TEE EDUCATION OF TEE COLORED RACE 457 



civilized world. We assert that it is a fundamental duty of the United 

 States government to its own citizenship in the promotion of morality 

 and in the establishment of every department of industry, invention and 

 manufacture which ultimately tends to the improvement, progress and 

 prosperity of the nation as a whole and stands as a bulwark of strength 

 in the time of trouble. 



Granting the correctness of statistics already given, every true 

 citizen of the nation will admit that the present conditions existing 

 for the education of southern children must be improved. The writer 

 has ventured to outline a method 7 by which this may be accomplished. 

 It is evident that if the United States government assumes the respon- 

 sibility of the education of the colored children of the south, the white 

 people, relieved of this burden, will be the better able to meet the 

 educational requirements of their own children. 



There are 600 places in the southern states, not counting Virginia, 

 Maryland and Kentucky, which contain 1,000 people or over. In these 

 dwell about 3,000,000 people, white and colored. The other 14,000,000 

 are country people. This number is over 17,000,000 if the above-named 

 states are added. About 10,000,000 of these are native white Ameri- 

 cans with 3,500,000 children to be educated; and there are seven 

 millions of colored people with 2,500,000 children to be educated. 



The area of this country is seen in the following table : 



Square Miles. 

 Virginia 42,450 



North Carolina 52,250 



South Carolina 30,570 



Georgia 59,470 



Florida 58,680 



Alabama 52,250 



Mississippi 46,810 



Louisiana 48,720 



Arkansas 53,850 



Tennessee 42,050 



Total 4877100 



Kentucky 40,400 



Texas 265,780 



West Virginia 24,780 



Maryland 12,210 



Owing to the small proportion of colored people with respect to 

 the total population in Kentucky and West Virginia and the small 

 proportion of them in comparison with the great area of Texas, these 

 states are omitted from the present calculations. Other appropria- 



T This method must be regarded as merely provisional. It is intended for 

 the most part to give an idea of the expenses necessary for an adequate educa- 

 tion of the colored race. 



