The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-08

H.3: South Carolina, 64.1; Alabama, 6e.1; Mississippi, eos; North Carolina, col; Vir- ginia, 57.2; Arkansas, 5S.6; Tennessee, H; Texas, 52.
 Claims of Many Not True.
 These figures by no means represent the symmetrical. ignorance of the Southern negro. There are tens of thousands of them who claim to be able to read and write. who can do nothing more than spell out their name or work over an odd verse in the Bible. There are not 10 per cent. of the agricultural negroes in the South who possess even the rduiments of a grammar-school education.
 If we can stamp out. yellow fever, or smallpox, or other contagious diseases by the authority of the National Govern. ment, why cannot we stamp out Hitter acy by the same authority.
 The South never was any too rich, as regards the mass of its white people. The wealth was largely concentrated among out even that. The South is immensely prosperous now, but it will take 1t g generation or two to make up for the vast monetary losses of the civil war. Il finds itself with a negro population oi something like s.OO00O0 people, allowing for the few hundreds of thousands in the Northern States.
 Those black people. in their horrible ig- norance, are a menace to the prosperity and to the peace of the Southern States Theu are, at the same time, a disgract to the nation, because these black peo- pie are citizens of the United Statee quite as much as they are citizens of South Carolina or Florida. It is safe to say they will not be educated for long gen. erations to come, unless the National Government takes & hand in the oper-
 A.. H. .NA A- A~lAA that a few rich people in the South will tax themselves to attempt to educate mil lions upon millions of black people who were once their slaves.
 There are parishes in Louisiana and counties in other Southern States where the blacks outnumber the whites ten twenty, or thirty to one. An attempt tc saddle the education of the black mass upon the little white minority would mean bankruptcy, if not rebellion; for the lat. ter.
 Why would 1t not be feasible to estab- fish a national educational fund by the authority of the Federal Government tax ing the people Of the United Staes as 6 whole, and apportioning 1t among tho States on the basis of illiteracy? The fund need not be limited to white Hitter ates nor to negro illiterates, but 1t could be made general in it's scope and coulC be apportioned on the basis of ignoranc' among men or women or both, of voting age. have made this suggestion t' many Southern men, and. while mos of them do not want the negro educated at all, they all have welcomed this idea They think that if there is to be any education the national government, in al fairness, ought to attend to the matter It is not necessary for me to go int any arguments on this subject, excep to call attention to the fact that it wal New England people who brought thu first slaves to this country, and that i was Northern bayonets which were re sponsible for the shocking excesses O the reconstruction period in the Soutl immediately after the war.
 Freed, Then Left Alone.
 There is another thing to be taken int consideration, which is, that after hay ing freed the negro, the Northern states men made a horrible blunder in making not the slightest provision for his menta and moral uplifting. As a matter of pur, theory they conferred upon him the use less privilege of the ballot and .theI left him alone. From that day to thii there has been no systematic effort tc cultivate the mental apparatus of thu Afro-American.
 To a certain extent the Southern people are quite right in thtir opposition to edu cation for the negro. By this I near that any careful student of the situation who is free from race prejudice must 1T the end admit that the higher education of the negro is by no means necessary at the present time. In fact, this seem' to be an attempt to put on the roof be fore work is begun on the foundation think a good many Northern philan thropists have made a great mistake 1T spending so much money on colleges ana universities for the colored people. TC a large extent these institutions are ab- surd. The mass of downright illiteracy in the race is so shocking that until fl is removed it would seem to be the wild est extravaganza to build up negro col leges and schools which can, after all have but the slightest possible sources of supply, and which never can be any where near self-sustaining until the mas: of the colored people receive a common school education and there is thereby created a genuine demand for something better in the educational line.
 If had the thing to do myself, witf my present imperfect study of the rac' question in this country. I would abolisl all but one or two of the so-called negro colleges, or at least consolidate them into one or two institutions, so that ther, might be an outlet for such brilliant, in telligent abnormalities as Profussor Du bois, at Atlanta. and the few other ne