question is not whether education, begun to-day and carried on however
vigorously and successfully by the most approved agencies, would
change the characteristics of to-day's masses. Not at all. The
question is whether it would so act upon them _as they are_, would so
enlighten and inform their minds, as to convince them of the mutual
danger, peril, disaster, that must attend continual oppression or
sudden uprising. We cannot expect to make intelligence instantly
effective in the elevation of individual citizenship, or the exercise
of collective power. Little by little that change must come."
{126}

About ninety per cent, of the whole colored population of the South,
and about forty-five per cent. of those above ten years of age, are
illiterate. In 1880, nineteen per cent., or about one in every five,
of the white people of the South, and seventy-three per cent. of the
colored people, could neither read nor write; and this estimate is far
too large. After fifteen years of the ballot, seventy-three per cent.
of the colored race of the South could neither read nor write. Much is
being done to promote education by schools and charities, but what are
these among so many? To meet the ignorant condition of things, the
Government is doing nothing. The State governments are doing only a
little. In the Southern States previous to the war there was no system
of common schools. After the war there were not even old foundations
to build upon. Everything had to be started _de novo_ by those who had
nothing with which to start. "We must remember," said Dr. Mayo, "that
nine men out of ten of the South never saw what we call a good public
elementary school. It has been said that the public school-buildings
of Denver alone exceed in value all the public school-buildings of the
State of North Carolina."