the declared object and form of our government, so far as that unit is concerned, is perverted or destroyed, be it the civil unit of the town, city, state, or nation. We have multiplied illustrations of the possi bility of this perversion of the excellence of republican institutions, in the small civil units. The great body of our people have a most abiding faith, however, in the impossibility of this perversion of the entire nation, and cite justly, with emphasis, the experience which brought the nation into existence, and has preserved it through the late most unparalleled struggle for the Union.

IMPENDING DANGERS.

Looking at the beneficent results of universal education under any form of government, it would seem to command the approval of all fairminded men. In view, then, of its imperative necessity in such a republic as ours, opposition to it from any quarter becomes well-nigh unaccountable. Yet every generation of adults, in every part of the country, in reference to the education of all the children in their midst, has, so far, in some form, to some extent, doubted, hesitated, presented difficulties, or shown hostility. Every generation of adults needs to be thoroughly indoctrinated with the sentiment of universal education, and familiarized with the management of school systems, as much as the children of each generation require the thorough and careful training of the school-room.

The late appalling struggle in our nation was not more sharply marked by geographical lines, than were the conditions out of which it arose characterized by broad demarkations indicating very closely the differences in systems and methods of education in the different sections. The statesman, whose confidence in the perpetuity of our institutions arises from the general intelligence and virtue of the people, on finding more than one-sixth of the adult population utterly illiterate, is appalled in view of the dangers threatened. In tracing still further the condition of the country in this respect, he finds that three-fourths of this ignorance is sectional, and to be found in the South.

EDUCATION IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.

I would respectfully call attention to the carefully prepared abstracts of information from the Southern States, as they appear in the accompanying papers. They reveal a condition of facts calculated to awaken the most profound solicitude. No statement of them, however, can be so truthful and passionless as to pass unchallenged, so diverse are the views and so intense the feelings in regard to this subject. This diversity of feeling and action corresponds to the position of the different classes in the community.

It is clear that the final peace and harmony of these communities will require the satisfaction of the just demands of these various classes. They have clearly guaranteed to them the right to represent their condition, and, according to the forms of law, to seek its improvement. It is worse than useless to thrust these representations aside without consideration. The reasonable examination of these difficulties is the surest and speediest way to their removal.

The colored people, as a rule, seek with avidity a knowledge of letters. They instinctively associate ignorance, and the absence of opportunities to learn, with slavery, which has been abolished, and the privileges of

learning with the freedom now guaranteed to them. All considerate minds may fitly receive this eagerness for gaining a knowledge of letters, on their part, as the grand opportunity for their elevation, to be made the most of before these aspirations are checked.

Instead of this reasonable treatment of the facts, there appears in many cases, a most blind prejudice against any and all efforts to improve the condition of the colored people by education. In some instances, this prejudice takes on the most violent forms of action. The conditions of poverty, and other forms of trial which followed the war, need not be rehearsed. The wide-spread absence of experience in the beuefits of universal education, in those sections where slavery prevailed, is well known and need not be repeated. In some instances, all the bitterness of a fratricidal war remains, while in other cases, men of eminence in the professions, and of the highest social position, accept, with a philosophy which we wish was universal, the new order of things that they find around them.*

Turning their backs upon the past, which is gone, they set their faces resolutely toward a better future. Rising above the social proscription around them, and whatever of remorseless poverty any of them may endure, they apprehend the necessity and the benefits of universal education. They deserve all honor and most cordial support.

Joined with them in the work of education, as a rule, are those who have settled in this section from the North. The charity of the North and of Europe, the great benefaction of Mr. Peabody, and, more than all, the action of the General Government through the Freedmen's Bureau, have set on foot the establishment of schools in accordance with the ideas of universal education.t

* J. L. M. Curry, LL. D., of Richmond College, Virginia, expressed the following views concerning education in the South, before the National Baptist Educational Convention, at Brooklyn, in April, 1870: "Prior to the war no general system of common schools existed in all the States. Alabama had a system gradually perfecting and growing into completeness. Various towns and cities had free schools in more or less successful operation. Academies and colleges for boys and girls were abundant and of a high order. Every State, except Texas, Arkansas, and Florida, had what was called a university, well equipped, well patronized, and tolerably endowed. Some opposition unquestionably existed to State systems as interfering with parental control, as molding all the youth after a prescribed model, and as interfering with the full development of human personality." "The war," the speaker said, "suspended all the institutions of learning, and when we emerged and regained consciousness, it was to discover the dissected members of our extinguished civilization floating hither and thither without direction. A reconstruction of our material, mental, and moral interests became necessary. Schools and colleges were opened. More enthusiasm in the cause of education exists now at the South than ever before. In this awakened sense of the necessity of a high and universal education both races are included. The colored people, as citizens and wards of the nation, need to be qualified for their exalted responsibili ties. Especially do they need trained and educated teachers of their own race. practicable a degraded race should be elevated and delivered by their own class, as the patronage of the superior has a tendency to degrade character."

If

I have endeavored to obtain an accurate statement of the expenditures from these sources in behalf of education in the South, and hope to make it tolerably complete, but as yet I have only the following data:

By the American Missionary Association, as reported by W. E. Whiting, esq, treasurer for missions and schools, for a period of ten years, from October 1, 1861, $1,663,756 99. By the Freedmen's Bureau, as reported by General O. O. Howard, Commissioner, from May 20, 1865, to the present time, in cash, $3,711,235 04; in other things than cash, $1,551,276 22; total, $5,262, 511 26. By the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, during five years, ending May 1, 1871, $220,704. By the Freedmen's Aid Society at Cincinnati, before this society was merged in the American Missionary. Association, Levi Coffin general agent, $134,340 53, besides a large amount not in cash Ja the District of Columbia, $36,000 are reported as expended by the Baptist denomination. I shall be greatly obliged for official information as to the amounts expended by other associations for the same object.

In reply to a letter to General O. O. Howard, asking for statistics in reference to the

How severe the struggle, how hard pressed are the friends of education in this section, will appear from the accompanying papers. Without experience in the management of free public-school systems, without reports and publications from other localities, almost destitute of any literature upon free-school management and instruction, the present workers in the cause of education naturally appeal for aid to the General Government.

Were the communities they represent within the limits of the States in which free common-school systems are well established and efficient, the solution of their difficulty would be easy, and yet might be considerably delayed, as it was in the struggle for the establishment of free schools in some parts of Pennsylvania and Southern Illinois. But separated as they are from the great educational sections of the country by State lines and differences, many minds find insurmountable obstacles in extending to them any efficient aid. Are not the evils indicated by this state of things too immediate and far-reaching, too full of fatal threatenings to the existence of the liberties of the whole people, to warrant me or any other in obstructing a reasonable solution of the question by any exactions of our own?

NATIONAL AID.

Holding fast to all constitutional obligations and guarantees, respecting the privileges of localities and individuals and the cherished traditions in regard to our institutions, can we not afford to trample under foot all the minor dissensions of those who are agreed upon the necessity of universal education to the welfare of the individual, the municipality, and the nation; and by a generous forgetfulness of differences of sentiment between the sections, should we not, in the form of a national aid calculated to render successful the efforts of the friends of education scattered throughout those sections, inspire and guide in a friendly way the establishment of schools and school systems that shall yield the fruit so essential to the good order, peace, and prosperity alike of the community and of the whole country?

The more familiar I become with the facts in the case, and all the feelings associated with them, the more clearly I see, in some simple action. of this kind on the part of the General Government, the solution of the difficulties under which all honest minds are ready to acknowledge we now labor. The moral aid in the way of argument and information, calculated to sustain and disseminate educational sentiment, now within the province of this office to furnish, can be and should be greatly increased. But this plainly is not enough; something in the way of pecuniary co-operation is imperatively demanded.

TRADITIONAL POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

From the days of the American Confederation, antedating the present form of government, until now, the use of the national domain in support of popular education, at the will of Congress, has been unques

progress of education among the colored people, the General states that, as the appropriation for gathering such statistics was expended previous to July, 1870, no official reports have since been required from trustees or teachers of schools, and hence no statistics can be furnished. He adds, however, that the schools established in former years under the Freedmen's Bureau have considerably fallen off in numbers, but in some States the schools under municipal and State authorities have increased.

tioned. Mr. Clay aided in the passage of a bill for the use of the receipts from land sales to a certain extent, for the special benefit of certain specified States. Last year, contemplating the necessity now under consid eration, and wishing to avoid what to some would seem questionable legislation in the interest of certain localities or States, and in view of the efficiency which could be given to education by additional funds, I recommended the appropriation of the net proceeds of the sale of the public lands for educational purposes throughout the country.

From the reflections of the past year and further examination of the subject, and an acquaintance with the public sentiment of the country upon this question, I again take the liberty of bringing this sectional necessity face to face with this net income of a million or a million and a half of dollars, from this source, for your examination and the consideration of the statesmen of the country. No interference with local rights is suggested. But the offer of pecuniary aid to the

*I am greatly indebted to the Hon. Willis Drummond, Statement showing the quantity of public lands granted to the several States of the Union, and

Column No. 2 shows the number of acres estimated to be embraced in the grant of sections 16 to some of the States, and sections 16 and 36 to others, for school purposes, also the number of acres estimated to be embraced in sections 16 and 36, reserved for the same purposes, in the organized Territories, by acts of Congress, the dates of which are given in column No. 3.

Column No. 4 shows the number of acres granted to the States for university purposes, and reserved for the same purposes in the Territories of Washington, New Mexico, and Utah, by acts of Congress, the dates of which are given in column No. 5.

The National Teachers' Association, at their recent meeting in St. Louis, passed the following resolution: "That this association will look with favor upon any plan giving pecuniary aid to the struggling educational system of the South that the General Government may deem judicious."

amount of ten or fifteen thousand dollars for each congressional district, on condition that a certain amount shall be raised by local means, and free common schools be opened for the benefit of all, conducted according to approved methods by the people themselves, would constitute a motive which would stimulate the friends of education in those communities, so as to render well-nigh universal the sentiment in favor of such schools. In this way, by a similar offer of aid, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Illinois have succeeded, without any undue interference with sentiments of municipalities, in establishing schools in reluctant counties and towns. The wise and successful use of the Peabody fund in the South presents a variety of facts, illustrating and enforcing the propriety of this method of aid. How inexplicable must be the Southern feeling that would not speak kindly of a Peabody or a Sears!

Should the General Government extend this assistance, and thus in

Commissioner of the General Land Office, for the following

reserved in the several Territories by acts of Congress, for educational purposes, with the dates ing or reserving the same.

Column No. 6 shows the number of acres granted for agricultural and mechanic colleges by acts of Congress, the dates of which are given in column No. 7, to such of the States as had sufficient public land within their limits, subject to sale at ordinary private entry at 81 25 per acre, being exclusive of the scrip provided to be issued to the other States of the Union, by the act of Congress of July 2, 1862, and supplemental acts, at the rate of 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative in Congress, to which the States were respectively entitled by the apportionment under the census of 1860, as follows, viz: Vermont, 150,000 acres; Connecticut, 180.000; Rhode Island, 120,000; Kentucky, 330.000; Illinois, 480.000: New York, 990,000; Maine, 210,000; Pennsylvania, 780,000; New Jersey, 210,000: Massachu setts. 360.000; New Hampshire, 150.000; West Virginia, 150,000; Ohio, 630,000; Maryland, 210,000; Indi ana, 390 000; Delaware, 90,000; Tennessee, 300,000; North Carolina, 270,000; Louisiana, 2:2 000; Virginia, 300,000; Georgia, 270,000; Texas, 180,000; Mississippi, 210,000; South Carolina, 180,000; Arkansas, 150,000; Alabama, 240,000; Florida, 90,000. Total number of acres represented by scrip, 7,830,000.