86 
MISSIONARY LIFE 
They are decidedly a superior race of people,— 
much more intelligent and enterprising than the 
heathen proper, though no less sunken in vice. 
"We shall say more of them in another part of this 
work. 
It is true that the general appearance of the 
most stupid Africans indicates susceptibility of 
mental culture ; and from actual experiment, by 
different missionaries, the evidence is conclusive on 
this point. Their children between the ages of 
five and fifteen years are, all things considered, 
quite as susceptible of intellectual improve- 
ment as are the white children of this country. 
In the study of those branches of science re- 
quiring the exercise of memory, mainly, such as 
geography and history, they fully compete with 
American children ; but in the study of those 
branches of science which require the exercise of 
the reasoning faculties, they are inferior to the 
children of this country. 
It requires no supernatural ken, however, to 
discover the reason for this. Rather should we 
wonder that these people have powers of intellect 
at all, after suftering as they have for centu- 
ries the blasting and deteriorating influences of 
heathenism, and the tyrannical and hellish treat- 
ment they have received from slave-traders, and 
others who have g>one among them, and are 
