from all points of view; to the real genius of the race that has given
us Douglass, Langston, Bruce, Washington, Tanner, Scarborough, Page,
Grisham, Miller, Dubois, Wright, Bowen, Crogman, Johnson, Dunbar,
Chestnutt and others too numerous to mention, whose names should be
enshrined in the hearts of present and future generations; to the
forty thousand Negro students pursuing courses in higher institutions
of learning; to the twelve thousand pursuing classical courses; to the
one hundred and twenty thousand taking scientific courses; to the one
hundred and fifty-six institutions for the higher education of
Negroes; to the two thousand practicing physicians; to the three
hundred newspapers and the five hundred books written and published by
Negroes; to a gradually increasing discrimination in all those matters
of taste and form which mark the social status of a people, and give
to the individual, or the mass, the, perhaps, indefinable, but at the
same time, distinctive, stamp of culture.

These achievements, alone, within less than forty years of freedom,
serve to demonstrate our fitness for civilization, and also, that as
the years pass there is a still greater necessity for Negroes who
possess a broad, a liberal, a well balanced education; and at the same
time a similar need for Negroes possessing shrewd, business ability; a
high degree of mechanical skill; extensive knowledge of industrial
arts and sciences, and of profitably invested capital.

From the early years of freedom a few leaders, as at Hampton,
realized, that the great mass of Negroes needed first of all
experimental knowledge of the dignity of labor such as could never
result from labor performed under the conditions of slavery; that they
needed to know more of skilled labor in order to be able to meet and
enter the fierce competition of American industrial life, or even to