Page:Women of distinction.djvu/388

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WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.

correcting an error there, and really accomplishing more toward the final solution of the problem than all the articles, talk and legislation combined.

At the close of a recent gathering of colored teachers in a former slave State one of the .prominent daily papers contained the following editorial:

The annual meeting of the State Colored Teachers' Association, which closed this evening, has been a most interesting event. Without personal observation it would be quite impossible to form an idea how interesting. The remarkable character of the gathering itself of two hundred colored teachers from all over the State ; the visible evidences of culture and refinement ; the excellence of the music, largely due to the development of a natural and God-given faculty ; the brightness and proficiency of the model classes taken from the colored schools of our city ; the high range of thought and knowledge covered by the speakers and essayists—all this had to be seen and heard to be appreciated.

There was something, too, _which recalled the old saying that "One half of the world does not know how the other half lives." It is certain that the majority of white citizens have little real knowledge of the high attainment reached in the art of teaching and in scholarship by those who constitute the membership of the State Colored Teachers' Association.

While the magazinists are writing, and the orators are orating, and the doctors of divinity are preaching over the "Race Problem," and even Henry Watterson is confessing that his own wisdom is inadequate and that he will be obliged to leave the matter in the hands of God, these teachers are solving it by acquiring and imparting to others that knowledge which is power and the best qualification for the lawful use of liberty.

Thus throughout the land, in the midst of unyielding obstacles, to use the words of one of our most distinguished women, "We are rising," as all who are equal to the task of rising above their prejudices are willing to admit.