CENTENARY OF DANIEL A. PAYNE.              427

time cannot  be appreciated  by  man.       Having  organ-
ized in Charleston, S. C. the first school of character by
a colored man for colored children; and in Ohio the
first  successful  university by  a colored man  for col-
ored youth, and being the inspirer and developer
of a somewhat systematic education among the min-
isters of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, he is
an Apostle of Education to the Negro as well as the Apostle
to Educators in the A. M. E. Church. The acumen, culture,
energy and trend of his mind from early life to the end had
for their object the acquisition of higher education and the
imparting, inspiring and supervising its acquisition by
others; his entire bearing and every movement supported
this quality of mind. He exerted the influence of a teacher
in whatever vocation or direction he acted; he possessed the
genius of an educator,--a teacher, a master-in the mean-
ing in which the old English customs applied the word. In-
structing was with him a pleasure and a passion; and yet
with all, he laid no claim to high scholarship but rather to
the fact of "knowing that he knew what he knew." He be-
lieved that he was divinely impressed and born as an edu-
cator of his people. This vision grew upon him reaching
the grandeur of its realization in the founding of Wilber-
force University. In this enterprise his spirit was enlarged
with hope and sustained by constant results. His faith in
God's instigating and supporting this work never failed him,
though sometimes it reached a low ebb. In his vision and
view nearly all that gives Wilberforce University its physi-
cal prominence to-day, stood out in bold relief nearly fifty
years ago; and so with reference to its literary prominence
and its influence upon the colored race.
  But the force of the teachings and examples of the life
of Bishop Payne in all his walks and associations, are as
prominent and as much to be appreciated as his teachings
in the schools. He was always and everywhere the teacher.
The African Methodist Church was his university. He was




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 1

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  01
Date:  07/1911