Twentieth century Negro literature : $b or, A cyclopedia of thought on the vital topics relating to the American Negro
History
Twentieth century Negro literature : $b or, A cyclopedia of thought on the vital topics relating to the American Negro
African Americans -- History
through many generations. It is to be noticed that for centuries the
white man has studied in order to get a thorough grasp, first of all,
upon the intellectual tools--so to speak; in other words, to know how
to read, write and cipher in terms of his own language, and at the
same time to lay a foundation broad enough to pursue useful knowledge
in all other directions possible. For instance, having mastered his
own language to a reasonable degree, he takes the Latin and the Greek
that he might acquaint himself with the development of the
institutions out of which his own was evolved as well as to make
double his hold upon his own; he studies Hebrew and the cognate
languages to get mastery of the great truths, philosophy and
institutions of a great people, adding to his own thereby; he studies
the modern languages, German, French, Spanish and Italian, that he may
gather the best fruits of the achievements of these nations and add
them to his own store; yea, he covers the whole field of philology
that he may add to his own store the best that has been garnered by
all of the nations of the earth; he studies the literature, science
and philosophy of all living races of his day and time with the same
end in view and when he has swept the field of historic times he
delves into the mysteries of geology and archaeology and follows the
mute footsteps of man through Neolithic and Paleolithic times to the
very zero of human beginnings and comes back laden with truths to
enrich the thought of his day.
He studies natural science as God manifested in nature, by observation
and experiment; he commences, with God through the discovery of the
reign of law, classifying and systematizing the same and thus
broadening his own vision and adding to the store of knowledge in our
day and generation. As a preparation for this scientific research, he
studies mathematics from the elementary principles through the largest
elaborations of Euclid, Keppler, Newton and Copernicus, and their
illustrious successors; he studies sociology, biology and mechanics;
he studies civil and sociological laws and principles to the end that
the intricacies of democratic business intercourse might be the more
fully and clearly understood, mastered and applied in civilized
processes. No form of industry has escaped him, no law of frugality
has eluded him; whatever has in it an element of truth or virtue, he
has pursued with a relentlessness that knows no failure. As a student,
he has gone the rounds of the world in search of truth and has come
back rich in the knowledge of the things that God would have us know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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