"Let us teach our children from their infancy, for they need to be taught, that no curse except that which every day follows the impenitent, hangs upon us; that it is the force of circumstances, induced, as we have endeavored to show, by our iniquities, that keep us down; and that we have as much right as any other people to strive to rise to the very zenith of national glory"
About this Quote
That distinction is the engine of the passage. If degradation comes from "our iniquities", Blyden is not simply endorsing moral self-blame; he is arguing for agency in a world designed to deny it. The language is severe because the stakes are severe. He wants children taught early that collective decline is neither mystical nor immutable. It has causes. Anything with causes can, in principle, be changed.
The deeper subtext is nationalist. Blyden is not asking for pity or mere inclusion. "The very zenith of national glory" is a strikingly ambitious phrase, almost defiant in its grandeur. He insists on parity not as a concession from others, but as a right. That matters in the 19th-century context of slavery's afterlife, scientific racism, and colonial hierarchy, when Black aspiration itself was treated as arrogance.
There is also a pedagogical urgency here. Blyden understands that domination survives by entering the mind early, as doctrine, as atmosphere, as inherited shame. So he counters it at the level where nations are first imagined: childhood. The sentence reads like uplift literature, but underneath it is ideological warfare.
Quote Details
| Source | A Vindication of the African Race (1857) |
|---|---|
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Blyden, Edward Wilmot. (2026, March 9). Let us teach our children from their infancy, for they need to be taught, that no curse except that which every day follows the impenitent, hangs upon us; that it is the force of circumstances, induced, as we have endeavored to show, by our iniquities, that keep us down; and that we have as much right as any other people to strive to rise to the very zenith of national glory. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/let-us-teach-our-children-from-their-infancy-for-185796/
Chicago Style
Blyden, Edward Wilmot. "Let us teach our children from their infancy, for they need to be taught, that no curse except that which every day follows the impenitent, hangs upon us; that it is the force of circumstances, induced, as we have endeavored to show, by our iniquities, that keep us down; and that we have as much right as any other people to strive to rise to the very zenith of national glory." FixQuotes. March 9, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/let-us-teach-our-children-from-their-infancy-for-185796/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Let us teach our children from their infancy, for they need to be taught, that no curse except that which every day follows the impenitent, hangs upon us; that it is the force of circumstances, induced, as we have endeavored to show, by our iniquities, that keep us down; and that we have as much right as any other people to strive to rise to the very zenith of national glory." FixQuotes, 9 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/let-us-teach-our-children-from-their-infancy-for-185796/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2026.
