Through the public press the news comes to us that in Germany schools are being established in which waiters are trained. In addition to the art of becoming skilled in their trade, they are taught the English and French languages. These efficient and well schooled servants are coming to America from time to time in large numbers. It is not to be expected that the unskilled Negro waiters can successfully compete with these men. Sentiment in their favor may save them for a while, but not for all time. Cooks, chambermaids and nurses among the whites are similarly drilled. Unless the colored people dependent upon these vocations for a living adopt like methods of training, they will awake some morning and find these occupations in the cities gone from them. A proper appreciation for work, a respect for labor of all kinds on the part of the Negro may save him from this calamity. The most encouraging fact touching the Negro’s present condition is his deep and earnest interest in education. His conduct in this respect is beyond all praise. He cannot be held responsible in any way for the illiteracy that exists among his race. Slavery is the plain historical cause of this misfortune. Though the colored people have made commendable progress in education, yet they have not reached a point that justifies them in quibbling and splitting hairs as to the kind of education the schools should give them. Let them be sure to make good use of what they do get. As a race they are sadly, very sadly in need of that training so eloquently advocated by Booker T. Washington. The men and women who are to be teachers and who purpose to enter the professions will find a way to get a training which will fit them for their work. But they are the few in any race. In the present stage of their development the colored people need to concern themselves especially about the great multitude among them who can only get, at most, the veriest rudiments of education. The time has not yet come among Negroes for “The Battle of the Books.” In conclusion let me commend your effort to celebrate this day—a day which every man in this country with Negro blood in his veins should bless and hallow. Though September 22, 1862, was only the day of the announcement, yet it is hardly of less importance than the day of the actual issuance of the proclamation of freedom. We reverence the memory of Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator. For before he gave to the world the great charter of liberty, no Negro in America had rights or privileges worthy of the name.