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.[1]
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
- ↑ 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.
