Here at last seemed to have been discovered the mountain path to Canaan; longer than the highway of Emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight, leading to heights high enough to overlook life.
From his seminal work, this passage metaphorically describes education as a challenging but direct path to a higher understanding and a more complete life, akin to the biblical promised land.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.
So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.