Speaking in the Literary Society on the relative merits of trades and the learned professions, he said, "Everybody ought to work with his hands that can't work with his head. Now, some try to work with their heads when they'd be doing a good deal better for themselves and everybody else if they'd just go to work with their hands. Now, I couldn't make a living by headwork if I wanted to. I don't know how it would have been if I'd had a chance for an education when I was young. I never went to school a day in my life except Sunday-school. What little knowledge I have of reading and writing is just picked up. Because I've got along without an education, I don't think everybody else ought to do the same. I'd have got along better if I'd had more. I feel as if I am crippled by the want of it, and am just crutching along. Young men, get all the education you can, but at the same time remember that it's a good thing to have a trade to fall back upon." In the ante-bellum days, that compound of muscle and will and honesty and skill now known as Deacon Edwards, used to bring home to his master a twenty-dollar gold piece weekly, earned in the foundry where he was hired out without being a party to the contract. His master had a large family, and gave to each of his children a college education. If the earnings of Jerry and his fellow-servants did not suffice to pay bills, a boy or girl (and colored men and women were always boys and girls with their masters) would be sold. The "boy" to whom he gave two trades, although by no means rich, is in better circumstances than any of the sons whose education was paid for by the sweat of dusky brows mingled with countless tears and bitter heart-burnings. That humorous philosopher, Josh Billings, says, "You never saw a self-made man but what was mighty proud of his job." If any self-made man has a right to be proud, it is he who, having been held as a chattel, has compelled all who know him to admit that he possesses honesty, good sense, moral courage and everything that goes to make up a true man. Four years ago Jerry Edwards was elected School Commissioner, and served in that capacity for three years. He was the first and only colored man who has ever filled that position in his district, and was elected by an unusually large majority in a place where colored men are greatly in the minority. But he has won victories greater than this--victories over self in breaking the chains of appetite and long-established habit. Eight years ago a temperance society was organized here. "Before that time," says he, "I never heard, and it had never entered my head, that there could be any harm in drinking so long as a man didn't get drunk." He attended the meetings, listened attentively, but did not take the pledge for a long time. At first he argued for the moderate use of stimulants, the harmlessness of pure wine, etc., but yielded point by point to repeated assaults in a war of friendly words.