The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-12-24

Philanthropy and Christianity have
been quick to discern the vital politi-
cal, as well as moral, features of the
national situation created by investing
the negro with the rights and priv
ileges of citizenship. While congress
has been celebrating and hesitating,
individual benevolence and private en-
terprise have been actively at work
supplying the colored people with the
means of instruction. Thousands of
men and women--the skirmish line of
secular and religious enlightenment
have made their way South and en-
gagged the forces of illteracy and moral
debasement. Schools for the instruc-
ton of the negro in the higher branches
of business and professional educa-
ton have been established at several
points in the South, and they are all
filed to their utmost capacity by the
dusky devotees of learning. In the
great work of the moral and intellectual
Acknowledgement of the colored race in
this country these institutions, accord
ing to their ability, are what the fac
tories of the North were in supplying
the Union army with the means for
subduing rebellion. Among these in
situations is the Atlanta University, es-
tablished in 1869. From an article in
the Augusta Chronicle, written by
southern correspondent, we learn that
the state of Georgia appropriates $4,000
annually to this institution. There are
three large buildings-one for males,
one for females, and the third is known
as Stone Hall. The first two were
built by the freedmen's bureau and the
latter by money given by Mrs. Valeria
G. Stone of Maiden, Mass, who has
furnished over million dollars for the
education of the colored people. The
university has now over three hundred
pupils. They are instructed in every
branch of education, and the boys are
also taught farming, gardening and car
penter work, and the girls sewing and
cooking. This correspondent says
The capacity of this race for intellectua al
culture is here irresistibly demonstrated.
Large classes in the elementary branches
reading, geography, grammar arithmetic;
classes in Latin, Greek, geometry, algebra,
physics, botany, science of government,
history, Lieber's civil liberty-have shown a
uniform, thorough, finished knowledge of
these matters, standing close off-hand ex-
animation, and under rigid questioning dis
playing full knowledge of what they had
studied. The committee were invited to
put questions without limit and often did
so, with the unvarying result of correct
answers. There was class of twenty
| youths and fifteen girls under Miss Wares
tuition in Latin lessons that, without an ex-
| ception, read and parsed in Caesar. A class
of several boys and one girl read in Tacitus
and in Xenophon-Latin and Greek-trans-
lating and constituting with entire accuracy
and promptness. 1t was marvellous to the
committee. And there seemed no difference
in the grades of color-the lightest mulatto
| with the largest infusion of white blood not
surprising the purest blooded blacks in any
element of intelligent and correct scholar
ship. The truth is that this university is a
conclusive proof of the capacity of the colored
people for advanced intellectual develop
ment. Not only were the oral examinations
good, but the written examinations were
admirable, written with nice penmanship,
in correct style, well spelled and well ex-
pressed. The drawing ofmaps was finished"
Of the three hundred ten pupils,
twenty are in the college course, fifteen
in the preparatory, two hundred one in
the grammar, and seventy-four in the
normal, preparing to be teachers. This
institution has outgrown its resources.
Its necessary yearly expenses for which
no regular provision has been made are
about $4,000. Its friends and the
friends of negro education are making
an earnest effort to raise an endowment
fund of 100000. Patriotism, philan-
thropy, Christianity, should not leave
Atlanta University long in want of this
sum. Its work is too important, its in
tiuence upon the fortunes of that Sec
ton of the country whose political So
lidity has been accounted menace to
the nation too great, for it to be Grip
pied by lack of money. Ardent poll
ticians who give freely to campaign
funds will find in substantial aid to edu-
cation power more effective for the
political redemption of the South than
presidents, or bayonets and force bills.
Educate the negro, elevate him NOR
ally, and in the sunlight of these nat
ural forces race distinctions will melt
away more rapidly and more surely
than under the caustic provisions of
civil-rights bills. Men who can read
their ballots cannot be misled by dema-
gogues; men who know their rights
will find the means to maintain them.
The absence of these essentials of good
citizenship and spirit of resolute free
dom has been at the bottom of much of
the political trouble in the South Henry
Watterson, in the North american Re
uie,c for January, in an article entitled
"The Reunited Union" has, as is his
wont, very forcibly stated some things.
OF the rule of the South by negroes, he
says: "The southern states were put
under the dominion of the black popu-
lation, organized and led by few
whites, backed by the whole power of
the government. The responsible, tax