OUR DAY.

VOL. XIII.-JULY-AUGUST, 1894.-No. 76.

THE ÆSTHETIC CAPACITY OF THE AFRO-AMERICAN.

[A Paper Presented at a Convention of Afro-American Educators, in Nashville, Tenn.] I use the phrase, Afro-American, because it describes man, not from his complexion, but from his origin. It is just as honorable, and just as appropriate, as Anglo-American. It means, that just as my ancestors came from Adam to America, by way of England, so the ancestors of the colored man came from Adam to America, by way of Africa. And so far as I know, and so far as we had to do with it, one route is just as honorable and creditable-if we may take credit for what belongs only to the Being "who made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation," as the other. Literally speaking, we are none of us Americans, except the native aborigines; and there have not been wanting learned men who have argued that they were Jews-Hebrew-Americans! At any rate, it is

probable that they came from somewhere else. And the very name Indian given them was the result of a misapprehension as to their relation to the Old World. So instead of trying to classify men according to their complexion, I would classify them according to their history. Their complexion is comparatively unimportant; their origin is a matter of interesting study. True, when I am called an Anglo-American, I am

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reminded that my ancestors were once heathen. So was Abraham, the great ancestor of David, ay, and of David's greater son, our Lord Himself. What do I care, if I am not a heathen myself? Who am I, that I should not be willing to look at the rock from which I have been hewn? If God's great sledge-hammer has broken me off, and He has hewn me to shape, so that He can use me, who am I, that I should be ashamed of the process? No man can live in his past, in his ancestors. He must always live in the future. It is so of nations, as well. You must set something before him, if you would elevate him. He will seldom rise higher than your thoughts of him.

Every epoch has its faith, its dominant idea, its watchword. The watchword of this epoch is man; man made in God's image! that is the name, written in blood, on all the late battlefields. It used to be kings and queens, emperors and empresses, cardinals and priests, generals and captains. But they have had their day. Historians have left off writing of them, and have taken to writing of the people; of homes and hamlets, of industries and trades; of what the people drink, and how they live. A few years ago what George III. did was a great deal more important to read about than what was done by all his subjects, in Europe or America. Then, George Washington was a rebel leader, for whose neck a halter was ready, though all their great generals were unable to catch him. America meant nothing; well, nothing but wild lands, wild beasts, and wild men ! There was not a crowned, head, nor a tiaraed head in all her borders. But, to-day, one American, be he Anglo-American, or Afro-American, or whatever word is before the hyphen connecting with American, counts for more, as indicating the future of humanity, than all the crowned heads of Europe, with all their great armies behind them. America stands for an idea. That idea is man.

This, then, is an epoch. Whatever this free man, raised up by Washington and the Continental Fathers-for this is just what they meant-puts his hands to, is dignified, is consecrated. Because, humble as he is, and imperfect as he is, God

made him in His own image. If he swing the ax or the pickax, the sickle or the scythe, if he drive a horse or curry him, if he wait upon himself, or upon some other man, like his first great ancestor, in the sweat of his brow eating bread, providing bread for his children, clothing them and sending them to school or to church, his work is holy. It is not the work done, the name of the work, the sphere of the work, it is the motive of the work which characterizes it. We read of the Apostle Paul that he earned his own living by the work of his hands, by manual labor. Menial, some of us would call it, who think it is the part of a man to shirk such labor; who do not think it dignified in us to wait upon ourselves. We call it menial because of our own meanness. I know the natural

tendency is to think that since men of wealth often decline to do for themselves what they have not the time to do, or the education to do, or the strength to do, or the sense to do, the highest aspiration in a young man should lead him to reach the same condition of semi-helplessness. And so in study. Young men will not take industrial training, will not learn how to use their hands, how to use tools, or how to put materials together, because, as they conceive, these things are beneath them. They are above them. Any honest labor for self-support is on the level of any other honest labor for selfsupport. When we are thinking that working at a trade, as the second Adam did, and working on the land, as did the first Adam, is less honorable than writing a prescription, or drawing up a brief, or preparing a sermon, we are stultifying ourselves. We should put the dignity of the motive into the character of the work. It determines the character of the work. I came from a region where all the children are taught the dignity, the holiness of labor. I was brought up to handle the ax, and the saw, and the hoe; in a word, to do anything which a boy could do toward obtaining his own livelihood, or contributing to the comfort of the family of a country pastor of limited means. And I know that the secret of the moral power of New England is in the fact that the humblest day-laborer is just as much honored, in himself, as the most successful and accomplished lawyer, doctor or min