The Intellect of the Negro Is  Discussed, 1835

It is the popular opinion, both at the north and south, that the negro is inferior in intellect to the white man. This opinion is not, however, founded upon just experience. The African intellect has never been developed. Individuals, indeed, have been educated, whose acquirements certainly reflect honour upon the race. Uneducated negroes have also exhibited indications of strong intellectual vigour. And because, in both instances, the negro has shown himself still inferior to the white man, he is unhesitatingly pronounced an inferior being, irremediably so, in the estimation of his judges, by the operation of organic laws.

That the African intellect, in its present state, is inferior to that of the European, is undeniable: but that, by any peculiarity in his organized system, a necessary inferiority ensues, will not so readily be admitted. Physiologists have agreed, that physical peculiarities may be communicated from generation to generation; and it is no less certain that mental talents may thus be transmitted also. 

Dr. King, in speaking of the fatality which attended the house of Stuart, says, "If I were to ascribe their calamities to another cause" (than evil fate), "or endeavour to account for them by any natural means, I should think they were chiefly owing to a certain obstinacy of temper, which appears to have been hereditary, and inherent in all the Stuarts, except Charles the second." The Brahmins are much superior in intellect to all the other castes in Hindostan; and it is mentioned, says Combe, by the missionaries, as an ascertained fact, that the children of the Brahmins are naturally more acute, intelligent, and docile, than those of the inferior castes, age and other circumstances being equal. 

"Parents," says Dr. Gregory, "frequently live again in their offspring. It is certain that children resemble their parents, not only in countenance and in the form of the body, but in mental dispositions and in their virtues and vices. The haughty 'gens Claudia' transmitted the peculiar mental character of its founder through six centuries, and in the tyrannical Nero again lived the imperious Appius Claudius." If this theory be correct, there is something more to be done before African intellect can be fairly developed. 

If culture will expand the intellect of the untutored negro--take one of the present generation for instance--according to this theory, which experience proves to be true, it is certain that he will transmit to his offspring an intellectual organization, so to speak, superior to that which was transmitted to himself by his parent; the mind of the offspring will be a less rude soil for mental cultivation than was his father's; and when his education is commenced, he will be one step in the scale of intellect in advance of his parents at the same period. When he arrives at maturity, he will, under equal circumstances, be mentally superior to his progenitors at the same period of their lives. His offspring will be superior to himself, and their offspring yet a grade higher in the scale of intelligence, and standing, perhaps, upon the very line drawn between human and angelic intellect. His mind will bear comparison with that of the white man; and, morally and intellectually, he will stand beside him as his equal.

This is mere theory, but it is theory based upon the operation of laws whose general principles cannot be controverted: and when the negro, by the emancipation of his species, has opportunity for the culture of his own mind-which, if he is disposed to neglect, the philanthropist will nor be-a few generations will leave no traces of those mental shackles, which, like chains loaded upon the body, have so long borne him down to a level with the brute. Till time proves this original equi-mental organization of the white man and the negro, which opinion fact has been strengthening for two or three generations in individual instances, it is due, both to philanthropy and justice, to suspend the sentence which condemns him as a being less than man.

The South-West. By a Yankee [Joseph Holt Ingraham] (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1835), II, 198-200.

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Provision for Schools for Colored Children in New York, 1841 

A school for colored children may be established in any city or town of this state, with approbation of the commissioners or town superintendent of such city or town, which shall be under the charge of the trustees of the district in which such school shall be kept; and in places where no school districts exist, or where from any cause it may be expedient, such school may be placed in charge of trustees to be appointed by the commissioners or town superintendent of common schools of the town or city, and if there be none, to be appointed by the state superintendent. 

Returns shall be made by the trustees of such schools to the town superintendent at the same time and in the same manner as now provided by law in relation to districts; and they shall particularly specify the number of colored children over five and under sixteen years of age, attending such school from different districts, naming such districts respectively, and the number from each. 

The town superintendent shall apportion and pay over to the trustees of such schools, a portion of the money received by them annually, in the same manner as now provided by law in respect to school districts, allowing to such schools the proper proportion for each child over five and under sixteen years of age, who shall have been instructed in such school at least four months by a teacher duly licensed, and shall deduct such proportion from the amount that would have been apportioned to the district to which such child belongs; and in his report to the state superintendent, the town superintendent shall specially designate the schools for colored children in his town or city.

Statutes at Large of the State of New York, III, pp 446-47

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