Fredrick Starr Liberia

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Again, after having given an attractive description of the first impression made upon the stranger by Liberia and its inhabitants, our author proceeds to say: Now, the spectacle which offers itself to the eyes of the visitor is less beautiful. It is the spec tacle of a nation in decadence. And this fact of a nation not yet a century old which, starting from nothing, raised itself in twenty years to its apogee, and has commenced, at the end of barely sixty years, to fall into decay, this fact, I say, deserves that one should pause, for at first sight it is not natural. And it can only find its explanation in the theory which I attempt to develop here, to wit: That the negroes in general, and the Liberians in particular, are emi nently susceptible of perfectionment and progress, but that this perfectionment and this progress are destined to a sudden check, and even to a prompt decadence, if one has sought to orient them in the direction of our European civilization.