A discussion of this subject calls to mind one of those curious changes in public opinion and custom with regard to races which often occur in the United States. At the period to which I am now referring, a great number of the Negroes in the South were compelled to follow a trade, and they seem to have no difficulty in pursuing trades there to-day. In the North where the agitation for the Negro's freedom began, it is in most cases difficult, and often impossible, for a black man to find an opportunity to work at any kind of skilled labor. I sometimes wonder which man is the greater sinner,--the man who by force compels the Negro to work without pay, or the man who by physical force and through the force of public sentiment prevents the Negro from working for him, when he is ready, willing, and fit to do so. I do not overstate the matter when I say that I am quite sure that in one county in the South during the days of slavery there were more colored youths being taught trades than there are members of my race now being taught trades in any of the larger cities of the North. Before I go further, I ought, in justice, to add that as slavery spread and the owners came to know their slaves better, there appeared in nearly every section of the South, especially in Virginia and South Carolina, a considerable number of slave-holders who rose above the mere idea of economic and selfish gain; and thus, through the medium of slavery, the opportunity to train the Negro in morality and Christianity presented itself in many sections of the South. During the days of slavery regular religious services were provided for the slaves, the same minister who served the white congregation preached to the blacks. In some of the most aristocratic families, the Negro children were taught in the Sunday-school; this was true of the Lees and Jacksons of Virginia, and of the family of Bishop Capers and other men of that type in South Carolina. At the end of the period of slavery, about two hundred and fifty years, the Negro race as a whole had learned, as I have stated, to wear clothes, to live in a home, to work with a reasonable degree of regularity and system, and a few had learned to work with a high degree of skill. Not only this, the race had reached the point where, from speaking scores of dialects, it had learned to speak intelligently the English language. It had also a fair knowledge of American civilization and had changed from a pagan into a Christian race. Further, at the beginning of his freedom, the Negro found himself in possession of--in fact had a monopoly of--the common and skilled labor throughout the South; not only this, but, by reason of the contact of whites and blacks during slavery, the Negro found business and commercial careers open to him at the beginning of his freedom.