36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tendency toward the average of civilization reached by the white race ; 

 it has the tendency to excite fear and to paralyze the race that still 

 looks to the white man to continue to guarantee to it its political rights, 

 and for the recognition of the full equality before the law that assures 

 him the peaceful pursuit of hapj^iness and the possession of property. 

 By education a great gap has been made in the mountain of illiteracy 

 that was first assailed in 18G2 with many forebodings and much doubt. 

 The philanthropic men and women who first undertook the task have 

 many of them passed to their reward ; but their works do follow them. 

 The better outlook that enabled them to see away beyond the stormy 

 years to come and predict this better day has been fully justified, and 

 none more eagerly bear testimony, and willing testimony, to the benefi- 

 cence and blessings of that work than the white men and women who 

 were born again to their better natures out of and away beyond the 

 prejudices of centuries, and to-day rejoice in the living light that 

 shines from books on the negro's intellect and heart, enabling him to 

 grasp hitherto hidden meanings and comprehend some of the treas- 

 ures of our literature and make himself strong for the battle of life. 

 The man who survives by his owti strength and will excites admira- 

 tion ; the man who has to be helped becomes a burden, and a weari- 

 some burden, to all about him. Educate, educate the negro. Make 

 the ways of light broader ; make the avenues to better life and living 

 plainer. Illuminate him with the intelligence of the ages and the 

 light of reason, and the negro will see his own way and walk without 

 help. He will become a stronger, a more self-reliant man, and by that 

 strength and self-reliance will beat down all the barriers and shake off 

 all the make-weights that impede his progress and stand in his way. 

 He will be a citizen, indeed, and not a halting, wailing child. He will 

 be a man full of man's ways and purposes, with a comprehensive grasp 

 of his duties and a sound, sensibly guided determination to be in every 

 case a citizen equal to the maintenance of his own rights under the 

 law, a strength and not a weakness to the republic. Education, and 

 not agitation, is what the negro needs. He needs repose and rest, 

 time to think of himself and for himself, to realize what he has accom- 

 plished in a few years, how closely he stands to his white neighbors, 

 and how intimately his destiny is linked with theirs. Hitherto he has 

 been constantly in a very sea of turmoil, tossed about, anxious, and 

 confused. Under these circumstances, his own natural disinclination, 

 the poverty of the Southern States, and the political bcdevilments that 

 made at the South confusion worse confounded until 1876, the ad- 

 vance he has made in education and in the acquisition of property is 

 like the work of magic. In peace, in freedom from political agitation, 

 with increased facilities for education, sustained by the good-will and 

 the voluntary taxation of the white people, what may he not be ex- 

 pected to accomplish in the future ? "When seventy per cent of his 

 illiteracy has been swept away, what a self-respecting man he will 



