The argument then is briefly this: The negro is a low order of man, fit only for a low place, and therefore best trained by a low order of studies. The error is two-fold, embracing both a falsehood and a fallacy: a falsehood, for as far as inherent nature is concerned, the negro is no lower than the rest of the human race; and a fallacy, for if he were, or so far as he has become so from the force of circumstances, the more urgent the demand for superior training. The negro is a man, and, like any other man, is profited by choice mental culture. Furthermore, the disabilities of the past make his higher education specially necessary, and as fast as possible the most promising of the black race should attain the best and choicest culture. In bare outline some of the reasons for this opinion may be thus stated: (1.) The negro has ability for the highest range of studies, and to debar him therefrom is to sin both against the man and his Maker. Many, especially those who cannot spell his name without putting in one “g” too many, doubt the intellectual power of the negro. It is true that heredity holds with him as with other men. A race scarce one and twenty years removed from enforced ignorance does not climb the hill of science as nimbly as those who inherit the brain, will and spiritual forces which generations and centuries have accumulated. But twenty-one years, and of wretched environment too, have sufficed to show that souls clad in the blackest African setting are capable of the highest thought and most difficult studies. The evidence on this point is abundant and conclusive. To deny the negro this ability is only to advertise one’s ignorance or prejudice. And since God has written his truth both in his word and works, and also given to the black man aptitude and thirst for the highest and most hidden, it does not become a race longer out of darkness and further removed from heathenism to say “thus far and no farther” in the culture of immortality. The negro should receive the higher education because God has made him capable of it, and he is profited thereby as much as any other man. (2.) The higher range of studies is necessary to supplant self-conceit with self-reliance. Measuring themselves by themselves, an ignorant people are always inflated by the merest modicum of knowledge. Broad scholarship gives modesty, but the sciolist everywhere is a braggart. None are so satisfied with their acquisitions as the valedictorians of very poor schools. Where gold is scarce, a little metal, and chiefly alloy, will serve for many a big spangle, and the greater the darkness the brighter it shines. The serene satisfaction with which the African novice will misapply and mispronounce grandiloquent speech can only be cured by the presence of some scholarly men who have climbed far enough to see the heights and to know that the low-land is a bog.