From Our Brooklyn Correspondent.

Dear Douglass:—Among the leading causes why the blacks fail of success in this community is, I am too well satisfied, their unsteady habits and their unsettled purposes. These underlie and sap the whole foundation of colored society here. Without entering upon any discussion of the effects, let me merely at this time trace back to, and if possible point out the source whence this want of fixity begins; and pardon me if, to do so, I turn back a leaf of the past. Some years ago, when I, (Ethiop,) with head full of notions of city life and gentility, first came to Gotham, I little thought that much, what then appeared real, would prove but superficial. As I went, for the first time, striding and staring up Broadway, with my pockets stuffed with gingerbread and apples, young, hardy, fat and bouyant, and, withal, verdant, observed and laughed at by all, little did I, (Ethiop,) the uncouth, blue-coated, brass-buttoned, [knee]-booted lad, think that the turning aside of the veil of the future, would reveal what it now does, or I should recognize so many of the gay youths of that time, fine fellows, who laughed heartiest, receded to the point I now find them. True, I had had for my school-fellows many of these who are now the judges, divines and legislators of the land; and it is with mingled pleasure and regret that I look back upon the hours spent in a small frame school-house in a quiet glen of my native village, with such companions in our studies, (few and simple though they were,) each contending for the mastery.—Thus coming to the city, I felt a natural desire to learn something of colored youth and their advantages, and sought their school for that purpose, but was hardly prepared for the change I found.

The small frame house of the district country glen is transformed to the sturdy brick edifice of the city; the three-legged stool is exchanged for the easy and lofty back seat; and the bare walls are [filled] with useful and

entertaining maps, charts, &c., almost to the [illegible] and bewilderment of the [illegible]. Even the green-swarded play-ground is replaced by a brick floor, and the [illegible] and rude club, by the full blown ladle rubber and exquisitely painted bat; and for the crooked hickory, is substituted nice straight ratan. Nor was this all. I found youth, with breadth and compass of mind and quickness of perception, that not only astonished me, but would have been the pride of my life to have equalled, and many of whom now shine in the gallery of Africo-American. But these are the exceptions and have come up as though through fire. As a general thing, with all their advantages and stimulants, I saw on the part of the pupils an entire want of appreciation, an absence of desire for any thing in particular. No plans for the future, no purposes before them. In school to-day, and out of it to-morrow, and indifferent about it next day. John came because Gill did; Mary, because she expected to meet Betsey there. Mrs. Setup sent her daughter because Mrs. Fashon did; and the first morning I happened there Mrs. Fault withdrew her daughter because she was compelled the previous evening to get her lessons, and Mrs. Particular followed suit, merely because she had no especial reason, only she did not like to have her daughter go to that school. I shall say nothing of Mr. Gruff, who had taken his several sons away because, as he expressed it, they "had not larn't," they having been there just three weeks; nor of Mr. Grout, who had just brought his four there from another school because they had been cor-

rected; nor of Mr. Grumble, who was going from house to house complaining of the school, though he had never seen it. Leaving Messrs. Gruff, Grout, Grumble, & Co., to be dealt with hereafter, as also my own more recent three days experience in the school-room of my friend, suffice it to say, that I thought then, and am more confirmed in that opinion now, that here is the beginning of that unsteadiness and vacilation so prevalent among us. Here is the beginning of what becomes apace so montrous an evil. First, at the fire-side; second, in the school room; next, at the first outset in youth, and thenceforth, change and instability mark every stop in life. The bright and promising boy that was once but a blessing to behold, becomes emphatically a shark, yes, sir, a loafing shackling shark!

Those who have charge of education matters among us here, instead of encouraging and, if need be, compelling our youth to attend within their own district and school, especially to train them up to and beget within them stable habits, act as though wholly ignorant of the matter, or as indifferently as though it were entirely without their province. Nor are teachers of this day free from the charge of inducing these habits of change and vacilation, however pitiable the thought. With a full knowledge of the defective fire-sides from whence their pulpits emanate, (if

not their own duties and obligations as educators,) still they strive, as though their success depended upon it, to obtain numbers, from whatever source, and without scruple.

Thus the germs of juvenile instability, nurtured at the fire-side, fostered and strengthened in the school-room, spring up at the first out-set in life, grow to great weeds in manhood, choke in age, and die not with us; but burst our very coffin-lids, and rise up from out our graves, to haunt, cumber, and pester posterity. Having thus, in brief, but significantly pointed to the source whence arises this mainly great and growing evil;—the next inquiry, is, how best to dam it up? how check it, while yet in its incipient state? and mainly I would answer, is necessary, mothers—mothers; each succession of which must step beyond their predecessors, in the work of training; and our daughters must be educated to this end. True, I hear much, among the better classes, here, about the careful education of their children—especially their girls; but I fear it means less than nothing, since I find the flumeries and tinsel, rather than plain and practical education, are attended to.

I repeat—we want, my dear sir, mothers: such as stemmed the billow, and landed on the ice-bound rock of Plymouth; such as spun yarn on Boston Common, and wove on their own looms their husband's and their own tinsey wolsey garments; such as helped to throw the Tea overboard, in Boston Harbor, and substituted, therefore sage and burned bread-crust; such as braved the perils of the Western wilderness, and assisted to clear and fertilize its fields, and render its valleys vocal with their own and the songs of their little ones. With such mothers, we shall have no fear for such a race of sturdy and stable men as we shall need, for the day coming, and the battle yet to be fought in this country. A battle of mind with mind, and purpose with purpose, until a perfect equilibrium of the race is produced. It is ours to hasten or retard that glorious and auspicious day.

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, March 27th, 1852.