The Future of Africa/Chapter 1
THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN LIBERIA.
Delivered before the citizens of Maryland County, Cape Palmas, Liberia, July 20, 1860, being the day of National Independence. Also in the Hall of Representatives, Monrovia, February, 1861.
"Language, in connection with reason, to which it gives its proper activity use and ornament, raises man above the lower orders of animals and in proportion as it is polished and refined, contributes greatly, with other causes, to exalt one nation above another, in the scale of civilization and intellectual dignity."—Anon
"Our language is a part, and a most important part, of our country. * * * * Nobody who is aware how a nation's feelings and opinions, and whatever characterizes it, are interwoven with its language by myriads of imperceptible fibres, will run the risk of severing them. Nobody who has a due reverence for * * * * his own spiritual being, which has been mainly trained and fashioned by his native language—nobody who rightly appreciates what a momentous thing it is to keep the unity of a people entire and unbroken, to preserve and foster all its national recollections, what a glorious and inestimable blessing it is to 'speak the tongue that Shakspeare spake,' will ever wish to trim that tongue according to any arbitrary theory."—Rev. J. C. Hare.
"So may we hope to be ourselves guardians of its purity, and not corrupters of it; to introduce, it may be, others into an intelligent knowledge of that with which we shall have ourselves more than a merely superficial acquaintance—to bequeath it to those who come after us not worse than we received it ourselves."—Dean Trench.
ADDRESS.
Two years ago to-day, when we were assembled together here, as now, to celebrate our National Anniversary, I was called up, after the orator of the day, to make a few remarks. And perhaps some, who are here, may remember that, in setting forth a few of the advantages we pilgrims to these shores possess, for a noble national growth and for future superiority; I pointed out among other providential events the fact, that the exile of our fathers from their African homes to America, had given us, their children, at least this one item of compensation, namely, the possession of the Anglo-Saxon tongue; that this language put us in a position which none other on the globe could give us; and that it was impossible to estimate too highly, the prerogatives and the elevation the Almighty has bestowed upon us, in our having as our own, the speech of Chaucer and Shakspeare, of Milton and Wordsworth, of Bacon and Burke, of Franklin and Webster. My remarks were unpremeditated, and they passed from my thoughts as the meeting was dismissed, and we went forth to the festivities of the day. Eat it happened that, shortly afterwards, I had occasion to seek health by a journey up the Cavalla. There, on the banks of that noble river, fully 80 miles from the ocean, I met with hospitality from a native trader, a man who presented all the signs of civilization, and who spoke with remarkable clearness and precision, the English language. The incident struck me with surprise, and started a crowd of thoughts and suggestions concerning the future; among these came back the lost and forgotten words of our Anniversary of 1858. More than once since, in conversations, speeches, and sermons, have I expressed the ripened convictions which that occurrence created in my mind; and the other day, after I received the invitation to speak before you on this occasion, I concluded to take this for the subject of remark: "The English: Language in Liberia."
I shall have to ask your patience this day; for, owing to that fatality of tardiness which seems to govern some of our jmblic movements, I have had but a fortnight to prepare for this duty, and hence I cannot be as brief as is desirable. I shall have to ask your attention also, for I can promise you nothing more than a dry detail of facts.
I trust, however, that I may be able to suggest a few thoughts which may be fitted to illustrate the responsibilities of our lot in this land, and to show forth the nature and the seriousness of the duties which arise out of it.
1. Now, in considering this subject, what first arrests attention, is the bare simple fact that here, on this coast, that is, between Gallinas and Cape Pedro, is an organized negro community, republican in form and name; a people possessed of Christian institutions and civilized habits, with this one marked peculiarity, that is, that in color, race, and origin, they are identical with the masses of rude natives around them; and yet speak the refined and cultivated English language—a language alien alike from the speech of their sires and the soil from whence they sprung, and knowing no other. It is hardly possible for us fully to realize these facts. Familiarity with scenes, events, and even truths, tends to lessen the vividness of their impression. But without doubt no thoughtful traveller could contemplate the sight, humble as at present it really is, without marvel and surprise. If a stranger who had never heard of this Republic, but who had sailed forth from his country to visit the homes of West African Pagans, should arrive on our coast; he could not but be struck with the Anglican aspect of our habits and manners, and the distinctness, with indeed undoubted mistakes and blunders, of our English names and utterance. There could be no mistaking the history of this people. The earliest contact with them vouches English antecedents and associations. The harbor master who comes on board is perhaps a Watts or a Lynch; names which have neither a French, a Spanish, nor a German origin. He steps up into the town, asks the names of store-keepers, learns who are the merchants and officials, calls on the President, or Superintendent, or Judge; and although sable are all the faces he meets with, the names are the old familiar ones which he has been accustomed to in the social circles of his home, or on the signs along the streets of New York or London, viz.: the Smiths, (a large family in Liberia as everywhere else in Anglo-Saxondom,) and their broods of cousins, the Johnsons, Thompsons, Robinsons, and Jacksons; then the Browns, the Greens, the [paradoxical] Whites, and the [real] Blacks; the Williamses, Jameses, Paynes, Draytons, Gibsons, Roberts, Yates, Warners, Wilsons, Moores, and that of his Excellency, President Benton.
Not only names, but titles also are equally significant, and show a like origin. The streets are Broad, and Ashmun, and as here, Griswold. The public buildings are a Church, a Seminary, a Senate, and a Court House.
If our visitor enters the residence of a thriving, thoughtful citizen, the same peculiarity strikes him. Every thing, however humble, is of the same Anglo-Saxon type and stamp. On the book-shelves or tables, are Bibles, Prayer or Hymn Books, Hervey's Meditations or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Young's Night Thoughts or Cowper's Poems, Walter Scott's Tales, or Uncle Tom's Cabin. In many places he will find well-used copies of Shakspeare and Milton. Not a few have enriched themselves with the works of Spenser and Wordsworth, Coleridge and Campbell, Longfellow and Bryant, Whittier and Willis, and of that loftiest of all the bards of the day, Alfred Tennyson. Should it happen to be a mail-day, or the "Stevens" has just glided into our waters, he would find at the Post Office, papers from America and England: "The Times," "Illustrated London News," "Daily Advertiser," "The Star," "The Guardian," "The New York Tribune," and "Commercial Advertiser," the "Protestant Churchman," and the "Church Journal." In one heap, "Littell's Living Age;" in another, "Chambers' Journal." Here, "Harper's Monthly;"there, "The Eclectic." Amid the mass of printed matter he would see, ever and anon, more ambitious works: Medical and Scientific Journals, Quarterly Reviews, the "Bibliothœca Sacra," "Blackwood" and other magazines.
Such facts as these, however, do not fully represent the power of the English tongue in our territory. For, while we repress all tendencies to childish vanity and idle exaggeration, we are to consider other telling facts which spring from our character and influence, and which are necessary to a just estimate of the peculiar agency we are now contemplating. And here a number of facts present themselves to our notice. Within a period of thirty years, thousands of heathen children have been placed under the guardianship of our settlers. Many of these have forgotten their native tongue, and know now the English language as their language. As a consequence, there has sprung up, in one generation, within our borders, a mighty army of English-speaking natives, who, as manhood approached, have settled around us in their homes from one end of the land to the other. Many of these take up the dialects of the other tribes in whose neighborhood their masters lived, but even then English is their speech. Thus it is that everywhere in the Republic, from Gallinas to Cape Palmas, one meets with a multitude of natives who have been servants in our Liberian families, and are daily in the utterance of English. A considerable number of these have enjoyed the opportunity of school instruction, and have carried back to the country the ability to read and to write English. In many cases, it is, in truth impossible to say whether their attainments should be suggestive of sorrow or of joy. I have had naked boys working for me on the St. Paul, who, when they wanted any thing, would write a note with as much exactness as I could. We all here know one native man, over the river, who is a leader in Devil-dances, and yet can read and write like a scholar. A friend of mine, travelling in the bush, nigh 200 miles from Monrovia, stopped one night, exhausted, at the hut of a native man, who brought him his own Bible to read, but alas! it was accompanied by a decanter of rum! The moral of such facts I shall not enter upon; but here is the simple fact, that by our presence, though in small numbers, we have already spread abroad, for scores of miles, the English language, written as well as spoken, among this large population of heathen.
The trading schemes of merchants and settlers, is another powerful auxiliary, in disseminating this language.
At every important point on the coast, Liberian, English, and American merchants have, for years, established their factories. Between Cape Palmas and Monrovia, there cannot be less than 30 factories. In each of these depots, some three or four English-speaking persons—Liberians—are living; in a few cases families have made them their permanent abodes; and thus, what with their native servants, the natives in neighboring towns, the more remote natives who flock hitherward for trade, and the few happy cases where pious young men devote a portion of their time to teaching; there is, and has been, a powerful, a wide-spread system in operation for the teaching and extension of English.
Another process has been for some time at work to spread our language. The interior natives have found out that a home in our vicinity is equivalent to an act of emancipation; and, as a consequence, remnants of tribes who for centuries have been the prey of their stronger neighbors, for the slave trade; and boys and men, upwards of 100 miles inland, who have been held in slavery; crowd in upon our neighborhood for freedom. Behind our settlements, on the St. Paul, there is the most heterogeneous mixture conceivable, of divers tribes and families, who have thus sought the protection of our commonwealth. Numbers of the Bassas, Yeys, Deys, Golahs and especially the Pessas, the hereditary slaves of the interior, have thus come to our immediate neighborhoods. Although I am doubtful of the moral effect of this movement upon ourselves, yet I feel no little pride in the fact that this young nation should become, so, a land of refuge, an asylum for the oppressed! And I regard it as a singular providence, that at the very time our government was trumpeted abroad as implicated in the slave trade, our magistrates, in the upper counties, were adjudicating cases of runaway slaves, and declaring to interior slaveholders that, on our soil, they could not reclaim their fugitives!
Just here another important item claims attention, that is the Missionary agency in propagating this language. The reference here will be, chiefly, to the two uppermost counties of Liberia. Their younger sister, Sinou, I am sorry to say, has not, as yet, made any marked impression upon her surrounding heathen; more we believe through youth, and weakness, and suffering, than through indifference or neglect. Missionary operations, though participated in by others, have been chiefly carried on, in Bassa, by the Baptists. The means which have been employed have been preaching and schools. On the St. John's they have had for years a Manual Labor School, instructed by white Missionaries. This school has passed into the hands of a native Teacher, educated at Sierra Leone—a man who is the son of a prominent chieftain, and who possesses unbounded influence, as far as the Bassa tongue reaches. He has, moreover, these three prominent qualities; that is, he is a well-trained English scholar, a thoroughly civilized man, and a decided and well-tried disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. His earnestness is evidenced in the fact that his work is unaided and self-supporting, and numbers of his tribe are glad to send him their children. Besides this means of influence, ministers have been accustomed to visit numerous towns and villages, preaching the Gospel. And thus, by preaching and schools a multitude of the Bassas have gained the English tongue, with many of its ideas and teachings.
The same Anglicizing influence has been carried on, but on a larger scale, in Montserrada County, but mainly through the Methodists; and they have spread our language widely abroad through that county, by the means of native schools, native children in their American schools, and missionaries residing in country towns, teaching and preaching as far back as the Golah tribe, and now among the Veys: native preachers, too, men converted to the faith, and moved by the Spirit to proclaim the glad tidings to their needy parents, brothers, and kin. I must not fail to mention the fact, that, during the last two years, one of their ministers has carried the English tongue some 200 miles in the interior,[1] and has spread it abroad amid the homes of the mild Pessas; thus preparing the way for legitimate trade, for civilization, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by the means of the spoken Word and the English Bible.
Thus, fellow-citizens, by these varied means the English language has been pushing its way among the numerous tribes of our territory. And thus, in a region of not less than 50,000 square miles, there are few places but where an English-speaking traveller can find some person who can talk with him in his own language.
And now I beg you to notice one point: this English, which we are speaking, and teaching the heathen to speak, is not our native tongue. This Anglo-Saxon language, which is the only language ninety-nine hundredths of us emigrants have ever known, is not tlic speech of our ancestors. We are here a motley group, composed, without doubt, of persons of almost every tribe in West Africa, from Goree to the Congo. Here are descendants of Jalofs, Fulahs, Mandingoes, Sussus, Timmanees, Veys, Congos; with a large intermixture, everywhere, of Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, Irish, French, and Spanish blood—a slight mingling of the Malayan, and a dash, every now and then, of American Indian. And, perhaps, I would not exaggerate much, if I ended the enumeration of our heterogeneous elements in the words of St. Luke—"Jews and Proselytes, Cretes and Arabians."
And yet they all speak in a foreign tongue, in accents alien from the utterance of their fathers. Our very speech is indicative of sorrowful history; the language we use tells of subjection and of conquest. No people lose entirely their native tongue without the bitter trial of hopeless struggles, bloody strife, heart-breaking despair, agony, and death! Even so we. But this, be it remembered, is a common incident in history, pertaining to almost every nation on earth. Examine all the old histories of men—the histories of Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, and England; and in every case, as in ours, their language reveals the fact of conquest and subjection. But this fact of humiliation seems to have been one of those ordinances of Providence, designed as a means for the introduction of new ideas into the language of a people; or to serve, as the transitional step from low degradation to a higher and nobler civilization.
2. And this remark suggests, in the second place, the query:—"What is the nature, and if any, the advantage of the exchange, we have thus, in God's providence, been led to make?"
The only way in which, in a fit manner, I can answer this question is, by inquiring into the respective values of our native and our acquired tongue. Such a contrast will set before us the problem of "Loss and Gain" which is involved therein. The worth of our fathers' language will, in this way, stand out in distinct comparison with the Anglo-Saxon, our acquired speech. And first, let us speak of the African dialects. I refer now to that particular group of aborigines who dwell in "West Africa, from the Senegal to the Niger, and who have received the distinctive title of "Negro."
"Within this wide extent of territory are grouped a multitude of tribes and natives with various tongues and dialects, which, doubtless, had a common origin, but whose point of affiliation it would be difficult now to discover. But how great soever may be their differences, there are, nevertheless, definite marks of inferiority connected with them all, which place them at the widest distance from civilized languages. Of this whole class of languages, it may be said, in the aggregate that (a) "They are," to use the words of Dr. Leighton "Wilson, "harsh, abrupt, energetic, indistinct in enunciation, meagre in point of words, abound with inarticulate nasal and guttural sounds, possess but few inflections and grammatical forms, and are withal exceedingly difficult of acquisition."[2] This is his description of the Grebo; but it may be taken, I think, as, on the whole, a correct description oi the whole class of dialects which are entitled "Negro." (b) These languages, moreover, are characterized by lowness of ideas. As the speech of rude barbarians, they are marked by brutal and vindictive sentiments, and those principles which show a predominance of the animal propensities, (c) Again, they lack those ideas of virtue, of moral truth, and those distinctions of right and wrong with which we, all our life long, have been familiar, (d) Another marked feature of these languages is the absence of clear ideas of Justice, Law, Human Eights, and Governmental Order, which are so prominent and manifest in civilized countries. And (e) lastly—Those supernal truths of a personal, present Deity, of the moral Government of God, of man's Immortality, of the Judgment, and of Everlasting Blessedness, which regulate the lives of Christians, are either entirely absent, or else exist, and are expressed in an obscure and distorted manner.
Now, instead of a language characterized by such rude and inferior features as these, ice have been brought to the heritage of the English language. Negro as we are by blood and constitution, we have been, as a people, for generations in the habitual utterance of Anglo-Saxon speech. This fact is now historical. The space of time it covers runs over 200 years. There are emigrants in this country from the Carolinas and Georgia, who, in some cases, come closer to the Fatherland; but more than a moiety of the people of this country have come from Maryland and Virginia, and I have no doubt that there are scores, not to say hundreds of them, who are unable to trace back their sires to Africa. I know that in my own ease, my maternal ancestors have trod American soil, and therefore have used the English language wellnigh as long as any descendants of the early settlers of the Empire State.[3] And, doubtless, this is true of multitudes of the sons of Africa, who are settled abroad in the divers homes of the white man, on the American continent.
At the present day, be it remembered, there are 10,000,000 of the sons of Africa alien from this continent. They live on the main land, and on the islands of North and South America. Most of them are subjects of European and American Governments. One growing prominent section of them is an independent Republic.[4] They speak Danish, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English; the English-speaking potion of them, however, is about equal to all the rest together. The sons of Africa under the Americans, added to those protected by the British flag, number 5,000,000.[5]
Now what is the peculiar advantage which Anglo-Africans have gamed by the loss of their mother tongue? In order to answer this query, we must present those direct and collateral lingual elements in which reside the worth and value of the English language, especially in contrast with the defective elements of the African dialects.
I shall not of course venture, to any extent, upon the etymological peculiarities of the English language; for even if I had time, I lack the learning and ability for such disquisition. Moreover the thoughts presented on such a day as this, should have a force and significance pertaining to national growth and a people's improvement. I shall therefore point out some of those peculiarities of the English language which, seem to me specially deserving notice, in this country, and which call for the peculiar attention of thoughtful patriotic minds among us.
The English language then, I apprehend, is marked by these prominent peculiarities:—(a) It is a language of unusual force and power. This, I know, is an elemental excellence which does not pertain, immediately, to this day's discussion; but I venture to present it, inasmuch as you will see presently, it has much to do with the genius and spirit of a language. The English is composed chiefly of simple, terse, and forcible, one and two-syllabled words; which make it incomparable for simplicity and intelligibleness. The bulk of these words are the rich remains of the old Saxon tongue, which is the main stream, whence has flowed over to us the affluence of the English language. It is this clement which gives it force, precision, directness, and boldness; making it a fit channel for the decided thoughts of men of common sense, of honest minds, and downright character. Let any one take up the Bible, the Prayer-Book, a volume of Hymns of any class of Christians, the common proverbs, the popular savings,—which strike deep into the hearts of men and flow over in their common spontaneous utterances; and he will see everywhere these features of force, perspicuity, and directness. Nor is it wanting in beauty, elegance, and majesty; for, to a considerable extent, this same Saxon element furnishes these qualities; but the English, being a composite language, these attractive and commanding elements are bestowed upon it, in fulness, by those other affluent streams which contribute to its wealth, and which go to make up its "well of English undefiled." (b) Again, the English language is characteristically the language of freedom. I know that there is a sense in which this love of liberty is inwrought in the very fibre and substance of the body and blood of all people; but the flame burns dimly in some races; it is a fitful fire in some others; and in many inferior people it is the flickering light of a dying candle. But in the English races it is an ardent, healthy, vital, irrepressible flame; and withal normal and orderly in its development. Go back to the early periods of this people's history, to the times when the whole of Europe seemed lost in the night of ignorance, and dead to the faintest pulses of liberty;—trace the stream of their descent from the days of Alfred to the present time, and mark how they have ever, in law, legislation and religion, in poetry and oratory, in philosophy and literature, assumed that oppression was an abnormal and a monstrous thing! How, when borne down by tyrannous restraint, or lawless, arbitrary rule, discontent and resistance have—
"Moved in the chambers of their soul."
How, when misrule became organic, and seated tyranny unreasoning and obstinate, they have demonstrated to all the world, how trilling a thing is the tenure of tyrants, how resistless and invincible is the free spirit of a nation!
And now look at this people—scattered, in our own day, all over the globe, in the Great Republic, in numerous settlements, and great colonies, themselves the germs of mighty empires; see how they have carried with them everywhere, on earth, the same high, masterful, majestic spirit of freedom, which gave their ancestors, for long generations, in their island home—
and which makes them giants among whatever people they settle, whether in America, India, or Africa, distancing all other rivalries and competitors.
And notice here how this spirit, like the freshets of some mighty Oregon, rises above and flows over their own crude and distorted obliquities. Some of these obliquities are prominent. Of all races of men none, I ween, are so domineering, none have a stronger, more exclusive spirit of caste, none have a more contemptuous dislike of inferiority; and yet in this race the ancient spirit of freedom rises higher than their repugnances. It impels them to conquer even their prejudices: and hence, when chastened and subdued by Christianity, it makes them philanthropic and brotherly. Thus it is that in England this national sentiment would not tolerate the existence of slavery. although it was Negro slavery. Thus in New Zealand and at the Cape of Good Hope, Statesmen, Prelates, Scholars, demand that a low and miserable aboriginal population shall be raised to their own level; and accept, without agonies and convulsions, the providence and destiny, which point plainly to amalgamation.[6] Thus in Canada it bursts forth with zeal and energy for the preservation and enlightenment of the decaying Indian. And thus in the United States, rising above the mastery of a cherished and deep-rooted spirit of caste; outrunning the calculations of cold prudence and prospective result; repressing the inwrought personal feeling of prejudice, it starts into being a mighty religious feeling which demands the destruction of slavery and the emancipation of the Negro! (c) Once more I remark, that the English language is the enshrinemcnt of those great charters of liberty which are essential elements of free governments, and the main guarantees of personal liberty. I refer now to the right of Trial by Jury, the people's right to a participation in Government, Freedom of Speech, and of the Press, the Eight of Petition, Freedom of Religion. And these are special characteristics of the English language. They are rights, which in their full form and rigid features, do not exist among any other people. It is true that they have had historical development: but their seminal principles seem inherent in the constitution of this race. We see in this people, even in their rude condition, the roots from which have sprung so fair and so beautiful a tree. And these conserving elements, carefullv guarded, deepened and strengthened in their foundations from age to age, as wisdom and sagacity seemed to dictate; illustrated and eulogized by the highest genius, and the most consummate legal ability; have carried these states, the old country, the Republic of America, and the constitutional colonies of Britain, through many a convulsive political crisis; the ship of state, rocked and tossed by the wild waves of passion, and the agitations of faction; but in the end leaving her to return again to the repose of calm and quiet waters!
In states thus constituted, no matter how deep may be the grievance, how severe the suffering, the obstructive element has to disappear; the disturbing force, whether man or system, must be annihilated!—for freedom is terrible as well as majestic; and the state emerges from the conflict with a fresh acquisition of strength, and with an augmented capacity for a nobler career and loftier attainments. This fact explains the progressive features of all Anglican political society. Revolution seems exoteric to it; but the tide of reform in legal, constitutional, channels, sweeping away obstructive hindrances, goes onward and upward in its course.
I quote here a remark of a distinguished writer, a lady:—"The original propensities of race are never eradicated, and they are nowhere more prominent than in the progress of the social state in France and England. The vivacity and speculative disposition of the Celt, appear in the rapid and violent changes of government, and in. the succession of theoretical experiments in France; while in Britain, the deliberate slowness, prudence, and accurate perceptions of the Teuton, are manifest in the gradual improvement and steadiness of their political arrangements." (Here she quotes a passage from Johnson's Physical Atlas.) "The prevalent political sentiment of Great Britain is undoubtedly conservative, in the best sense of the word, with a powerful undercurrent of democratic tendencies which give great power and strength to the political and social body of this country, and make revolutions by physical force almost impossible.* * * * Great Britain is the only country in Europe which has had the good fortune to have all her institutions worked out and framed by her in a strictly organic manner; that is, in accordance with organic wants which require different conditions at different and successive stages of national development—and not by theoretical experiments, as in many other countries, which are still in a state of excitement consequent upon these experiments. The social character of the people of this country, besides the features which they have in common with other nations of Teutonic origin, is, on the whole, domestic, reserved, aristocratic, exclusive."[7]
The spirit of the above contrast is truly and accurately reproduced in the lines of a great poet:—
And another of England's great poets, the calmest, quietest, the least impassioned of all her bards; moved by this theme, bursts forth in the burning words:—
(d) Lastly, in pointing out the main features of the English language, I must not fail to state its peculiar identity with religion. For centuries this language has been baptized in the spirit of the Christian faith. To this faith it owes most of its growth, from a state of rudeness and crudity, to its present vigor, fulness, and expressiveness. It is this moreover which has preserved its integrity, and kept it from degenerating into barren poverty on the one hand, or luxuriant weakness on the other. The English Bible, more than any other single cause, has been the prime means of sustaining that purity of diction, that simplicity of expression, that clearness of thought, that earnestness of spirit, and that loftiness of morals, which seem to be distinctive peculiarities of this language. Its earliest ventures for a true life, were wrestlings with the spirit of the Word. Previous to the invention of printing, pious Kings and holy Priests made their first attempts in English, in their rude essays to write, "in their own language," the words and precepts of the Gospels. Its first lispings were in Scriptural translations, its earliest stammerings in fervent prayers, holy Primers, and sacred minstrelsy. Then when the Press unfolded its leaves, its first pages were vernacular readings of the Word of God. From thence, ever since, as from a fountainhead, has flowed a mixed stream of thought and genius and talent, in all the departments of science, of law, and of learning; but the whole has been colored and leavened, and formed by, and under, the plastic influence of Christianity. The Bible and its precepts, has been the prompting spirit of its legal statutes, its constitutional compacts, its scientific ventures, its poetic flights, its moral edicts. But above and beyond all these, this language has delighted to expand and express itself in Tracts, and Tales, and Allegories; in Catechisms, and Homilies, and Sermons; in heavenly Songs, sacred Lyrics, and divine Epics; in Liturgies and Treatises, and glowing Apologies for the Faith; sweeping along in a pure and gracious flood, which in the end shall empty itself into a blessed eternity!
These then are the main peculiarities of this language, and these some of the rich gifts it bestows upon us. But while, indeed, dwelling as I do, with delight, upon the massy treasures of this English tongue, I would not have you to suppose that I forget the loss which has accompanied all this gain. Do not think, I pray you, that I am less a man. that I have less the feelings of a man; because I would fain illustrate a favoring providence,—
No! I do not forget that to give our small fraction of the race the advantages I have alluded to, a whole continent has been brought to ruin; the ocean has been peopled with millions of victims; whole tribes of men have been destroyed; nations on the threshold of civilization reduced to barbarism; and generation upon generation of our sires brutalized! No, my remarks, at best, are discordant; and I avoid collateral themes in order to preserve as much unity as possible, while endeavoring to set forth the worth and value of the English language.
And this is our language. But notice here the marks of distinctive providence. Our sad and cruel servitude has been passed among men who speak this tongue; and so we have been permitted, as the Israelites of old, to borrow "every man of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver and jewels of gold."[8] But now, on the other hand, as to that portion of our race whose lot has been cast among other sections of the European family; what advantages, what compensation have they reaped which can compare with our riches and our gain? Where do we find among them a Bill of Rights, the right of trial by Jury, or, an act of Habeas Corpus? Where do they know clearly and distinctly the theory of Free Speech, of a Free Press, of Constitutional Government?—where are they blessed with such a noble heritage as the English Bible, and all the vast wealth, both religious and political, of the literature of England and America? It is not in Cuba, nor in Porto Pico. Not in Guadaloupe, not in Martinique. Even in Brazil these ideas are but struggling for life; and their continued existence is doubtful. Time is yet to show whether either the white or black race there, will ever rise to their full height and grandeur. With all our hopes of, and pride in Hayti, her history shows how sad a schooling she has had! In truth, how could France or Spain train the Negro race to high ideas of liberty and of government, when all their modern history has been an almost hopeless effort, to learn the alphabet of freedom,—to tread the first steps of legal self-restraint? I grant that not unfrequently they present the individual black man, refined, elegant, accomplished, and learned, far beyond any that spring up on American or English soil. But in capacity for free government, and civil order, the British West India Isles, Sierra Leone, the free colored men of America, and our own Republic are, without doubt, far in advance of all the rest of the children of Africa under the sun. Indeed it is only under the influence of Anglo-Saxon principles that the children of Africa, despite their wrongs and injuries, have been able to open their eyes to the full, clear, quiet, heavens, of freedom, far distant, though at times they were!
3. I venture now to call your attention to a few remarks upon the probable destiny of this English language, in this country, and throughout this continent.
And here, as everywhere else on the globe, one cannot but see the most magnificent prospects for this noble language.[9] Its thought, its wisdom, its practicality, its enterprising spirit, its transforming power, its harmonizing influence, and its Christian leavening, have gone out everywhere in our territory, and are changing and fashioning, not only our small civilized communities, but also gradually lifting up and enlightening our heathen neighbors. By a singular power it is multiplying its own means and agencies for a reproduction of influence, and a further extension of power in wider circles. As an illustration of this, ve have here present to-day, by a remarkable providence, as guests—and we are glad to see them in our midst—the Captain and this large company of officers, of the little Steamer "Sunbeam," bound for the upper waters of the Niger; there to introduce trade and civilization, to pioneer letters and culture, and to prepare the way for the English Language and Religion.[10]
One cannot but mark the finger of marvellous providence, in the divers ways, in which this language is getting mastery over and securing hold upon the masses of natives through all Liberia. Look for instance at the fact that the only people these Krumen trust and rely upon, and with whom alone they are willing to ship for sea, are men who speak the English language. And consider here the bearing of this fact upon the increase of this speech throughout the country. They come from all that section of the coast which lies between Bassa and Beribi, and inland upwards of 60 miles, and offer themselves as seamen. Indeed, the desire for this service is almost a passion among them; boys in scores, run away from their parents for sea-service; I have seen here, in Harper, fully that number together, on a Steamer day; and notwithstanding the hindrances and the monopoly of the coastwise natives, the interior people run all risks to reach the coast to go to sea. The vessels in which they ship as sailors are English-speaking vessels. And in this way a multitude of them are acquiring the habitual use of English. On the coast, between Bassa and this point, there are many large towns where, among adults, it is almost as constantly employed as in our civilized communities.[11]
Notice here another fact: among all the industrial pursuits of our citizens, trading absorbs as much attention as any other pursuit. Scores of our youth, soon after leaving school, start with their cloth, guns, powder, and tobacco, for the factory, whether on the coast or in the country. Added to this is the other fact, that from Sierra Leone to the Equator, the master commercial influence is English. Liverpool and Bristol, Boston, Salem, and Baltimore rule this coast. The numerous factories which now exist, and those which are starting up everywhere along the coast and up our rivers, are English-speaking. So almost universally is this the case, that Dutch, French, and Sardinian vessels find an acquaintance with English an absolute necessity, and are lost without it.
Thus, by these varied means, the English language is gradually extending itself throughout this country, and rivalling the rude native tongues of our aboriginal population. Now all these divers streams of influence, operating daily and hourly all through the country, upon thousands of our native population, disclose to us a transforming agency, which is gradually subverting the native languages of our tribes. The influence is here; it is in operation; it is powerful. Every day by trading, by adventure, by the curiosity of the natives, by war at times, by the migration of tribes, by the hasty footsteps of fugitives—this English language is moving further and further interiorwards its centre, and sweeping abroad with a wider and wider circumference. Nor can it be resisted. It carries with it two mighty elements of conquiest: it is attractive, and it is commanding: 1. It is attractive, in that it brings cloth, iron, salt, tobacco, fish, and brass rods, and all the other divers articles which are wealth to the native, and excite his desires. Poor, simple, childish, greedy creature! he cannot rest satisfied with the rudeness of nature, nor with the simplicity of his sire ; and therefore he will part, at any moment, with the crude uncouth utterances of his native tongue, for that other higher language, which brings with, its utterance, wealth and gratification.
2. It is commanding, too, as well as attractive. When used merely as the language of trade, it brings to these people the authority of skill, ingenuity, and art, in tasteful fabrics, in finely-wrought domestic articles, in effective instruments of warfare. The acquisition of it is elevation. It places the native man above his ignorant fellow, and gives him some of the dignity of civilization. New ideas are caught up, new habits formed, and superior and elevating wants are daily increased. Then the instruction in schools, and service in our own families for a few years, put the native boy so far in advance of his tribe that he must either become head-man or revolutionist; and if the latter, dividing the nation and carrying his party to a higher mode of living, and to a closer connection with Liberians or foreign traders.
As to the future results of this rivalry there can be no doubt; for, first of all, it is a superior tongue; and in all the ideas it expresses, it comes to the native man with command and authority; next, it appeals to him in the point of his cupidity; and his selfish nature yields to an influence which gratifies his desires and his needs. And it is thus, by the means of commerce, and missions, and government, that this language is destined to override all difficulties, and to penetrate to the most distant tribes, until it meets those other streams of English influence which flow from Sierra Leone on the north and from Abbeokuta on the east; and so, at the last, the English language and the English religion shall rule for Christ, from the Atlantic to Timbuctoo, and all along both the banks of the Niger.[12]
Powerful as are these divers agencies in working out the end suggested, they arc far inferior to one other, which I must hold up to distinctive notice. Christianity is using the English, language on our coast as a main and mighty lever for Anglicizing our native population, as well as for their evangelization.
I have already referred, in part, to the work of Missions: but there are some peculiarities in this work which clearly show that Christ is going to put all this part of the coast in possession of the English language, English law, and the English religion, for his own glory. Hundreds of native youth have acquired a knowledge of English in Mission Schools, and then in their manhood have carried this acquisition forth, with its wealth and elevation, to numerous heathen homes. Throughout the counties, Bassa and Montserrada, the Methodists have raised up numbers, in the wilderness, whose daily utterance is English; and they are doing this more at the present time than ever before. We, who are living in this county, know well what a disturbing element, Missions, here, have been, both to Heathenism and to the Grebo tongue. But how great has been this Missionary transformation of the Grebo to English, very few, I judge, have stopped to calculate. For instance, the Episcopal Mission, in this neighborhood, comprises at least 12 stations; and this has been its status for, at least, 12 years. At these stations, what with day-schools and night-schools, for a dozen scholars each; and remembering that, at Cavalla, 100 children, at least, are always under training, in reading, writing, and arithmetic; you can see that several thousands of our aboriginal population have received a common school education in the English language. And numbers of these persons show their appreciation of their advantages, by securing the same for their children, and coveting them for their kindred.
And thus, every year, wave after wave dashes upon the weak intrenchments of heathenism, and is wearing them away; and thus, also, to change a figure, we have illustrated the noble truth, that a great language, like the fruitful tree, yields fruit after its kind; "and has its seed in itself,"[13] by which it is not only reproduced in its own native soil, but also takes possession of distant fields, and springs up with all its native vigor and beauty, in far off lands, in remote and foreign regions!
And now, lest this subject should seem to have but slight connection with the rejoicings of the day, let me point out a few practical teachings which flow from it, and which clearly pertain to our nation's advancement, political and moral, and to its future usefulness and power.
1st. Then I would say, that inasmuch as the English language is the groat lingual inheritance God has given us for the future; let us take heed to use all proper endeavors to preserve it here in purity, simplicity and correctness. We have peculiar need to make this effort, both on account of our circumstances and our deficiencies: for the integrity of any and all languages is assailed by the newness of scenes in which an emigrant population is thrown; by the crudity of the native tongue, with which it is placed in juxtaposition; and by the absence of that corrective which is afforded, in all old countries, by the literary classes and the schools. Here, in our position, besides the above, we have the added dangers to the purity of our English, in the great defect of our own education; in a most trying isolation from the world's civilization; in the constant influx of a new population of illiterate colonists;[14] and in the natural oscillation from extremely depressed circumstances to a state of political democracy, on the one hand, and an exaggeration of the "ologies," and "osophies" of school training, at the expense of plain and simple education, on the other. The correctives to these dangers are manifest, (a) In our schools we must aim to give our children a thorough and sound training in the simple elements of common school education. Instead of the too common effort to make philosophers out of babes, and savans out of sucklings; let us be content to give our children correctness, accuracy, and thoroughness, in spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. I cannot but regard it as a serious defect in the schools in Liberia that so many teachers undertake to instruct their pupils in Chemistry, Botany, and Natural Philosophy, before they can write and spell with accuracy. It seems to me the wiser course is to ground our youth well in the elements of the simple branches, before any thing higher is undertaken. Where it is convenient and desirable, teachers may aim at something more. We are, most certainly, in need of learned men and accomplished women. The State moreover is not too young, nor our circumstances too humble for us, even now, to gather around us the fruits of the highest culture and of the profoundest attainments. But all learning in our schools should be built upon the most rigid and thorough training in those elements which enable people to spell and read correctly, and to understand and explain, such simple reading as comes before them in the Bible, the Prayer-Book, devotional books, and common newspapers, (b) But besides this, Common School education must needs he made more general, superior masters secured, and the necessities of the case he put more directly icithin the control of the citizens, than it is at present. Perhaps there is no defect in our political system so manifest and so hurtful, as that its arrangements allow no local interests, whether it be in the election of a Constable, or the appointment of a Schoolmaster. As a consequence, all our growth seems to be the result of national, in the place of local enterprise; a feeling of dependence upon the Capital is exhibited everywhere: and there exists, universally, a lack of municipal pride and energy. It would be quite beyond the limits I have set before me, to enter upon this subject, else, I should venture to point out great and growing evils which are the result of this state of things; in the points, that is, of political ambition, local improvements, roads, and civil order. I confine myself, however to the subject of education; and I would fain call the attention of public men to the necessity of putting the power of common school education in the hands of the people, in townships,[15] with whatever measure of government aid can be afforded; if, indeed, they wish to see inaugurated a common school system in our country, and desire the continuance in the land, of sound English speech, thought, manners, and morals, (c) In addition to the above, let every responsible man in the country, and by responsible men, I mean Government Officers, Ministers, Teachers, and Parents, strive to introduce among our youthful citizens a sound and elevating English Literature. In this respect we are greatly endangered. There is going on, continually, a vast importation among our young men, of the vilest, trash conceivable, in the form of books. They are, moreover, as poisonous as they are trashy. As trade and commerce increase, this evil will increase, and magnify itself; and it is a manifest duty to ward off and forestall this danger, as soon and as effectually as possible. Happily the antidote to this evil is simple, and easily available. There are a few standard English books which, some for generations, some in recent times, have served the noble purpose of introducing the youthful mind to early essays to thought and reflection; to the exercise of judgment and reason; and to the use of a chaste and wholesome imagination. It is the nature and office of books, to produce these grand results. "For books," to use the lofty periods of Milton, "are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are—nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them! I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragons' teeth, and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men."[16]
The particular works to which I refer, are so masterly, and have become so much the staple of the Anglo-Saxon mind, that in England, America, and the British colonies, numerous editions of them have been stereotyped, and may be had almost as cheap as palm leaves. I do not speak of the brilliant Essayists, of the profound Historians, of the sagacious Moralists. I am referring to another class of books, not less distinguished indeed, but more level to the common taste: works which have been scattered broadcast through the whole of Anglo-Saxondom, and the possession of which is attainable by the humblest persons, by the simplest investment. Any one of these books, which I shall mention, can be bought by any one, if he will practice daily a simple act of self-denial, for a few hours, or put by, occasinally, a single twelve and a half cents. My catalogue would include the following works:
| Locke on the Mind. | Life of Benjamin Franklin. | |
| Bacon's Essays | Life of James Watt | |
| Butler's Analogy. | Life of Mungo Park. | |
| Paley's Natural Theology. | History of Rome. | |
| Wayland's Moral Philosophy. | History of Greece. | |
| Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. | History of England. | |
| Robinson Crusoe. | Milton's Poems. | |
| Alison on Taste. | Cowper's Poems. | |
| Watts on the Mind. | Burder's Self-Discipline. | |
| Channing's Self-Culture. | Todd's Student's Manual. |
The entire list, as several of them are abridged, may be purchased for less than three dollars. But the value of such a Library to a youth, just starting into life, would be incalculable. And no better service could be done the cause of pure speech, correct diction, and earnest thought, than a general effort to put a Library of this kind within the reach of every intelligent boy in the country, of 15 years of age.[17]
(d) But besides the correct training of the young, I beg to insist upon the great necessity of special care being bestowed upon the culture of the female mind in Liberia. I feel that I cannot exaggerate the importance; of this duty. The mothers, sisters, and daughters of the land, are to train the whole of the rising generation, now growing up around us, down, forever through all the deep dim vistas of coming ages. The influence of woman in this great work is deeper and more powerful than that of man; and especially in those years of our life when we are most susceptible. But no one who looks carefully at the state of things in this country, can suppose, for a moment, that either justice is done to the intellect of this sex, or, that women, in this land, feel the burden of obligation which rests so heavily upon them. The latter fact, however, peculiarly affects me. I must confess myself amazed at the general frivolousness of the female mind in this country. It is one of the most astonishing problems that my mind has ever been called upon to solve, how women can live such trifling, unthinking lives, as they do in this land. When I look at the severe and rugged aspects of actual existence in this young country, I find it difficult to understand how it is that Parisian millinery can maintain such a tyrannous control, as it does, over the sex, from Cape Mount to Palmas.
I do not blame women so much for this state of things; nor do I forget the somewhat pardonable fact that dress is the only Fine Art we have in Liberia. The world has been six thousand years in existence, and it has hardly yet begun to do justice to the intellect of woman.[18] Here, on this soil, this injustice cannot be perpetuated with safety. What with the present state of the census,—more than half of the population being females; and the colonization ships, from the necessities of the case, sending us every six months two women to one man; we shall, by and by, reach a state of moral shipwreck; and the sad examples of the heathen, will, ere long, begin to act injuriously upon our social and domestic state, if we are not careful and foresighted. This will surely be the ease, especially in the humblest walks of life, if we do not strive to raise our daughters and our sisters to become the true and equal companions of men, and not their victims. He who keeps wide open the eyes God has given him, cannot be blind to some sad tendencies which already show themselves in our social state. And reform, in this particular, cannot commence too soon. Two or three things can be done immediately. (1) Let every respectable householder make the effort to put in his wife's hand some thoughtful Literary Journal, such as "Littell's Living Age," or "Chambers' Journal;" by which both taste and thought may be cultivated, and the mind be started on the track of reflection. (2) Let some influential persons attempt to gather, in clubs or a society, the aspiring matrons and young women, in our communities, for reading, composition and conversation upon improving topics. Let the scheme projected be humble and simple; let it be elementary, even in its nature; and by gradual steps, rise to something more ambitious; why, indeed, may not ministers of the Gospel lead classes of their congregations in this intellectual effort? There is certainly nothing unholy in it; there is surely much that may lead to and foster piety in it; much that would have the sanction of Scripture. Indeed, is not the religion of Christ to he the great regenerating agent in all mental, as well as all spiritual things? Is not the church to take the lead in all things that are to elevate and dignify man? In any event, and by all means, do not let us go on in the dull, unthinking way we are now treading; and leave the minds of children and youth, in our families, unblessed by that pure speech and strong Anglo-Saxon thought, which come with the most impressive force, from the graceful mind, and the tender voice of cultivated womanhood.[19] (3) But the master need in Liberia is that of a female seminary, of a high order, for the education of Girls. Already our wives and daughters are in the rear of ourselves and sons, in training and culture; humble as we all are, in this country, in acquirements, yet there is a class of men in Liberia who are fully fifty years in advance of our women, that is, intellectually. The operations of High Schools, now in existence, the High Schools for hoys projected, the other educational preparations going on, for Colleges and Seminaries, the return, ever and anon, of professional young men, Lawyers, Doctors, Ministers, who arc sent to America to be educated, with the mental training afforded men in mercantile pursuits, political contests, legal affairs and Legislative duty; will place men, before long, a century ahead of our women. Such mental inequality will be a dangerous state for the interests of education and for social well-being. The mental inferiority of women will retard the progress of our children and youth. The intellectual force of the country will more and more decline; Learning and Letters will lie without influence; material interests will everywhere predominate; we shall lose the freshness and the force of all our Anglo-Saxon antecedents; and at length, men everywhere, will rise up and weigh their paltry purses in the scale, over against the strongest brains; and all manhood shall cease in the land! No better corrective to this sad tendency can be found than a good, sound, moral, English Education for those, especially, who will be entrusted with the rearing and training of our unborn children. I beg therefore to urge upon public attention, the immediate need of raiding the standard of female education in this country, i beg to insist upon the deep necessity of elevating the mind of woman in the republic, and directing it to noble and commanding themes. I beg to enforce the duty of making woman in this land as superior, intellectual, and dignified, as we all would have her beautiful, and attractive, and moral. And to this end all heads of families should strive, at the earliest day, to fall upon some plan, to found a female seminary, with an able staff of officers and teachers.[20]
2. The subject we have been considering, teaches the duty of National care and effort, that our heathen neighbors he trained to the spirit, moral sentiments, and practical genius of the language we are giving them.
I have already affirmed that more natives speak English in Liberia than Anglo-Africans. I wish to add to this, the almost certain fact, that by the arrival of Immigrants, by the opening of interior Stations by Missionary Societies in America, the number of native men and women who will read and write will, ere long, overwhelmingly predominate over us; so that for one civilized Liberian, there will be ten native men who will then speak English. Already our fellow-citizens have, at times, to make strange comparisons. It was only yesterday a respectable citizen told me that his hired woman expressed unwillingness, on a recent occasion, to attend prayers in his family, because his native boys could read and she could not. Her ignorance of letters shamed her, "and made her feel," to use her own wise expression, "more than ever before the importance of education." These comparisons are becoming too frequent; and by and by they will extend to communities as well as to individuals, unless avc provide more fully for the improvement of our own colonists. But I only mention the above facts in order to show how rapid is the advance of the heathen in our own knowledge and acquaintance. And now the question arises, are these people to be quickened by letters to become only intelligent heathen? Are we, by contact with them, to give them only an intellectual paganism? Is our influence upon them to touch only the brain, and not life, manners, the family, society? or rather should we not as a Nation, take upon ns the duty of so training these people, that as they receive the language, so they may likewise receive the civilization, the order, the industry, and the mild, but transforming influence's of a regulated Christian state? The Mission of Liberia, in its civil aspects, is clear to my mind. This nation is to restore society all along our coast; and by restoring society to regulate social life, to quicken in its growth the "tender plant of confidence," in both a direct and indirect manner to elevate the domestic state, to give rise to industrial activity, and to establidi good neighborhood. However humble the eil'ort may be. still it seems to me that we ought to have, in each county, an industrial School for native bovs who are fugitives, or wanderers, or who have been convicted of crime; where they could be trained to the use of the plough and hoe, and receive a good, but simple English education. Our neighbors too, that is, those who live near our settlements, should be bound, by law, to make broad and substantial roads for travel, to keep the Sabbath, and to conform more to our habits of dress than they now do. Moreover we cannot be too early in giving them the benefit of the great Saxon institutions of Trial by Jury, and personal protection. Life should be made sacred among them in the neighborhoods of our larger towns. The Sassy-wood Ordeal should be put an end to, and a due process of law guaranteed to all criminals and suspected parties among them. This I know could not be done in remote places; but in the vicinity of our towns and settlements, sanguinary retaliation, envy, and revenge should not be allowed to show themselves as they now do; nor the awful scenes which take place, almost under our eyes, be suffered to barbarize our children. Indeed, both for their benefit and our own, law and authority cannot be too soon established among them on a firm basis, and with full legal forms. It is a matter alike of policy and of duty for us to attempt, though at a humble distance, the same legal reformation among this people that the English have, with great success effected in India. There is no greater disparity here in our relative numbers, than there, between the Christian power and the heathen masses; while here we have a population at once simple and unenlightened to deal with, and the presence and protection of the three chief naval powers of the world. Moreover we have this encouragement in any such undertaking, namely, that our heathen neighbors are ambitious of improvement, and always welcome the changes and the regulations, which tend to make them "Americans."
3. Finally let us aim, by every possible means, to make indigenous, in this infant country, the spirit and genius of the English language, in immediate connection with its idiom.
You all doubtless remember the solemn utterance of St. James that "the body without the spirit is dead."[21] So likewise a language without its characteristic features, stamp, and spirit, is a lifeless and unmeaning thing, and must, ere long, degenerate into a crude, mongrel, discordant jargon. If the English had educated their West India blacks they would never have committed so great a blunder, as they did before emancipation, as the publication of the Bible for them, in broken English:—a miserable caricature of their noble tongue. All low, inferior, and barbarous tongues are, doubtless, but the lees and dregs of noble languages, which have gradually, as the soul of a nation has died out, sunk down to degradation and ruin. We must not suffer this decay on these shores, in this nation. We have been made, providentially, the deposit of a noble trust; and we should be proud to show our appreciation of it. Having come to the heritage of this language we must cherish its spirit, as well as retain its letter. We must cultivate it among ourselves; we must strive to infuse its spirit among our reclaimed and aspiring natives. And what that spirit is we have witnessed in the character of the people among whom we have lived, across the waters; in their strong institutions; in the history of their ancestors; in the distinctive features of their governmental antecedents; in their colonies; their religion, letters, and commerce. The spirit of the English language is the spirit of Independence, both personal and national; the spirit of free speech and a free press, and personal liberty; the spirit of reform and development; the spirit of enterprise; the spirit of law, of moral character, and spiritual beneficence.
With these ideas we have been familiar from our youth. Wherever the English language is spoken these sentiments are the daily utterances of men. Even in those cases where there is the widest separation between theory and practice, even there the idea of freedom exists and secures expression. The American black man, even in the States of slavery, has been in a school of freedom, from which even the Italian, the German, the Frenchman, the Russian, and the Sardinian, have been separate and alien. He has had unfolded to him, in harangues, in public speeches, in grand orations, in the social talk of the table and the fireside, in the august decisions of Courts and Legislatures, and in the solemn utterances of State papers, all the sublime abstractions of human rights and civil freedom.
You and I have been accustomed to the utterance of the noblest theories of liberty, the grandest ideas of humanity, all our lifetime; and so were our fathers. And although we have been shorn of our manhood, and have, as yet. attained only a shrivelled humanity; still there is some satisfaction in the remembrance, that ideas conserve men, and keep alive the vitality of nations. These ideas, alas! for the consistency of men! though often but abstractions there, have been made realities here. We have brought them with us to this continent; and in this young nation are striving to give them form, shape, and constant expression. With the noble tongue which Providence has given us, it will be difficult for us to be divorced from the spirit, which for centuries has been speaking through it. For a language acts in divers ways, upon the spirit of a people; even as the spirit of a people acts with a creative and spiritualizing force upon a language. But difficult though it be, such a separation is a possibility. And hence arises the duty of doing all we can to keep alive these grand ideas and noble principles. May we be equal to this duty—may we strive to answer this responsibility! Let us endeavor to live up to the sentiments breathed forth in all the legal charters, the noble literature, the religious learning of this tongue. Let us guard, even here, the right of Free Speech. Let us esteem it one of the proudest boasts of this land, and, to appropriate the happy language of a heathen—esteem it "the rare felicity of our times that, in this country, one can think what he pleases, and speak what he thinks."[22] Let us prize the principle of Personal Liberty, as one of the richest jewels of our constitutional diadem. Let us not shrink from the severest lest to which a heathen and degraded population around us, may at times strain it. Let us, amid all the extravagances of their crude state, guarantee, even them, the full advantage of it. Conscious of the nobleness of this caveat constitutional principle, may we allow it full force and unrestricted expression. Let us rejoice that our Republic, diminutive as it is in the group of nations, is already a refuge for the fugitive; and congratulate one another upon the fact that we can already apply to our state and position, the proud lines of Whittier:—
"No slave-hunt in our borders, no pirate on the strand,
No fetters in Liberia! no slave upon our land."
Let us endeavor, by the reading of their Journals; by close observation of that venturesome enterprise of theirs, which carries them from "beneath the Arctic circle, to the opposite region of Polar cold;"—by a careful inspection of their representatives, who visit these shores; and by a judicious imitation of their daring and activity; let us strive to catch and gain to ourselves somewhat the spirit of enterprise and progress which characterizes them, in all their world-wide homes. Moreover, let us cultivate the principle of Independence, both as a nation and as individuals, and in our children; as, in itself a needed element of character, as the great antidote to the deep slavishness of a three centuries' servitude, and as a corrective to the inactivity, the slothfulness, and the helplessness, which are gendered by a tropical clime. I am well aware of the exaggeration to which all men are liable to carry this sentiment; but this, indeed, is the case with nil the other noble principles which I have alluded to. This possibility of excess is one of the conditions of freedom. You cannot hem it in, nor any of its accessories, within the line of strict propriety, to the rigid margin of cold exactitude. And the spirit of independence, the disposition to modest self-reliance, the feeling of one's being sufficient for one's own needs, and temporal requirements; is just one of those golden elements of character, which needs to be cultivated everywhere among our population. It is conservative, too, as well as democratic; and if it does overflow at times its banks, it will not be long ere it will delight to come back to, and run, in its proper channel. An antidote to its extravagances, will, moreover, be found in the cultivation of another prime characteristic of the English language, that is, its high moral and spiritual character. Remembering that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but that sin is a reproach to any people;" let us aim at the cultivation among us, of all that sensitive honor, those habits of honesty, that purity of manners and morals, those domestic virtues, and that evangelical piety, which are peculiarly the attributes of Anglo-Saxon society, States, and homes.
So, by God's blessing, shall we prove ourselves not undeserving of the peculiar providence God has bestowed upon us; and somewhat worthy the inheritance of the great and ennobling English Language.
- ↑ The lamented Rev. George L. Seymour, Missionary and Traveller.
- ↑ Western Africa," &c. 456, by Rev. J. L. Wilson, D.D.
- ↑ New York.
- ↑ Hayti.
- ↑ In the N. Y. Tribune of the 10th January I find the following estimate:—Negroes on this Continent.—It is estimated that there are some 14,000,000 persons of African descent on this continent. In the United States, they number 4,500,000; Brazil, 4,150,000; Cuba, 1,500,000; South and Central American Republics, 1,200,000; Hayti, 2,000,000; British Possessions, 800,000; French, 250,000; Dutch, Danish, and Mexican, 200,000.
- ↑ "See Church in the Colonies, No. xxii. A Journal of the visitation of the Bishop of Capetown. Also, letters of the Bishop of New Zealand, etc., etc."
- ↑ "[Mrs.] Somerville's Physical Geography," ch. 33.
- ↑ Exodus, ch. xi. 2.
- ↑ I quote the following from a learned English journal:—"And as of all the works of man language is the most enduring, and partakes the most of eternity, as our own language, so far as thought can project itself in the future, seems likely to be coeval with the world, and to spread vastly beyond even its present immeasurable limits, there cannot easily be a nobler object of ambition than to purify and better it."—Rev. J. C Hare, Philiological Museum, vol. i. 665.
- ↑ The Steamer "Sunbeam" came into the Roads of Harper, Wednesday, 25th of July, and the captain, and his officers and company, joined in the procession on the 26th, having fired a salute in the morning. They all participated in the festivities at a public party in the evening and went off to their steamer at eleven o'clock at night, amid the loud cheers of the citizens, who accompanied them to the water's side.
- ↑ "Three-fourths of the population of the Kru country speak imperfect, but intelligible English."—Western Africa, &c, p. 103. By Rev. J. L. Wilson, D.D.
- ↑ There seems every probability that the whole of that part of Africa, called Nigritia, which includes what is termed the Negro race proper is to lie brought under the influence of the English language, by the agency of black men, trained under Anglo-Saxon influences, at the Tongas Mission, Sierra Leone, Mendi Mission, Liberia, English Accra, Lagos, and Abbeokuta.
- ↑ Gen. i. 11.
- ↑ Since the delivery of this address a new element has been added to our population. The American Government is now sending recaptured Africans to Liberia.
- ↑ The wide diffusion of education which has distinguished New England from her earliest times, is owing to this arrangement. Its great and divers advantages are pointed out by De Tocqueville. See "Democracy in America," ch. V
- ↑ John Milton. Oration for "Unlicensed Printing."
- ↑ Just here, while speaking of books, it is no more than duty to acknowledge the vast debt of obligation Liborian citizens owe Benjamin Coates, Esq., of Philadelphia, U.S.A. Scores of persons in Liberia will join in this expression of gratitude. The families are not a few, who, as in my own case, beside other books, have likewise their valuable Coates' Library.
- ↑ "It seems needful that something should be said specially about the education of women. As regards their interests they have been unkindly treated—too much flattered, too little respected. They are shut up in a world of conventionabilities, and naturally believe that to be the only world. The theory of their education seems to be, that they should not be made companions to men, and some would say they certainly are not."—Friends in Council, B. 1, ch. viii.
- ↑ I cannot resist the temptation to add here another fine extract from the learned English journal before quoted. "It is a most happy and beautiful provision that children should imbibe their native language primarily and mainly from their mothers, should suck it in, as it were, along with their milk; this it is that makes it their mother tongue. For women are much more duteous recipients of the laws of nature and society; they are much less liable to be deluded by fantastical theories; and it is an old and very true remark, that in order to feel all the beauty and purity of any language, we must hear it from the lips * * * * * of a sensible, well-educated woman."—[Rev.] J. C. Hare, Philological Museum, vol. i., 644.
- ↑ I feel sure that, for the accomplishment of this end, we can, if necessary, look to that anxious and painstaking benevolence in America, which so very generally anticipates the intellectual needs of Liberia. But there are men of means enough in Liberia to start such an undertaking; and there are scores who are able to pay a good sum annually, to give their daughters a substantial, and at the same time, a refined education.
Since the delivery of this address, Rev. Mr. Blyden has been acting in accordance with the above suggestion in England; and has succeeded, I learn, in raising a considerable amount of funds for a female High School in Liberia. - ↑ St. James, ii, 26.
- ↑ "Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quæ velis, et quæ sentias dicere licet."—Tacitus, Hist., lib. 1, cap. 2.