One of the greatest and most telling speeches made during the conference was by Rev. Joseph E. Roy, whose effort on "The Higher Education of the Negro,—No Mistake," was a high compliment to the race and an exhaustive account of our situation in the South. In the course of his speech he introduced the following expression from Col. J. S. L. Preston of Lexington, Va., which speaks well for our situation in that state: "I speak advisedly when I say that the negro population in this locality has made surprising progress in material, intellectual, moral and religious departments, since their emancipation."
Upon the question of higher education, or the danger of over-education on the part of the Afro-American, Mr. Roy quotes Prof. A. K. Spence as follows: "None; the danger is just the opposite, that of under-education. A smattering of knowledge may work conceit, while thorough study makes men modest. The black man is a man; apply to him all the rules of humanity. Good for white, good for black."
This conference, familiarly termed The Lake Mohonk Negro Conference, passed resolutions as a result of their deliberations, commending the Afro-American as educators, students, land owners, etc., and urged better home life among them as a mass, industrial training in connection with the education of the head, and the formation of enlightened Christian sentiment on the race question and an unselfish service on the part of the whites, in helping the Afro-American to help himself. The fact of Ex-President Hayes having been elected president of the conference, brings to mind his Fourth of July oration in 1888, at Woodstock, Conn., on which occasion he said:
"The colored people were held in bondage, and therefore in ignorance, under the Constitution of the nation. They were set free and made citizens and voters by the most solemn expression of the nation's will; and now, therefore,
