As “there is no royal road to learning” to suit dullards of kingly birth, so no peculiar and accommodating pathway to wealth and power, to civilization and culture, opens before those of African descent. Their own expectations, and the efforts of those who would assist them, must be based simply on their manhood. It is only as this shall be developed and brought to bear upon life’s duties and opportunities, that progress can be made in outward condition and in the estimation of mankind. There are no sudden results to be secured by artificial means. Neither special legislation, nor military protection, nor favor extended by those in power, nor the peculiar regard and effort of philanthropists, will, of themselves, avail to procure the abolition of caste-feeling, and the elevation of the colored people to an entire equality with the whites. The effects of ages of slavery are not to be removed in a day, by a mere legislative vote. An amendment to the Constitution alters no fact of ignorance, of poverty, of moral debasement. The prejudices of the whites, descending through generations, imbibed by individuals in infancy, and strengthened by universal sentiment, practice, and association of ideas, cannot be easily and soon overcome, and are not, so far as feeling is concerned, wholly within the power of volition, so as to be annihilated at will. They will vanish gradually in the presence of increasing evidence of a noble manhood. Developed intellectual power, the higher education, success in industrial pursuits, the acquirement of wealth and culture and character, will cause them to disappear as the sun does the heavy, chilly, obscuring mists which night generates in the valleys. When I deposit a gold coin on the table, it commands a certain degree of respect. No one is obliged to argue in its behalf. It speaks for itself. Having intrinsic value and the added stamp of the national mint, it represents so many grains of precious metal and their equivalent in whatever money will buy. Hence everybody welcomes it, and looks upon it with regard. Will the result not be analogous, when the colored man shall be seen to have an intrinsic value equal to that of the white man? When one shall no longer associate with him the ideas of bondage, pauperism, and barbarism, but those of freedom, prosperity, intelligence, and culture; when he shall not only carry in his person the stamp of American citizenship, but shall come out from a university training a scholar and a gentleman, like a glittering coin from the die? * * * * *