females, will be taken up the same way as for stealing a horse, or for burglary. Her property will not be taken, but she will be put in jail, not having the liberty of the yard. There is no mercy to be shown about it.'

"Soon afterward, Miss Crandall was arrested and taken to jail. Her trial resulted in her release, but her establishment was persecuted by every ingenuity of cruel insult. She and her school were shut out from attendance at the Congregational Church, and religious services held in her own house were interrupted by volleys of rotten eggs and other missiles. The house was then set on fire. The fire was extinguished, and in 1834, on September 9, just as the family was going to bed, a body of men surrounded the house silently, and then, with iron bars, simultaneously beat in the windows. This, of course, was too much for the poor woman and girls. Miss Crandall herself quailed before this manifestation of ruffianly hatred, and the brave woman broke up her school and sent her pupils home. Then the people held another town-meeting, and passed resolutions justifying themselves and praising the Legislature for passing the law for which they had asked.

"All this abominable outrage was perpetrated in the sober State of Connecticut, within the easy memory of the writer of this article. It reads like a romance from the Dark Ages; yet these people of

Canterbury were good people, who were so much in earnest in suppressing what they believed to be a great wrong, that they were willing to be cruel toward one of the best and bravest women in their State, and to resort to mob violence, to rid themselves of an institution whose only office was to elevate the poor black children who had little chance of elevation elsewhere. Now this outrage seems just as impossible to the people of Canterbury today as it does to us. The new generation has grown clean away from it, and grown away from it so far that a school of little colored girls would, we doubt not, be welcomed there now as a praiseworthy and very interesting institution. The Connecticut girls who go South to teach in colored schools should remember or recall the time when they would not have been tolerated in their work in their own State, and be patient with the social proscription that meets them to-day. When the I white man learns that a 'solid South,' made solid by shutting the negro from his vote, makes always a solid North, and that the solid North always means defeat, it will cease to be solid, and then the negro's vote will be wanted by two parties, and his wrong will be righted. In view of the foregoing sketch of Northern history, we can at least be charitable toward the South, and abundantly hopeful concerning the future."

CHAPTER XI.

A NATIONAL PROBLEM.

SINCE 1865 we, the people of the United States,

have been, for the most part, living "from hand to mouth," in our dealing with our national problem of the Americanized negro.

Candor requires a distinction here. Some Southern statesmen and many Northern philanthropists have really sought to lay down, broadly and deeply, the foundations of a permanent work. This is seen of all men, who can see at all, in the vast sums of money to say nothing of personal service-that have been given for the education of the negroes in the South; also, for sustaining the Gospel among them. Most of this money, I am sure, was given

Many of these

The man who

"in the name of the Lord Jesus." gifts meant sacrifice to the giver. would sneer at these gifts for the uplifting of ignorant negroes would have sneered with Judas when grateful and loving Mary broke her alabaster box of precious ointment and poured it upon the head of her Lord.

Most of the work that has been done is good—it will last. Some "wood, hay, and stubble" has been

laid upon a good foundation. That some of the foundation-work has been laid in bad mortar and on spongy soil is not surprising to those who know that zeal does not always insure wisdom, or the purest religious experience security against mistakes of judgment. Good people, undertaking a difficult work, never had more opportunities for making mistakes. Some came with exaggerated ideas both of the degradation of the negro and of his natural capacity and disposition; others had exaggerated ideas of the depravity of Southern whites, looking at them through lenses, like the horrid things our professor showed us when we were studying "optics" long ago-distorting every face into bestial or demoniac shapes. Some, I am sorry to say, came with exaggerated ideas of their own personal excellence, and, very naturally, “fell from grace." All of them entered a work for which they were illy prepared.

I must now mention what was not creditable to either party. Few of those who came wanted advice from those who were best able to give it; and few of those who could advise were willing to give the benefit of their wisdom. Mutual suspicion, pride, and folly kept those apart who should have worked together. The secret thoughts of each might be expressed after this fashion, and, in most cases, with not much over-statement: A Northern teacher, or preacher, meets a Southern man of fairly

representative character. The Northern man says in his heart: "You are a miserable traitor; a redhanded rebel; possibly you are a Ku-Klux; you hate negroes; you despise me; the 'old flag' makes you furious; you are waiting your chance to try the fight over; I will tell on you, and help to keep you down." The Southern man says in his heart: "You are a mean Yankee; a detestable carpetbagger; a lover of negroes, (he was not over-careful of orthography or of orthoepy ;) you are a 'Union Leaguer;' you are an incendiary; you mean to teach and to enforce 'social equality;' I must watch you, and keep you from putting me down and the bottom-rail on top." In most cases never were men more mistaken in each other, and partly because each had just enough truth in his notion of the other to make his misconceptions fatal. If angels ever weep and devils ever laugh, these mistaken. and suspicious men furnished rich and rare occasion. Meanwhile the poor negro suffered from both sides, ground to powder by these two millstones, the upper and the nether, wearing each other out with useless friction and all-consuming heat.

In heaven's name let us now consider whether we have not had quite enough of this wretched farce which has bordered close upon a mournful tragedy!

Both sides made cruel mistakes, meantime confusing, perplexing, and frightening the negro; also spoiling him, for the noise made over him gave him