editors have rendered most valuable service to the cause of education by constantly stimulating and encouraging our people to educate themselves and their children.
The papers have served as educators to the white race, in matters that pertain to the progress of the negro. The white press readily sees our dark side, but is not disposed, as a rule, to go far out of its way to let the world know of the negro's advancement.
The work of the colored newspapers has thus far been one of love and self-sacrifice, few if any of them paying in dollars and cents; but there has been evident growth, both in the make-up of the papers and in the paid circulation, and I apprehend that the day is not far distant when they will bring in an encouraging revenue. Already Mr. B. T. Harvey is publishing in Columbus, Ga., a colored daily, and he seems to be supported in his efforts to an encouraging degree.
Opinion of Hon. Frederick Douglass.
1st. Yes, but only as a beginning.
2d. It has demonstrated, in large measure, the mental and literary possibilities of the colored race.
3d. I do not think that the Press has been properly supported, and I find the cause in the fact that the reading public, among colored people, as among all other people, will spend its money for what seems to them best and cheapest. Colored papers, from their antecedents and surroundings, cost more, and give their readers less, than papers and publications by white men.
4th. I think that the course to be pursued by the colored Press is to say less about race and claims to race recognition, and more about the principles of justice, liberty, and patriotism. It should say more of what we ought to do for ourselves,
