Page:From servitude to service; (IA fromservitudetos00ogde).pdf/171

Most men in this world are colored. A faith in humanity, therefore, a belief in the gradual growth and perfectability of men must, if honest, be primarily a belief in colored men. Atlanta University was founded as an expression of the same faith in humanity within, as in humanity without the color line. That faith in men meant a firm belief that the great mass of human beings of all races and nations, withal their differences and peculiarities, were capable of essentially similar development and that the method of bringing about that development was by the education of youth. The founders of Atlanta University did not wait until this thesis was absolutely proven beyond peradventure—they held it to be a perfectly valid assumption to make, and to work on, immediately, and therefore they established Atlanta University, two years after Lee surrendered.

They did not establish simply a primary school, or a grammar school, or high school. On the contrary they established all these schools