Another great need of the race, which the schools must in a large
measure supply, is self-reliant manhood. Slavery made the Negro as
dependent upon the intelligence and foresight of his master as a
soldier upon the will of his commander. He had no need to take thought
as to what he should eat or drink or wherewithal he should be clothed.
Knowledge necessarily awakens self-consciousness of power.
When a child learns the multiplication table he gets a clear notion
of intellectual dignity. Here he gains an acquisition which is his
permanent, personal possession, and which can never be taken from
him. It does not depend upon external authority; he could reproduce
it if all the visible forms of the universe were effaced. It is said
that the possession of personal property is the greatest stimulus to
self-respect. When one can read his title clear to earthly possessions,
it awakens a consciousness of the dignity of his own manhood. And so
when one has digested and assimilated the principles of knowledge he
can file his declaration of intellectual independence. He can adopt the
language of Montaigne “Truth and reason are common to everyone, and are
no more his who spake them first than his who speaks them after; ’tis
no more according to Plato than according to me, since he and I equally
see and understand them.”
Primary principles have no ethnic quality. We hear much in this day and
time of the white man’s civilization. We had just as well speak of the
white man’s multiplication table. Civilization is the common possession
of all who assimilate and apply its principles. England can utilize
no secret art or invention that is not equally available to Japan. We
reward ingenuity with a patent right for a period of years upon the
process that has been invented; but when an idea has been published to
the world it is no more the exclusive property of the author than gold,
after it has been put in circulation, can be claimed by the miner who
first dug it from its hiding place in the earth. No race or nation can
preempt civilization any more than they can monopolize the atmosphere
which surrounds the earth, or the waters which hold it in their liquid
embrace.
I have often noticed a young man accommodate his companion with a
light from his cigar. After the spark has once been communicated, the
beneficiary stands upon an equal footing with the benefactor. In both
cases the fire must be continued by drawing fresh supplies of oxygen
from the atmosphere. From whatever source a nation may derive the
light of civilization, it must be perpetuated by the exercise of their
own faculties. Self-reliant manhood is the ultimate basis of American
citizenship.