aristocratic ambition would never turn. These schools were generally
poorly equipped; and the teachers were either colored persons whose
opportunities of securing an education had been poor, or white persons
whose mental qualifications would not encourage them to make an honest
living among their own race."

It will not be necessary to enumerate the various insults and
discouragements which faced the noble pioneers of our race who, seeing
their fellow men denied the opportunities and privileges of securing
an education, scorned by the press and pulpit, in public and private
gatherings for their ignorance, set about to lift the Negro from his
low social and mental condition.

The Negro turned his attention to the education of himself and his
children; schools were commenced, churches organized, and a new era of
self-culture and general improvement began.

In Boston we see Thomas Paul, Leonard A. Grimes, John T. Raymond,
Robert Morris and John V. DeGrasse.

In 1854 John V. DeGrasse was admitted to the Massachusetts Medical
Society, being the first instance of such an honor being conferred
upon a colored man in this country.

In New York we find Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, Dr. Charles B. Ray,
Charles L. Reason and Jacob Day doing what they could to elevate the
Negro and place him on a higher intellectual plane.

Philadelphia also added her quota to the list of noble men who were
striving to show to the world that the American Negro, although