The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-11-21

which they earned before receiving any training at the Tuskegee institute. This Is expressed in dollars and cents, the southern white people place three times as much value upon the services of an ducated negro as they place upon the services of an uneducated one. The foregoing statement seems conclusive as to the effect of the education upon the economic worth of the negro. But what are the facts as to the effect of education? If evidence is needed to prove that education does not harm him morally, would submit the fact that no negro who holds a diploma from any chartered institution in Ala bama, can be discovered in any prison in that state. Within the last few months, have asked and secured di- rect information as to the criminal rec ords of the graduates of fifteen of the largest and oldest negro colleges and industrial schools, and the facts are, that only two graduates out of the to- tai number have been sentenced to prison, and at the present time not a single man or woman wearing diplo- ma of one of these fifteen institutions wears the prison garb.
 The records of the south show that 90 per cent. of the coIored persons in pris- ons are without knowledge of trades and 61 per cent. are illiterate. This statement alone disproyes the asser- tion that the negro grows in crime as he secures education. If the negro at the north is more criminal than his brother at the south, it is, largely be- cause the north withholds from him the opportunity for employment that the south gives. It is not the educated ne- gro who has been guilty of. or even charged with crime. It is, as a rule, the one who has a mere smattering of education, or who Is in total ignorance. From the point of view of intellec- | tual growth and self help, the educa- | tion of the negro has been a success, Few white Americans realize what sac rif1ces on account of his poverty, the negro has made to secure education and that practically no school has been opened that has not been filled. View the picture of black goman teacher from the Tuskegee institute, teaching school for weeks under an oak tree, then with hatchet and saw leading the way in thE building of a school house and receiving for her services a pit tance of ten dollars a month. Later, see her closing her school at o'clock that she and the older children may cultivate the acres of land about the school building. from which three bales ! of cotton are raised toward the support of the school, so that the term is fin- ally heightened from three to seven months.
 | By comparison after years of civili- zation and opportunity in Italy, SS per cent. of the population are illiterate. In Spain 65 per cent, in Russia 7s per cent, In the average South American country 80 per cent, while after forty years of freedom and opportunity, the American negro has only A. per cent. of illiteracy to his debit,
 As to his commercial growth, let us now take the negro in Virginia for ex- ample. He began life forty years ago In complete poverty, scarcely owning clothing or a days food. Right here, Hay emphasis upon the conditions in Virginia for the reason that the Hannp- ton institute is located in that state, and is the oldest and most widely known of all our schools. From an economic point of view, what has been accomplished for Virginia alone large Fly through the example of work of the graduates of Hampton and other large LSobnnIo iy thatt Etafn2
 The reports of the state auditor show lthat the negro to-day owns at least one-twenty-sixth of the total real es- tate in that commonwealth exclusive of This holdings in towns and cities, and
 that in the counties east of the Blue
 Ridge mountains, he owns one-six-
 teenth. In Middlesex county he owns Ione-sixth; in Hanover, one-fourth. IT
 Georgia, the official records show that
 largely through the influence of edu-
 cated men and women from Atlanta
 schools and others, the negro owns over | 1, 900 acres of land and added last
 year S1, ,526, 900 to their taxable property
 making the total amount upon whicl
 they pay taxes in that state alone, st6,.
 100000. From nothing to s16000,00o is one state in forty years, does not seen
 to prove that education is hurting tht
 race very much.