Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1866-12-19
nIisCellGnD.
Negroes i'm TrigOpOEnetry and the
Classics.

If that large class of Americans, imported
and ative, who have been educated to ex-
press their hatred Of equal rights and their
prejudice against race by mounting with hot
rage, or airy contempt, the word " Nigger !"
could be compelled TO visit, in detachments, the
Philadelphia Institute for colored youth, on
Shippen Street, they would speedily get cured
of the false ideas upon which slavery IL the
United States sought logical and lawful found
alton, and which now inspire the opponents of
i'm partial suffrage to resist the extension of the
ballot TO the black man. We visited this
school last week, and for two days witnessed
its annual Commencement exercises We saw
there abundant evidence
|. That, under the management and instruc-
.;or of co'ored teachers, male and female,
there IS In Philadelphia a school for the educa-
ton Of girls and boys in the Latin and Greek
classics, the Mathematics, History, Geography,
and Composition, which is fully equal to the
best Of the endowed academies If Massachu-
setts and New Hampshire. This is saying
great deal, but VT will stand by it.
Ii. We see that under the development Of
this culture, favored by the strong social posi-
ton which the coored population in Pniladei-
pha have attained in that freest Of our great
cities, there were one hundred and eghty-one
boys and girls of African descent, as intelli-
gent, as set-respectfuI, weli-mannered, as
well-dressed, and promising the same
number Of school children in any of the best
schools in New England. TO be more specific
we saw large school of colored pupils. who,
in no respect. save color and features, differed
at all from the best educat ed and most
fully trained white boys and girls of the same
age in the best academies of the NOrthern
States. In all respects they were fully their
equals.
Ill. We saw colored children of both sexes,
between the ages of twelve AID nineteen, rig
idly examined in Xenophon's Anabas,s and the
Greek Testament, IN Nirgil's Eueid, CIcero's
orations and Horace's songs, in plane end
spherical trigonometry, Legendre's geometry,
algebra, mental arithmetic, English analysis,
history and geography, and saw that they IN
derstood and knew wat they recited-tbat t
they were radically and thoroughly Instructed
that their answers to questions were not ex-
ercises of memory-.hat they had not been
drilled parrot-like for public show and that
they had successfully received from colored
instructors the education which cur beet schools
give white children preparatory to entering
college.
". We heard compositions read and dec
lamations delivered upon such themes as '' The
Essential Feature OF Republic" '' Music as
an Element of Worship" The Education
of Woman" " The Age Of Pericles,' - The
American Congrtss,'' " The Pro'ince of Po-
etry," . Individual Effort" - The New
Rome" g Inc Two CaP ;ars. 1hese per
formances Original, marked With thought, CT
nigh grade OF excellence In the use o. Ian
guage and structure of sentence, and full Of
generous feeling ard morality,-had they been
listened to by the most pre- JUDGED upholders
of caste, would surely have sbamed them out
of all further talk ABOUT the inferlorty OF the
African race, and brought them to candid
confession that there is nothing in the organi-
zition Of the coiored American which should
withhold from him complete political enfran-
chisement nothing in his character or COM
pacitIes which longer uphold the mean and
cowardly lie that the Government of the Urit-
ed States was intended to BE- a" White Man 8
Government
Richard Humphreys, member of the Sc
ciety of Friends in Pniiadel 2hia, preparing for
his death in the year 1882, devised $4,000 IN
trust % 10 iustrucs descendants of the African
race in school learning, III the various branches
of the mechanic arts and trade, and IN aSricu!-
ture, in order to prepare and qualify them to
act as teachers in those branches OF usetui busi-
ness" That little sum of mouey was the seed
from which has grown up The Shippsn Street
Coored High School. 1t would well repay d
visit by every generous and pubio-'plrlted
in this city. Tne example of benehceuce
and patriot ism set by the Quaker, Humphreys
if followed in New York by some citizen ln-
trusted with great wealth, would produce re-
suits of the highest social and political value
MI T. Tribune