Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro by Various
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page 59 of 854 (06%)
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with his opportunities? contains its own affirmative answer. It is an
incomparable achievement that the Negro should have accumulated and saved this vast amount of wealth within the short space of forty years. In the social and intellectual life the Negro has surpassed all hopes. There can be furnished by the race a thoroughly equipped man for any chair of learning for a university. He began with the blue-back spelling book and has steadily grown in learning and power until he now occupies a respectable position in the literary world. But the pivotal point that is determinative in this discussion, and that which is considered the conclusion of the whole matter, is the moral and social question, as well as the domestic virtues of which woman is the queen. The accumulation of property, and the achievements in the world of letters, admirable as they are in themselves, and for purposes of civilization, are secondary and valueless in the final analysis, if there is no corresponding moral development and social power. The evolution of the family, based upon monogamy, is one of the chief glories of Christianity over against the libertinism and polygamous practices of paganism. Speaking of the women of our race, we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. With Dr. Crummell, "In her girlhood all the delicate tenderness of her sex has been rudely outraged. In the field, in the rude cabin, in the press-room and in the factory, she was thrown into the companionship of coarse and ignorant men. No chance was given her for delicate reserve or tender modesty. From her girlhood she was the doomed victim of the grossest passions. All the virtues of her sex were utterly ignored. If the instinct of chastity |
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