Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/430

Rh have divided themselves into two camps. The one demands immediate emancipation and their general education; the other, gradual emancipation and the colonisation of the Free Negroes on the coast of Africa. The State of Ohio has adopted this latter mode, and has lately made an important purchase of land on the coast of Africa, in order to colonise there an African Ohio of free negroes.

Not a little is done in the free states for the instruction and elevation of the negroes; but still I cannot convince myself that the Americans are doing this in the best way. They endeavour to form this human race so different to themselves, according to their own methods and institutions. When I see those frolicsome negro children set down in their schools like white children on benches and before desks, I am quite distressed. I am convinced that these children ought to learn their lessons standing, or dancing, and amid games and songs, and that their divine worship ought to be conducted with singing and dancing: and I will answer for it, that their songs and dances would have more life, beauty, and intelligence in them than those of the Shaker-community. But who shall teach them thus? None but a negro can teach the negroes, and only one of their own people can become the deliverer of the people in the highest sense.

But this captive Israel yet waits for its Moses.

That however which very much prevents the redemption of this people from captivity, is their own want of national spirit. Already split into tribes in Africa, where they were at war, and where they enslaved one another, it is difficult to take hold of any more widely extended interests than those of family and local society. I have spoken with many free men of this people in good circumstances here, also with some young mulattoes who have studied and taken degrees at the Oberlin Institution in this State, and I have found them particularly