i8o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



customed to self-reliance, having others to think, plan, buy, and sell 

 for them, to supply wants, to watch over them from the cradle to the 

 coffin, many, when left to themselves, reverted to primitive habits, 

 and became idle and worthless. Slavery had cursed the South with 

 ignorant, unskilled, uninventive labor. Freedom did not change its 

 character. The war, liberation of slaves, the sudden extinguish- 

 ment of millions of property, bankrupted the South. Subsistence, 

 recovery of means of living, rehabilitation, reorganization of those 

 agencies, which are, with intelligent work, the chief means of the 

 wealth of civilized peoples, became the first duty after hostilities 

 ceased. This demanded steady, persistent industry, the change of 

 former methods of agriculture, subdivision of farms, diversification 

 of pursuits, opening of academies and colleges, and establishment of 

 public schools for free and universal education. The contrast be- 

 tween the wealth and prosperity of the North and South presents an 

 appalling picture. Naturally, the Southern people were in despair, 

 and too often they vented their dissatisfaction, their rage, upon the 

 irresponsible and unoffending negro. 



Slavery per se is not conducive to self-restraint of the enslaved, to 

 high ethical standards, and the best types of human life. When the 

 interest and authority of owners were removed and former religious 

 instruction was crippled or withdrawn, the negroes fell rapidly from 

 what had been attained in slavery to a state of immorality, and, in 

 some cases, to original fetichism. Some remained immovable in 

 their former faith, but many, especially of the younger generation, of 

 both sexes, gave proof of what degeneracy can accomplish in a quar- 

 ter of a century. It is very common for them to divorce religion and 

 piety. Artificial excitement, passionate emotion, was substituted for 

 a faith which should be the product of a knowledge of and deep rever- 

 ence for the Word of God. The danger of doing harm, or injustice, 

 restrains my pen from disclosing a mass of disgusting material which 

 could only shock sensibilities and stagger credulity. It is, besides, 

 very easy to magnify our own virtues and others' vices. It is a preva- 

 lent mode of religiousness to repent of other people's sins, and to get 

 superfluous merit by showing how others fall short of our attain- 

 ments. Lowell said, " Everybody has a mission (with a capital M) to 

 attend to everybody else's business," and " to make his own whim the 

 law, and his own range the horizon of the universe." We have all 

 read of the philanthropic Mrs. Jellaby neglecting home and children 

 to sweeten the lot of the unregenerate natives of Borrioboola Gha. 

 Still, testimony, to satisfy the most skeptical, could be adduced ad 

 nauseam, from men and women doing educational and missionary 

 work among the colored people, to show the deplorable depths into 

 which multitudes have sunk. 



