An examination of this table shows that in the District of Columbia, North Carolina, and Texas the proportional enrollment of negroes was greater than that of the whites, while in other States it was less. The following table shows the rate of increase in the enrollment in each of these States from 1880 to 1890: From this table it appears that in all excepting four States, namely, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, the enrollment of negro children in the public schools has increased more rapidly than that of the whites. Summing up this article in a paragraph, the following conclusions may be stated: The negroes, while increasing rapidly in this country, are diminishing in numbers relative to the whites. They are moving southward from the border States into those of the south Atlantic and the Gulf. They prefer rural life rather than urban life. The proportion of criminals among the negroes is much greater than among the whites, and that of paupers is at least as great. In the matter of education, the number of negro attendants at school is far behind the number of whites, but is gaining rapidly upon that race. Only one generation has elapsed since the slaves were freed. To raise a people from slavery to civilization is a matter, not of years, but of many generations. The progress which the race has made in this generation in industry, morality, and edu cation is a source of the highest gratification to all friends of the race, to all excepting those who expected a miraculous conversion. V. MEMORIAL SKETCH OF JOHN F. SLATER. John Fox Slater, of Norwich, Conn., who gave a generous fund to promote the education of tho freedmen, was a quiet, thoughtful, well-trained man of business, who rose by industry, sagacity, and prudence to the possession of a fortune. His chief occupation through life was the manufacturing of cotton and woolen goods in Connecticut and Rhode Island. In recent years, as his means increased, he was interested in many enterprises, some of them established in New York and others in the West. He was a close observer of the social, political, and religious progress of the country, and a frequent, unostentations contributor to benevolent undertakings, especially such as were brought to his attention in the town where he resided and in the church which he attended. From all positions which made him conspicuous he was inclined to withdraw himself, and he probably underrated the influence which he might have exerted by the more public expression of his opinions; but whenever he did participate in public affairs he showed the same independence, sagacity, and resolution which marked the conduct of his business. Under these circumstances the story of his life is simply that of a private citizen who was faithful to the responsibilities which devolved upon him, and who gradually acquired the means to contribute liberally toward the welfare of others. Notwithstanding the well-known unwillingness of Mr. Slater to attract the attention of the public, those who are concerned in the administration of his trust desire to put on record the characteristics of his long and useful life. For three generations the Slater family has been engaged, either in England or the United States, in the improvement of cotton manufactures. Their English home was at Belper, Derbyshire, where William Slater, a man of considerable property, the grandfather of John F. Slater, resided more than a hundred years ago, until his death in 1782. At Belper and at Milford, not far from Belper, Jedediah Strutt was engaged as a partner of Sir Richard Arkwright, in the business of cotton spinning, then just becoming one of the great branches of industry in England. Samuel Slater, fifth son of William Slater, was apprenticed to Mr. Strutt, and near the close of his service was for some years general overseer of the mill at Milford. Having completed his engagement he came to this country in 1789, and brought with he was touched and gratified by the honor which came to him in connection with his great gift to benevolence, he did nothing to invoke it or to stimulate it. He remained amidst it all the same quiet, reserved, unostentatious citizen. He was to those who knew him well a most delightful and resourceful conversationalist. His breadth of view, his versatility, his familiar acquaintance with affairs and men, with questions of finance, politics, and religion, his taste for art, his knowledge of the world gained from travel, made his companionship delightful to those who shared it. His interest in and gifts to benevolence antedated his later beneficence. Great gifts are never a bit of pure extemporization. Great things are not done on the spur of the moment. Those who develop unexpected resources on great occasions or show themselves capable of conspicuous sacrifices or services have had in advance their rehearsals. The noblest philanthropies are not extemporized or wrung forcibly from their authors by the stern importunity of death. Even legacies have generally a background of practical benevolence. Mr. Slater has given wisely and generously to objects that commended themselves to him. Many of these gifts were in the public eye, but it is the testimony of his nearest friends that he gave with larger liberality than the public could be aware of, with simplicity, and without ostentation, responding to cases of distress and suffering generously, but in such fashion as to conceal the giving hand. But the conspicuous act of his life with which the public had most concern is of course the creation of the foundation for industrial education among the freedmen. Much that had gone before in his life had been leading up to this princely gift. He had always manifested a profound interest in education, had given largely, and had projected generous measures for educational work in the community, which, however, were yielded in the interest of his larger purpose. His interest in local education has been most worthily commemorated by the splendid memorial building erected in his honor by his son in connection with the Norwich Free Academy. Mr. Slater realized, and as his fortune grew was oppressed with, the sense of the responsibility of wealth, and planned long in advance to give in bulk to some worthy object of benevolence; and he resolved to execute this purpose in life rather than by bequest. The issues of the great civil war which unloosed the fetters of the slave, but which did not qualify him for the responsible duties of citizenship, gave Mr. Slater his great opportunity. He thought this problem through. He had been loyal, patriotic, and generous in his gifts when the struggle was upon the nation, and he rejoiced in the successful outcome; but here was a new field and an unlimited opportunity which he resolved to appropriate. His plan originated wholly and without suggestion from others with himself, and was elaborated to its minutest detail in advance of its publicity. Standing at this distance and looking through the experimental test of more than a decade of its working, it is impossible to resist the conviction that it was statesmanlike, patriotic, and Christian in its conception and spirit. Mr. Slater was wise to see what we have been learning, that the exigent want for the emancipated race was practical and industrial education. The higher education has its offices to take in exceptional instances, but for the masses of the race, so long submerged and held down to the low levels of intelligence where emancipation found it, the wisest, most practical, and resultful plan for its elevation was that devised by the founder of this educational fund. It was the instinct of patriotism and of practical statesmanship to go to the weakest spot in the body politic to strengthen it, as it was the impulse of Christian thought to place the ladder of ascent within reach of the foot of the lowest man, who was most hopeless of self-recovery. Perhaps this is occasion for surprise. Mr. Slater might have been patrician in his sympathies, exclusive and reserved in his associations. He had aptitudes and opportunities for aloofness from other than the privileged classes; ho might have been exclusive in his sympathies rather than inclusive. But his sympathies swept him around to the opposite pole from that on which he stood. crossed the whole diameter of society to find the lowest groove in our social and national life that he might do this conspicuous act of beneficence to the poorest of this nation's poor. Such examples of wise beneficence, which express the sympathy of the privileged for the unprivileged classes, do much to lighten the strain of selfgovernment in a nation like ours. They do much to allay the antagonisms of society and to bridge the chasm which opens between those zones of enormous wealth on the one hand and a degrading poverty which are drawn across the map of our modern life. When wealth consents after this fashion to reach out helping hands toward the nation's poor and gives aid toward self-help, then many of the perplexing problems of modern socialism will be solved. He The wisdom of this foundation in its intent and aim can not easily be overstated. Not to create the conspicuous institution, that by concentration of forces focuses the public eye upon the giver, but rather and more wisely to distribute aid over a wide area, among a score or more of institutions; not to do the premature thing of providing foundations for university training for which the race has and for generations will have such scant preparation, but rather to make provision for training along those practical and industrial lines, which is the exigent need, in order to selfhelp toward the creation of the home and an ordered life in the social community. The verdict of his fellow-workers in this field of philanthropic effort, after watching the experiment for a decade, is "Well done, good and faithful servant," and we may well believe that in these words we hear a higher verdict than man's. The reflex influence of Mr. Slater's beneficence, we are persuaded, has been great. We can not estimate the good we do when we do good. The effect of this splendid beneficence in stimulating philanthropic enterprise, passing as it has into the currency of popular thought as a quickening inspiration, its impetus to the noble army of workers for the uplifting of the race, has been enormous. Its inspiration and influence upon this greatest decade of giving in all the history of the world has been immense we are confident. Other millions have gotten into the wake of this one; and we believe other men to whom God has given great wealth, and into whose hearts the passion of the cross has been poured, are to be moved by it to the breaking of their costly boxes of alabaster in the presence of the world's Christ. Such men are and are to be the saving and the enduring forces of the world. They may disappear from the eye; they cease to be seen as visible personalities, but they become immortal in the world as quickening influences. They walk in uncrowned regality through the ages. Their gifts, their lives, will be reduplicated as they spread by contagion the spirit of philanthropy among men; passing for a sort of fresh incarnation into the minds and hearts of others, who catch their spirit, and go to spread it and give it fresh forms and embodiments. Over such lives even death can have no power. Mr. Slater only lived to see the genesis of the work he did, and of the forces he started in the world. His great gift, at that time almost an unprecedented one, awakened wide-spread interest. The news spread over the land and was borne across the sea. Hundreds of letters congratulatory and appreciative poured in upon him. His friends gave expression to their admiration. His city, to whose name his beneficence had imparted a fresh eminence and fame, made him aware of her appreciation of the honor he had bestowed upon her; but amid it all he remained the same unostentatious, quiet citizen-grateful and appreciative of the honor which had come to him, but accepting it rather as an unreckoned-upon accompaniment of his unselfish act. He remained in the routine of his accustomed business, and in the fellowship of friends and neighbors, as if he had only done a duty or accepted a privilege which lay in the path of his accustomed living. Two years later the fatal disease laid its hand upon him, when in the faith of a Christian he girded himself to go unto his Father's house. To many of us it was the summons to the presence of Him who was and is ever the Supreme Friend of the poor and the lowly, to hear His commendation: “In as much as ye have done these things unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done them unto me. Enter into the joy of thy Lord." VI. DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE ORIGIN AND WORK OF THE SLATER TRUSTEES, 1882 TO 1894. Charter from the State of New York, approved April 28, 1882. AN ACT to incorporate the trustees of the John F. Slater fund. Whereas Messrs. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, Morrison R. Waite, of the District of Columbia, William E. Dodge, of New York, Phillips Brooks, of Massachusetts, Daniel C. Gilman, of Maryland, John A. Stewart, of New York, Alfred H. Colquitt, of Georgia, Morris K. Jesup, of New York, James P. Boyce, of Kentucky, and William A. Slater, of Connecticut, have, by their memorial, represented to the senate and assembly of this State that a letter has been received by them from John F. Slater, of Norwich, in the State of Connecticut, of which the following is a copy: [Hero the letter printed below is inserted.] And whereas said memorialists have further represented that they are ready to accept said trust and receive and administer said fund, provided a charter of incorporation is granted by this State, as indicated in said letter; now, therefore, for the purpose of giving full effect to the charitable intentions declared in said letter; The people of the State of New York, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as follows: SEC. 1. Rutherford B. Hayes, Morrison R. Waite, William E. Dodge, Phillips Brooks, Daniel C. Gilman, John A. Stewart, Alfred H. Colquitt, Morris K. Jesup, James P. Boyce, and William A. Slater are hereby created a body politic and corporate by the name of The Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund, and by that name shall have perpetual succession; said original corporators electing their associates and successors, from time to time, so that the whole number of corporators may be kept at not less than nine nor more than twelve. Said corporation may hold and manage, invest and reinvest, all property which may be given or transferred to it for the charitable purposes indicated in said letter, and shall, in so doing, and in appropriating the income accruing therefrom, conform to and be governed by the directions in said letter contained; and such property and all investments and reinvestments thereof, excepting real estate, shall, while owned by said corperation and held for the purposes of said trust, be exempt from taxation of any and every nature. SEC. 2. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, shall be the first president of the corporation, and it may elect such other officers and hold such meetings, whether within or without this State, from time to time, as its by-laws may authorize or prescribe. SEC. 3. Said corporation shall annually file with the librarian of this State a printed report of its doings during the preceding year. SEC. 4. This act shall take effect immediately. Letter of the founder. To Messrs. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio; Morrison R. Waite, of the District of Columbia; William E. Dodge, of New York; Phillips Brooks, of Massachusetts; Daniel C. Gilman, of Maryland; John A. Stewart, of New York; Alfred A. Colquitt, of Georgia; Morris K. Jesup, of New York; James P. Boyce, of Kentucky, and William A. Slater, of Connecticut. GENTLEMEN: It has pleased God to grant me prosperity in my business, and to put it into my power to apply to charitable uses a sum of money so considerable as to require the counsel of wise men for the administration of it. It is my desire at this time to appropriate to such uses the sum of $1,000,000; and I hereby invite you to procure a charter of incorporation under which a charitable fund may be held exempt from taxation, and under which you shall organize; and I intend that the corporation, as soon as formed, shall receive this sum in trust to apply the income of it according to the instructions contained in this letter. The general object which I desire to have exclusively pursued, is the uplifting of the lately emancipated population of the Southern States, and their posterity, by conferring on them the blessings of Christian education. The disabilities formerly suffered by these people, and their singular patience and fidelity in the great crisis of the nation, establish a just claim on the sympathy and good will of humane and patriotic men. I can not but feel the compassion that is due in view of their prevailing ignorance, which exists by no fault of their own. But it is not only for their own sake, but also for the safety of our common country in which they have been invested with equal political rights, that I am desirous to aid in providing them with the means of such education as shall tend to make them good men and good citizens-education in which the instruction of the mind in the common branches of secular learning shall be associated with training in just notions of duty toward God and man, in the light of the Holy Scriptures. The means to be used in the prosecution of the general object above described I leave to the discretion of the corporation, only indicating as lines of operation adapted to the present condition of things, the training of teachers from among the people requiring to be taught, if, in the opinion of the corporation, by such limited selection the purposes of the trust can be best accomplished; and the encouragement of such institutions as are most effectually useful in promoting this training of teachers. I am well aware that the work herein proposed is nothing new or untried. And it is no small part of my satisfaction in taking this share in it that I hereby associate myself with some of the noblest enterprises of charity and humanity, and may hope to encourage the prayers and toils of faithful men and women who have labored and are still laboring in this cause. I wish the corporation which you are invited to constitute to consist at no time of more than twelve members, nor of less than nine members for a longer time than may be required for the convenient filling of vacancies, which I desire to be filled by the corporation, and, when found practicable, at its next meeting after the vacancy may occur. I designate as the first president of the corporation the Hon. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio. I desire that it may have power to provide from the income of the fund, among other things, for expenses incurred by members in the fulfillment of this trust and for the expenses of such officers and agents as it may appoint, and, generally, to do all such acts as may be necessary for carrying out the purposes of this trust. I desire, if it may be, that the corporation may have full liberty to invest its funds according to its own best discretion, without reference to or restriction by |