High schools and colleges are excellent institutions, and will in due season be greatly subservient to our progress; but they are the result, as well as they are the demand of a point of progress, which we as a people have not yet attained.
In his autobiography, Douglass explains why he believes high schools and colleges are not the immediate priority for the advancement of Black Americans.
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Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.