FROM OUR BROOKLYN CORRESPONDENT.

MY DEAR MR. DOUGLASS:

In my last, I felt constrained to make some slight animadvertions upon the present neglected condition of our schools, and the dishonorable letting down of ourselves to the lowest pitfalls of debasement and infamy. In either case, if true, since the acts are charged upon us as voluntary, there is enough to stir the deeps of indignation within the breast of all the pure and right minded among us. I hesitate not to say, that, upon the maintenance of the Institution of learning, and a high altitude of self-respect, rest our almost entire earthly salvation. Of the School Institution in all its ramifications, nothing—not even the church itself, (though, perhaps, upon a more elevated basis,) stands upon one so broad nor so wide. The School Institution is general in its aims, democratic in its tendencies, and broad and wide in its operations, and in its effects; the church organization, on the other hand, is particular in its intents, and sectional in its results. I speak of it, as at present it exists among us, where its limits, I am fully persuded, are much too narrowed, and its sphere of usefulness far too meagre for even its own end. If in thus much of the church, (an Instituion under God I love and revere,) I have said aught amiss, I beg some of our clerical brethren will promptly correct me; and yet I cannot resist the temptation the theme offers for a word or so more. Promising, then, my position to be correct, the school, the great lesson-house of our people, present and to come, should be as much the care and concern of our leaders—verily, more—(be they clergy or laymen)—than the church or any other Institution among us. I think I venture not too much when I say it ought to be paramount to most other interests, as it includes most others. Instructors, then, have no business to be instructors, unless they have the welfare of those among whom they labor deeply at heart. Ministers have no right to the investments of the high and holy office of the ministry, unless they are deeply imbued with the earnest spirit of mental and physical improvement, and reform, as well as the spirit of Christianity.—Who are better prepared for the reception of the truths of Christianity, than a wisely, intelligent and thrifty people? None. Ministers tell school-masters, especially if they are of their household of faith, that they are obligated to do all in their power toward the upbuilding of their especial church and the spread of the gospel. In this they are right, perfectly so; and school-masters should tell ministers that they are equally bound to do all of their power towards the diffusion of light, and the dissemination of learning among this same people—that they should look beyond the narrow walls of this or that peculiar creed, or cant, to the broad fields of practical every day life. Both minister and teacher are reformers; both have high and holy responsibilities not lightly to be laid aside. This is earnestly true of us.

To what extent our clergy acknowledge these obligations; or how far they practically carry them out; what direct interest they take in the education of our youth; how many schools they visit; say even in their own parishes; what amount of information they have from actual observation; how well prepared too; and how readily they impart the same to the parents in their daily rounds; in fine, to what extent they do what in them lies towards the upbuilding of our schools, are questions involving what our clergy alone must evolve, and make plain their answers.

Painful as is the acknowledgement, more painful still is the sight. I see daily hundreds of children wandering in the streets of New York and Brooklyn, and withering for the want of the light of learning. For this, parents and guardians are certainly accountable, so far as their knowledge of the right or wrong of the matter goes; but how far responsible is he who gives advice and instruction to these same parents and guardians? he who has the public ear, and whose advice is mainly heeded, I say how far he is responsible if he puts not forth his best endeavors in this matter, is a question I leave for him and others to answer.

Notwithstanding all that may be said of the ministry, no class stands so much in need of this body of men as the colored people; but men they must be—colored men—not white—pious, intelligent and efficient men. Intelligent in the things of theology, and able to feed their flocks with something more than the mere husks of the word—intelligent in the things that promote the temporal interests of a people also, being careful always not to permit their own to overshadow all things else.

I see by a telegraphic dispatch that Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times, has been nominated for Lieutenant Governor of the State, and will, doubtless, be elected. Perhaps you never saw Raymond—perhaps many of your readers never did. The next time you or any of your curious readers come down to Gotham, cross over the City Hall park, and dive down into Nassau Street among the magnats [sic] there at certain hours.—If at night, enquire for the Times office; ascend a flight of stairs, and shuffle into the first niche you find; stuff your hands in your pockets and stand there; listen, and the first man you hear coming towards you from either up or down stairs, whistling—mind, whistling—be assured that is H. J. Raymond. Or should you chance there by day light, and meet a very little and very young looking man, with a very big head, and a very high forehead, and a very pale face, (pale to whiteness,) and very light hair, and very thick lips, blue eyes and short nose, motions nimble and manners bland—in fine, looking as though all the energy of Gotham was centred in that little body, and all the thought in that large head—I say, should you chance to meet such an appearing specimen of humanity, be assured it is Henry J. Raymond, editor of the N. Y. Times, and candidate for the Lieutenant Governor of the State. In whiteness of skin and hair, and in assiduity only, does Raymond resemble Horace Greeley. In fearlessness for the right, candor and moral force, no two can differ more widely. Raymond has talents, but the man is of workable material, mouldable, else he would fail of political success—else he would not now, at his age, have received this nomination. Greeley is of more durable substance, hence of more substantial value. Raymond is the man to mount and ride the popular wave of today; Greeley the one to buffet all waves, popular and unpopular, and bring you at last in safety to the shore.

Of all the Gotham editors, BennettBennett, James Gordon

Founder, publisher, and editor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett (1795–1872) helped foster American popular journalism. Born in Scotland and educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood, Bennett emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1819. Positions in Boston and New York led him to a career in journalism. From 1826 to 1829, he served as the associate editor and Washington correspondent of the New York Examiner, and in 1831 he became associate editor of James Watson Webb’s Morning Courier and New York Enquirer. In 1835, after several unsuccessful efforts to become a publisher and editor in his own right, Bennett established the Herald, a daily paper that sold for one cent a copy. Others had tried “penny-press” journalism, but Bennett’s Herald was the first major success in that business. He frequently ridiculed abolitionists, who retaliated in kind. Oliver Carlson, The Man Who Made the News (New York, 1942); Isaac C. Pray, Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and His Times (New York, 1855), 331–45; Don C. Seitz, The James Gordon Bennetts, Father and Son: Proprietors of the New York “Herald” (Indianapolis, Ind., 1928), 110–18; DAB, 2:195–99. is perhaps, beyond all his compeers (if the term is applicable) in vacillation, unscrupulous, yet bold villany. Not satisfied in catering up daily the foul mental scum with which to feed his deluded readers, he daily varies the poison and swears that it is an antidote each day for the poison with which some one else has satiated them; and thus they vomit forth to-day what they swallowed yesterday, preparatory to taking a fresh dose, and fall at last a prey to this monster. The fascination of a basilisk over a bird, does not equal that of this man Bennett over the morbid sensibilities of his deluded readers—while he himself, rather than anything else, more strongly reminds one of the devil climbing up, fresh fumed and smoking, from below, and looking over the edge of the world, and chuckling over its misfortunes which he him self has produced, and poking, occasionally, with hideous glee, the tormenting fires behind, in which he is roasting the many, many, poor wretched victims already fallen by his hand. Thus seems to me, James Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald, from whom no good has yet accrued to the world, and none ever will.

Yours truly,

ETHIOPWilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. .

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, Sep. 23, '54