The awful plight of the Negroes, as
he saw it, resulted directly from not having the opportunity to learn
trades, and from "narrowing their limits to earn a livelihood."
Douglass deplored the fact that even menial employments were rapidly
passing away from the colored people. Under the caption of "Learn
Trades or Starve," he tried to drive home the truth that if the
free people of color did not soon heed his advice, foreigners then
immigrating in large numbers would elbow them from all lucrative
positions. In his own words, "every day begins with the lesson and
ends with the lesson that colored men must find new employments, new
modes of usefulness to society, or that they must decay under the
pressing wants to which their condition is bringing them."[1]
[Footnote 1: Douglass, _The Life and Times of_, p. 248.]
Douglass believed in higher education and looked forward to that stage
in the development of the Negroes when high schools and colleges could
contribute to their progress. He knew, however, that it was foolish
to think that persons accustomed to the rougher and harder modes of
living could in a single leap from their low condition reach that of
professional men.
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