In speaking of negro education, of course no such meaning as that applied to white people is intended. Reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., have no relation or connection with the development of the negro powers. He simply needs to be in a position where the imitative capacity with which God has so beneficently endowed him is most completely called into action, and, as has been observed, he then becomes an industrious, moral, and well-behaved creature, or he is idle, sensual, vicious and worthless, just as the master or overseer pleases to make him. There are doubtless exceptional instances, but with all the wide-spread and boundless effort of the ignorant and deluded people in England and America to seduce them from their homes, there are probably but few negroes—real negroes—who ever abandoned their masters, unless their education had been neglected. The instinct of the negro is obedience to his master, and the strongest affection of his nature—far above that for his wife or offspring—is for the master who feeds, guides, and cares for him, indeed is his Providence; and his utter horror of migration, unless it be with his master, these qualities, so dominant in the negro, would be or might be made a barrier of protection against outside seductions, were they properly understood and appreciated by those having them in charge. This negro education, civilization, progress in fact, which the negro is capable of when in his normal condition, and his imitative capacities are permitted a healthy development, of course is rapidly lost when isolated from the white man. If the four millions now in our midst were suddenly left to themselves, but a few years—probably within fifty—everything that now distinguishes them—that is, all that they have imitated from the superior race—would become extinct. Leaving out of the consideration mulattoes and mongrels, and taking into view simply the negro—the four millions of negroes of untainted blood which now exist in our midst—it is reasonable to say that, fifty years hence, there would not be one that would speak his present language, that would be a Christian, that would retain his name, or any other thing whatever which he now possesses and has imitated from his masters. This may seem a startling declaration to many who live in daily contact with these people, while by those ignorant and deplorably deluded parties who fancy that they are engaged in a work of humanity when seeking to undo the work of the Almighty Creator, by turning black into white and the negro into a Caucasian, it will scarcely be understood; but it involves a truth that may be easily and plainly illustrated. A very large portion of our negroes are the children and grandchildren of those brought from Africa, and not a few, perhaps, were themselves brought in by the “slave trade,” which it will be remembered was continued down to 1808.