The attainment of such positions, he thought, was
contingent upon laying a foundation in things material by passing
"through the intermediate gradations of agriculture and the mechanic
arts."[1] He was sure that the higher institutions then open to the
colored people would be adequate to the task of providing for them all
the professional men they then needed, and that the facilities for
higher education so far as the schools and colleges in the free States
were concerned would increase quite in proportion to the future needs
of the race.
[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 249.]
Douglass deplored the fact that education and emigration had gone
together. As soon as a colored man of genius like Russworm, Garnett,
Ward, or Crummell appeared, the so-called friends of the race reached
the conclusion that he could better serve his race elsewhere. Seeing
themselves pitted against odds, such bright men had had to seek
more congenial countries. The training of Negroes merely to aid the
colonization scheme would have little bearing on the situation at home
unless its promoters could transplant the majority of the free people
of color. The aim then should be not to transplant the race but to
adopt a policy such as he had proposed to elevate it in the United
States.
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