The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-04-21
LIbertY end KnowIedge.


THERE is one point upon which all testimony
from the South agrees, and that is, the uni
versal desire OF the freedmen for education.
This desire pervades both old and young, and
wherever schools are opened they are straight
way filed with thirsty crowds, eager to drink
from the hitherto sealed fountains of know
ledge. There are officially reported to be
over ninety-six thousand pupils now in at
tendance upon the freedmen's schools.
There is something very interesting in this
stirring of intellectual life in the minds OF
a whole people-this instructive uprising to-
wards light and knowledge. 1t is an over
whelming evidence of the intellectual capa-
city of the black race, A people which, after
centuries ofoppression and enforced ignorance,
thus instantly responds to the first offers of
education, must possess great capabilities
of growth and discipline. Indeed, the
truest test of race is its capa-
city for civilization. its susceptibility to
Intellectual Improvement and its capablity of
religious education. A race whi IA you can
neither civilize, nor educate, nor Christianize.
may well be pronounced interior. The abO-
rigines of this continent, as a race, with
many noted individual exceptions, were OF
this character; and they have rapidly faded
away until they are now nearly extinct.
Brought into contact with civilization, they
learned from it little but its vices; and
although millions of dollars were spent by
Government and by benevolent societies in
the endeavor to educate and Christianize
them, only the most meagre results were ever
obtained. But in the African we have race
which readily takes on civilization, which
exhibits profound religious susceptibilities,
and which, within the very first year after it
is opened to the influences of education,
points to a hundred thousand pupils in
its schools Truly, this is a result
most cheering to every Christian and
philanthropist. How would Christendom
have rejoiced If, in some remote corner of the
world, people had been discovered by mis-
sionaries who thus spontaneously opened
their hearts to receive the Word of Life, and
their minds to take in the light of knowledge
One hundred thousand pupils in school the
first yearl Such report would have filed
the Church with Joy. And is it any the less
cause for rejoicing, that such work has
actually been done in our own land, and
almost at our own doors? In our opinion,
there has never been, in all the history of
missionary enterprises, so grand field for
Christian effort, one so promising and full of
good hope, as that aGorded by the four mil
| lions OF freedmen of the Uniled States.
And what an overwhelming reply does the
condition Of thnsp trpa6nan induatrioua
peaceful, law abiding, but all alive with the
instinct of Improvement and selfelevation,
afford to that insane and savage fanaticism
which still maintains that the negro would be
better Off in slavery!
There is, too, in this movement for the edu-
cation of the freedmen hope tor the entire
South. 1t must react upon all classes. The
millions OF poor, ignorant whites theIe-an
inert mass, which hitherto has been sinking
deeper and deeper into mental atrophy-must
for very shame and envy's sake arouse them
selves, when they behold the blacks with
school-books in their hands and newspapers
in their houses. Happy indeed will it be, if
the poor whites, who were the unconscious
victims of that gigantic scheme of oppression
| of which they were at the same time the
most bigoted supporters, shall share in the
blessings resulting from It's overthrow and
shall date their own real enfranchisement
and start in the upward course, from the self
same hour which gave liberty to the blacks.
The great truth of the brotherhood of man
| will thus receive a new and illustrious de-
monstration.