making this
demand for a change in the colleges, then maybe it were better to
gratify their wish.

These colleges are more than so much material and apparatus. Through
them the white brother is best prepared to represent the Negro to
those who are to help in his uplift. The pecu