ANN ARBOR--THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN--DETROIT AGAIN--THE FRENCH OUT
OF FRANCE--OBERLIN COLLEGE, OHIO--BLACK AND WHITE--ARE ALL AMERICAN
CITIZENS EQUAL?
_Detroit, March 22._
ONE of the most interesting and brilliant audiences that I have yet
addressed was the large one which gathered in the lecture hall of the
University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, last night. Two thousand young,
bright faces to gaze at from the platform is a sight not to be easily
forgotten. I succeeded in pleasing them, and they simply delighted me.
The University of Michigan is, I think, the largest in the United
States.
Picture to yourself one thousand young men and one thousand young women,
in their early twenties, staying together in the same boarding-houses,
studying literature, science, and the fine arts in the same class-rooms,
living happily and in perfect harmony.
They are not married.
No restraint of any sort. Even in the boarding-houses they are allowed
to meet in the sitting-rooms; I believe that the only restriction is
that, at eight o'clock in the evening, or at nine (I forget which), the
young ladies have to retire to their private apartments.
"But," some European will exclaim, "do the young ladies' parents trust
all these young men?" They do much better than that, my dear
friend--they trust their daughters.
During eighteen years, I was told, three accidents happened, but three
marriages happily resulted.
The educational system of America engenders the high morality which
undoubtedly exists throughout the whole of the United States, by
accustoming women to the companionship of men from their infancy, first
in the public schools, then in the high schools, and finally in the
universities. It explains the social life of the country. It accounts
for the delightful manner in which men treat women. It explains the
influence of women. Receiving exactly the same education as the men, the
women are enabled to enjoy all the intellectual pleasures of life. They
are not inferior beings intended for mere housekeepers, but women
destined to play an important part in all the stations of life.
No praise can be too high for a system of education that places
knowledge of the highest order at the disposal of every child born in
America. The public schools are free, the high schools are free, and the
universities,[4] through the aid that they receive from the United
States and from the State in which they are, can offer their privileges,
without charge for tuition, to all persons of either sex who are
qualified by knowledge for admission.
The University of Michigan comprises the Department of Literature,
Science, and the Arts, the Department of Medicine and Surgery, the
Department of Law, the School of Pharmacy, the Homoeopathic Medical
College, and the College of Dental Surgery. Each department has its
special Faculty of Instruction.
I count 118 professors on the staff of the different faculties.
The library contains 70,041 volumes, 14,626 unbound brochures, and 514
maps and charts.
The University also possesses beautiful laboratories, museums, an
astronomical observatory, collections, workshops of all sorts, a lecture
hall capable of accommodating over two thousand people, art studios,
etc., etc. Almost every school has a building of its own, so that the
University is like a little busy town.
No visit that I have ever paid to a public institution interested me so
much as the short one paid to the University of Michigan yesterday.
* * * * *
Dined this evening with Mr. W. H. Brearley, editor of the Detroit
_Journal_. Mr. Brearley thinks that the Americans, who received from
France such a beautiful present as the statue of "Liberty Enlightening
the World," ought to present the mother country of General Lafayette
with a token of her gratitude and affection, and he has started a
national subscription to carry out his idea. He has already received
support, moral and substantial. I can assure him that nothing would
touch the hearts of the French people more than such a tribute of
gratitude and friendship from the other great republic.
* * * * *
In the evening I had a crowded house in the large lecture hall of the
Young Men's Christian Association.
After the lecture, I met an interesting Frenchman residing in Detroit.
"I was told a month ago, when I paid my first visit to Detroit, that
there were twenty-five thousand French people living here," I said to
him.
"The number is exaggerated, I believe," he replied, "but certainly we
are about twenty thousand."
"I suppose you have French societies, a French Club?" I ventured.
He smiled.
"The Germans have," he said, "but we have not. We have tried many times
to found French clubs in this city, so as to establish friendly
intercourse among our compatriots, but we have always failed."
"How is that?" I asked.
"Well, I don't know. They all wanted to be presidents, or
vice-presidents. They quarreled among themselves."
"When six Frenchmen meet to start a society," I said, "one will be
president, two vice-presidents, one secretary, and the other
assistant-secretary. If the sixth cannot obtain an official position, he
will resign and go about abusing the other five."
"That's just what happened."
It was my turn to smile. Why should the French in Detroit be different
from the French all over the world, except perhaps in their own country?
A Frenchman out of France is like a fish out of water. He loses his
native amiability and becomes a sort of suspicious person, who spends
his life in thinking that everybody wants to tread on his corns.
"When two Frenchmen meet in a foreign land," goes an old saying, "there
is one too many."
[Illustration: THE TWO FRENCHMEN.]
In Chicago there are two Frenchmen engaged in teaching the natives of
the city "how to speak and write the French language correctly." The
people of Chicago maintain that the streets are too narrow to let these
two Frenchmen pass, when they walk in opposite directions. And it
appears that one of them has lately started a little French paper--to
abuse the other in.
I think that all the faults and weaknesses of the French can be
accounted for by the presence of a defect, jealousy; and the absence of
a quality, humor.
* * * * *
_Oberlin, O., March 24._
Have to-night given a lecture to the students of Oberlin College, a
religious institution founded by the late Rev. Charles Finney, the
friend of the slaves, and whose voice, they say, when he preached, shook
the earth.
The college is open to colored students; but in an audience of about a
thousand young men and women, I could only discover the presence of two
descendants of Ham.
Originally many colored students attended at Oberlin College, but the
number steadily decreased every year, and to-day there are only very
few. The colored student is not officially "boycotted," but he has
probably discovered by this time that he is not wanted in Oberlin
College any more than in the orchestra stalls of an American theater.
The Declaration of Independence proclaims that "all men are created
equal," but I never met a man in America (much less still a woman) who
believed this or who acted upon it.
The railroad companies have special cars for colored people, and the
saloons special bars. At Detroit, I was told yesterday that a
respectable and wealthy mulatto resident, who had been refused service
in one of the leading restaurants of the town, brought an action against
the proprietor, but that, although there was no dispute of the facts,
the jury unanimously decided against the plaintiff, who was moreover
mulcted in costs to a heavy amount. But all this is nothing: the Young
Men's Christian Association, one of the most representative and
influential corporations in the United States, refuses to admit colored
youths to membership.
[Illustration: THE NEGRO.]
It is just possible that in a few years colored students will have
ceased to study at Oberlin College.
I can perfectly well understand that Jonathan should not care to
associate too closely with the colored people, for, although they do not
inspire me with repulsion, still I cannot imagine--well, I cannot
understand for one thing how the mulatto can exist.
But since the American has to live alongside the negro, would it not be
worth his while to treat him politely and honestly, give him his due as
an equal, if not in his eyes, at any rate in the eyes of the law? Would
it not be worth his while to remember that the "darky" cannot be
gradually disposed of like the Indian, for Sambo adapts himself to his
surroundings, multiplies apace, goes to school, and knows how to read,
write, and reckon. Reckon especially.
It might be well to remember, too, that all the greatest, bloodiest
revolutions the world has ever seen were set on foot, not to pay off
hardships, but as revenge for injustice. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was called
a romance, nothing but a romance, by the aristocratic Southerners; but,
to use the Carlylian phrase, their skins went to bind the hundreds of
editions of that book. Another "Uncle Tom's Cabin" may yet appear.
America will have "to work her thinking machine" seriously on this
subject, and that before many years are over. If the next Presidential
election is not run on the negro question, the succeeding one surely
will be.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[4] A fee of ten dollars entitles a student to the privileges of
permanent membership in the University.