who dares say that it has not a future before it, with its statesmen,
its poets, its painters, its men of letters; that it is not to have
its own peculiar literature, its art, and even its own characteristic
religious expression, just as marked and important as those produced
by any other race? Certainly we have as much reason for believing it
as that the Teutonic race of the second century should produce its
Goethe and its Schiller, its Kant and its Hegel, its Luther and its
Melanchthon; or that the Frank of the fifth century should develop its
Victor Hugo, its Lamartine, its Madam de Stael; or that out of the
barbarism, the cannibalism, the paganism of Norseman, Briton and
Saxon, there should come Shakespeare, Spencer, Macaulay, Browning and
Gladstone. And we may not have to wait as long; for in spite of
slavery's binding chain thrice drawn round his soul, the American
Negro has been absorbing during the past from a civilization which has
been fitting him somewhat for the large Christian movement of the
present. We are working for a people which in all probability will
form at least one-eighth of our whole population; and we have the
problem of lifting them as a race up into Christian enlightenment. The
dark skin is growing darker. There will be less and less of
intermixture of blood between the two races. Hence all study of this
educational question must have in view the large moral and
intellectual enterprise of dealing with a race as a race. I believe
that there is nothing in all history to compare with this opportunity
which has come to our very doors. Here is a nation in our land and
with it every perplexity, every difficulty, every embarrassment, and
also every encouragement, every hope, and every inspiration for work,
that can appeal to any foreign missionary. Here is this God-given task
laid at our very thresholds and with all the sentiments of patriotism
and Christian devotion urging us to our large privilege.