New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-11-13
NEGROES IN TRIGONOMETRY AND THE
CT ASSTCS

If that large class Of Americans imported aud
native, who have been educated to express their
hatred Of equal rights and their prejudice against
race By mouthing with hot rage, or AIRY contempt
the word "Nigger!" could be compelled 10 visit III
detachments the Philadelphia Institute Tor Coored
Youth. on shippen.st they would speedily get cured
of the false ideas upon which Slavery in the United
States sought logical and lawful foundation and
which now inspire the opponents OF impartial suffrage
70 resist the extension of the ballot to the Black man.
We visited this school last week, and Tor two days
witnessed its annual Commencement exercises. we
saw there abundance evidences
]. That under the management and instruction oil
colored teachers male and female, there is IN Phia-
depha school for the education Of girls and boys IN
the Latin and Greek Classics, the Mathematics, His
tory, Geography and Composition, which 10 tuily
equal TO the best of the endowed academies OF MSssa'
chusstts and New Hampshire. Thi1 IS saying great
deal. but we will stand by it.
III. We saw that under the development of this cu~
ture fayored by the strong social position which the
colored population in Philadelphia have attained IN
that feest Of our great cities there were el boys ana
girls Of African descent as intelligent as setrespect
full as weH.mannered, as welldressed and as promis
ing as 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 al from the
best educated and most carefully trained white boys
and girls of the same age in the best Academies of
the Northern states. In all respects they were uly
their equals
III. We saw colored children Of both sexes be-
tween the ages of u and 10, rgidly examined in
Xenophon's Anabasis and the Greek Testament, in
Virgils Eueid Ciceros oratons and Horace 'ss0Dgs,
in plane and spherical trgonometry, Legendres ge'
omc.ry, algebra mental arithmetic, English analysis,
history and geography, and that they understood
and knew what they recited-tLat they were radi'
cally and thoroughly instructed-hat their answers
TO questions were not exercises of memory-tha they
had not been drilled pauot-like for public show,
and that they had successfully received from colored
instructors the educatons which oug best schools
give white children preparatory to entering college,
". We heard compositions read and declarations
delivered upon such themes as 1.-The Essential Fea-
ture of Republic" emusic as an Element of Wor-
ship" "rhe Education Of Women" THE Age of
Pericles, - "The American Congress- " The Province
of Poetrv." " Individual Effort, 1.-THE New Rome"
The Two Cesars" These Performances original
Marked Win pl hlEu Eiduo WI az
the use of language and structure of sentences and iu
Of generous feeling aud morality-had they been lis
tened to by the most prejudioed upholders OF caste
would surely have shamed them out of all further
talk about the inferioriiy Of the African race, and
brought them to a candid confession that there is no
thing in the organization of the colored American
which should withhold from him complete political
MISUNDERSTANDING in his character or capac-
ties which can longer uphold the mean and cowardy
lie that the Government Of the United states was IN
tended TO be "Whte Mans Government
Richard Humphreys member of tic Society of
Freudsia Philadelphia preparing for his death in the
year l-32 devised $40 900 in trust instruct de-
cendants Of The African race in school learning in the
various branches Of the mechanic arts and trade and in
agriculture, in order TO prepare and qualify them to
act as teachers in those branches Of useful business
That little sum Of money was the seed from which has
grown up the shippen-st Colored High School. 1t
would well repay visit by any generous and public
spirited man IN this city. The example of beneicence
and patriotism set by the Quaker Humphreys if fol-
lowed in Ncw-York by some citizen intrusted with
great wealth. would produce results Of the highest so
cial and political value.