Such was the state of the American mind twenty-two years, when Dr. Alexander Crummell gathered his colored friends around him and formed the Academy. The same reason that led the American mind to discountenance the Negro's higher aspirations and strivings and longings caused Dr. Crummell to encourage them. He realized that living in the same country with the American white man, facing the same problems and conditions, the Negro needed the same kind of education and training that the white man needed, or he would lag hopelessly behind in the race of life. General Armstrong once triumphantly told a class of colored students at Hampton, "Hampton will give you enough education to cope with any colored men you may meet." But Dr. Alexander Crummell saw deeper. He saw that the Negro needed also an education that would enable him to cope on equal intellectual terms with any white men that he might meet. For that reason the Negro needed to dip into literature, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, sciences, anthropology and ethnology; needed in a word to be kept in touch with the trend of modern science and the tendencies of modern thought. Dr. Crummell was right. If there ever was a time in the Negro's history when he needed trained and well-equipped leadership, it is now, when the recent world war has brought about a new earth, when new problems affecting Europe, America and Africa are pressing for solution, and when a readjustment of social, political and industrial conditions will be made, not only in Europe and Africa but in America. If there was ever a time in the Negro's history when he needed trained and well-equipped leadership, it is now when tens of thousands of black Africans and black Americans have demonstrated on scores of bloodstained battlefields in France that heroism can wear a sable hue and be clothed in ebony; when the American Negro proved his patriotism and loyalty by subscribing to the Liberty Loan, the War Chest, War Savings Stamps and by Red Cross service, and when by reason of his helping to lay low the Prussian menace to civilization, he has established his title clear to recognition and respectful consideration. At a time, when the humanitarian plums will be handed out at the Peace Table at Versailles, at a time when the small and weak nations of Europe will have their day in court, at a time when the oppressed and suppressed peoples of Europe, Palestine and Armenia will have their innings, now is the time for the Negro to make his appeal, present his plea and submit his case.