Show WE MUST EDUCATE at AtE easton aaton maryland is a school for negro children and it Is ie quite well attended recently an aged and noted member of their race who was born and reared near there appeared before them and made an interesting speech he told them of a negro slave boy whose father and mother died when he b was waa six years of age his bla B la bed was the dirt floor of a hovel in colu weather he be often crept headforemost into a meal bag leaving his hie feet in the ashen of a small email fire to keep them warm sometimes he satie satisfied fied hunger by roasting an ear of corn or eggs blob he had bad secured by crawling under barns barna and kt ables his sole garment day and night was a tow linen shirt there were no schools for colored children then but he learned to read from a old webster spelling book and to write from copy set for him on cellar doors by boys and men willing to help him the name ol of that buy boy was frederick douglass Dou glaes who erward afterward ait became the greatest man his hie race has produced in america and who has ham served as presidential elector united states marshal and diplomat it was an autobiographical sketch for the speaker and the boy spoken of were one the children ob ildren spoken to by douglan Doug laa had no comprehension of his big Dosi position tion in slavery days daye only those who experienced perien ced such position could form any conception of it one thing that he said however we hope they under stood so bo long as you remain JQ in ignorance so BO long will you fru fail to command the respect of your fellow nien men instructive if not glowing and above all truth truthful full and what a 4 well filled page of the worlds world Irs history does doea it open to the view As a rule the men who have written their names highest and most moat in delilly upon lifets lifes structure in our land at least have been those who had but little learning to begin with or none at all the story of the nati nations national onam career contains hundreds of such chapters chap teM more of course in earlier than in later years but when in this generation we contemplate the epee of a man who rose from one civil station to another until a at last he became president of the united states and whose first bessona lessona in reading and writing were 91 by his wife we can then ani and perhaps only then realize how inslfe at ant is the man with an ail vat edmind and to what heights of farnel fame fortune and honor may he not climb whose draughts at the Pi serian verlan aprin sprin are deep and con constant given a thima for knowledge a disposition to iveah gate and analyze and find out and tho th possessor thereof will become informed and of consequence whether he ever sees the inside of a school house houge or not but it i be remembered that the school house simpli flea flee b ate work cuts cute off many of the difficulty difficulties he would otherwise encounter and places him farther ahead in the lifa race for knowledge and its attend attendant aalf advantages 1 I |