The Negro in Ancient History

The author of the following treatise is a person of unmixed African extraction, born at St. Thomas, W. I., August 3,1S32, came to the United States in 1850, with the hope of securing admission to one of the Colleges in this country. The deep-seated prejudice against his race preventing the consummation of his wishes, he embarked, under the auspices of the Colonization Society for Liberia, reaching Monrovia, January 26, 1851.

He promptly entered the Alexander High School, and, in 1858, was placed in full charge of that useful Institution, continuing until 1861, when he was appointed a Professor in Liberia College. Ever looking forward to the Ministry, he was ordained by the Presbytery of West Africa in 1858.

Professor Blyden passed the summer of 1866 at the Syrian Protestant College, on Mount Lebanon, Syria, studying Arabic, and is now teaching that language in the College at Monrovia. The effect already produced as as wonderful as interesting—numerous chiefs, headmen, and Mohammedan priests showing much concern in the work, some of them having traveled several hundred miles from the interior of Africa to visit Liberia and see and converse with him.

Teage, Benson, Warner, Crummell, Blyden, and others in Liberia have shown that negroes of the darkest hue may possess eminent ability. And that in other lands the same incentive, under only the same fostering circumstances and the like favorable opportunities which have brought to the light the great minds of all ages, is needed to develop the talent of the negro race equally with those who have possessed a superiority attained by the educational influences of centuries. May we not hope that the black man in the United States of America will soon possess the stimulus now enjoyed by his brethren of the Republic of Liberia, and thus be enabled to rival them in scholarship and become, equally with them, the benefactors of mankind?