"This instruction of the Negro children from their earliest years is
one of the most important and essential parts of the whole plan; for
it is to the education of the young Negroes that we are principally
to look for the success of our spiritual labours. These may be easily
taught to understand and to speak the English language with fluency;
these may be brought up from their earliest youth in habits of virtue,
and restrained from all licentious indulgences: these may have the
principles and the precepts of religion impressed so early upon their
tender minds as to sink deep, and to take firm root, and bring forth
the fruits of a truly Christian life. To this great object, therefore,
must our chief attention be directed; and as almost everything must
depend on the ability, the integrity, the assiduity, the perseverance
of the person to whom we commit so important a charge, it is
impossible for us to be too careful and too circumspect in our choice
of a CATECHIST. He must consider it his province, not merely to teach
the Negroes the use of letters, but the elements of Christianity; not
only to improve their understandings, but to form their hearts.
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