THE NEGRO SINCE THE CIVIL WAR. 31 



rather their children, are laboring even more effectively than they 

 did in the time of legal servitude. This disposes of the notion 

 that the blacks will not work without other compulsion than those 

 needs which bend the backs of his white brethren. It is evident 

 that the generation born since the war is laborious and productive 

 up to, if not beyond, the average of men. It is also plain that 

 they are fitted for a rather wider range of employment than they 

 were accustomed to follow as slaves. The negro has proved him- 

 self well adapted for labor in mines and about furnaces — in all 

 places, indeed, where strength and a moderate share of intelligence 

 are required. The fear that he would desert the land and flock 

 to the cities has not been justified. He appears less disposed to 

 yield to the temptations of the great towns than the whites. The 

 first rage of the freed people for schooling seems to have passed. 

 A good many of them are getting the rudiments of an education, 

 some few a larger culture, but there appears to be danger that the 

 folk may lapse into indifference concerning all training that is not 

 immediately profitable. 



As to the moral condition of the negroes, there appears to be 

 good reason for believing that it is now in the way of betterment. 

 Little as they were disturbed in their conduct by the sudden change 

 in their apparent place in the world, they were for a time some- 

 what shaken as regards the limits of their rights. So far as I 

 have been able to learn, they are much less given to stealing than^ 

 they were just after they were freed, or even as they were as slaves. 

 Their marital relations, though leaving much still to be desired, 

 are improving, as is all that relates to the care of their children. 

 Most important is the fact that loose relations between white men 

 and negro women have in great measure ceased, so that the un- 

 happy mixture of the races, which has been the curse of tropical 

 states, is apparently not likely to prove serious. 



Although the negro is not rapidly gaining property, he is 

 making a steadfast advance in that direction. The money sense 

 in all that relates to capital he, with a few exceptions, is yet to 

 acquire. This part of his task is certain to be difficult to him, 

 as it is to all peoples who are in the earlier stages of civilized 

 thought. The experiment of the Freedman's Bank, by which 

 many suffered at the hands of designing white people, has left 

 a bad impression upon the minds of the negroes. Where they 

 save, they commonly hoard their store. As yet they have not 

 become accustomed to associative action. They rarely enter into 

 any kind of partnership. In this indisposition to attain the advan- 

 tages of mutual support we have another evidence of the primitive 

 condition of the folk. 



