"Yes, chile, you does talk so pretty, like dem ar' great white scholards. Many times I has wondered how a poor darkie could larn so much. Now it 'pears to me as if you knowed much as any ob 'em. I don't tink Miss Bradly hersef talks any better dan you does." "Oh, Aunt Polly, your praise is sweet to me; but then, you must remember not to do me more than justice. I am a poor, illiterate mulatto girl, who has indeed improved the modicum of time allowed her for self-culture; yet, when I hear such ladies as Miss Bradly talk, I feel how far inferior I am to the queens of the white tribe. Often I ask myself why is this? Is it because my face is colored? But then there is a voice, deep down in my soul, that rejects such a conclusion as slanderous. Oh, give me but opportunity, and I will strive to equal them in learning." "I don't see no use in yer wanting to larn, when you is nothing but a poor slave. But I does think the gift of fine speech mighty valable." And here is another thing upon which I would generalize. Does it not argue the possession of native mind--the immense value the African places upon words--the high-flown and broad-sounding words that he usually employs? The ludicrous attempts which the most untutored make at grandiloquence, should not so much provoke mirth as admiration in the more reflective of the white race. Through what barriers and obstacles do not their minds struggle to force a way up to the light. I have often been astonished at the quickness with which they seized upon expressions, and the accuracy with which they would apply them. Every crude attempt which they make toward self-culture is laughed at and scorned by the master, or treated as the most puerile folly. No encouragement is given them. If, by almost superhuman effort, they gain knowledge, why they may; but, unaided and alone, they must work, as I have done. Moreover, I have been wonder-stricken at the facility with which the negro-boy acquires learning. 'Tis as though the rudiments of the school came to him by flashes of intuition. He is allowed only a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons for recitations, and such odd moments during the week as he can catch to prepare his lessons; for, a servant-boy often caught with his book in hand, would be pronounced indolent, and punished as such. Then, how unjust it is for the proud statesman--prouder of his snowy complexion than of his stores of knowledge--how unjust, I say, is it in him to assert, in the halls of legislation, that the colored race are to the white far inferior in native mind! Has he weighed the advantages and disadvantages of both? Has he remembered that the whites, through countless generations, have been cultivated and refined--familiarized with the arts and sciences and elegancies of a graceful age, whilst the blacks are bound down in ignorance; unschooled in lore; untrained in virtue; taught to look upon themselves as degraded--the mere drudges of their masters; debarred the