Congress. The chief factor against the best interests of the republic in that congressional struggle was Southern political bourbonism; and the chief ally of that factor was Roman Catholic intrigue. The former had its prototype in the first governor of Virginia, who thanked God that there were no public schools in that commonwealth; and the latter obeyed the behests of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which, through its pope, has said that public schools are of the devil.

The only direct aid from the national government to the several States of the Union now received for educational purposes is from what is known as the Agricultural College Fund, which was begun some years ago, and recently increased $15,000 to each State annually. In the Southern States the income from that fund, and the later appropriation, is divided between the two races, and in some cases has led to the establishment of agricultural and mechanical institutions, some of which are making excellent progress.

Northern patriotic philanthropy has in twenty-six years expended fully $30,000,000 in the Southern States. Probably four fifths of this vast sum has gone into educational work. The results have been marvelous in the actual work accomplished in the questions settled concerning the willingness and capacity of the Negro for education, in the development of favorable sentiment for popular education, and in the influence for good exerted upon the white people of the South upon all questions relating to that subject. There have been some very large individual donations from the North, one of which is the gift of the Vanderbilts, resulting in the Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tenn. This great institution, perhaps the greatest in the South, is under the direction of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. Peabody, soon after the war, gave $3,000,000, the interest of which has been wisely used to develop public school systems. The income of the $1,000,000 given by John F. Slater aids in industrial education among the Negroes. Another million has been given by Mr. Hand, of New England, to aid especially in normal training. The gifts and the estate of the late Rev. E. H. Gammon, of Illinois, will probably aggregate $500,000 for theological education. Many smaller donations have been made by patriotic philanthropists to aid the South in her educational problem.

The churches of the North, beginning at first in an undenominational effort, soon entered upon great denominational movements. The Congregational Church, through the American Missionary Association, since its organization, has expended among the colored people alone nearly $8,000,000, most of which has gone into educational work. That society has now under its direction 66 schools, 316 teachers, and 12,095 pupils. The Baptist Home Missionary Society has expended in the same. field of work over $2,000,000, and has 26 schools, 216 teachers, and 6,165 scholars. The Presbyterian Church of the North has also expended in twenty-six years nearly $2,000,000, and has 84 schools, 197 teachers, and 11,529 pupils. The Methodist Episcopal Church has expended in the South in twentysix years $8,000,000 in missionary, church extension, and educational work. This Church has in the Southern States 32 Annual Conferences, with a communion of over 450,000 members, and 16 of these Conferences are among white people. Its educational work among both colored and white people is committed to the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society, and consisted last year of 41 schools, with 330 teachers and 9,310 pupils. Many schools conducted in the local churches of this denomination are not counted in this list. If they were, instead of 41 the number would probably be 200.

A fair estimate of the educational work developed and now being carried on in the South through Northern patriotic philanthropy by church organizations would probably be 250 institutions of higher grade, 1,500 teachers, and 35,000 students. This represents an expenditure in twenty-six years of, certainly, $15,000,000. If to this be added the amounts paid for board by students, and which has been raised locally, and not included in the above, the sum would be greatly increased.

Southern churches have made marked progress in the development of their educational centers. Space will not permit of a detailed showing of this interesting phase of our subject. There has been a most wonderful revival of educational interest in Southern churches, and a corresponding increase in liberal giving by ministers and laymen.

But, after all, the chief hope of educating the masses in the South, as in the North, is in the public free school system. Sentiment in the South is steadily growing in favor of such

schools. At first the opposition among the ex-Confederate whites was, as a rule, intense. There were several reasons for this-the old opposition to public schools as such; the fact that they would mean the education of the Negro; and, last, that they were advocated by the so-called "carpet-bag governments," which, in the Southern mind, stood as a reminder of their defeat and as representing much that was aggressive in ⚫recasting the civilization of the South.

And let it here be said, parenthetically, that it should never be forgotten that those reconstruction "carpet-bag governments," as they have been contemptuously called, gave to the Southern States, with one or two exceptions, their common school systems, and that when those governments were supplanted the public school systems in most of those States were greatly endangered. Thanks to the rising sentiment favorable to popular education, the reaction was temporary, and there has been substantial advance each year since. Outside the cities and larger towns, however, public schools, are very few, and with the exception perhaps, of Texas public school funds are wholly inadequate. Still, the movement is forward and hopeful. One of the latest victories was gained in Georgia, when the annual school term was lengthened from three months to five.. It required a whole day of heated debate in the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to adopt a resolution asking the Legislature to lengthen the public school term. This illustrates the extreme conservatism of a large proportion of even the ministry on this subject.

A good test of the growth of public school education in the South is the per cent. of gain in enrollment as compared with the per cent. of gain in population; and we have the facts upon this point illustrated in the following table from the census of 1890, giving the apparent changes from 1880 to 1890:

The increase in the per cent. of enrollment of school population in the nation during the past few years has come chiefly from the Southern States, and, if the favorable growth continues, there will, in the near future, be as large a per cent. of enrollment in the Southern States as in the North. This is certainly a most encouraging showing. The school year is much shorter in the South, and the equipment in buildings, teachers, and school funds very much poorer. And yet it is a fact that already some of the Southern States are paying as large a per cent. for public school education upon its taxable property as are some of the Northern States. When it is remembered that less than a generation ago it was a penitentiary offense to educate a Negro at all, it is simply marvelous that so great an advance should be made in public school education, in which the Negro also has a share.

According to the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1886-87, the latest at hand, there were in schools for the colored race in the South 15,815 teachers and 1,118,556 pupils; and there were in normal schools 119 teachers and 1,171 pupils. When the census returns upon education and illiteracy for 1890 are all tabulated we can then study with greater definiteness the problem of education in the South as it relates to public schools. There is much, indeed, to rejoice over in what has been accomplished; but only a beginning has been made in solving the problem of education in the South. If the rising tide of ignorance in that section is actually stayed it is all that can reasonably be expected.

Three things are especially needed now in this great work: more money, great increase in the number of efficient teachers, and a more careful study of the quality of education being given to the rising generation in the South.

It is to be hoped that the supreme folly upon the part of the South in rejecting the proffered national aid for public schools

will be followed by a very large increase in State public school funds. The burden is a tremendous one, and is made doubly so by the universal demand in the South, which as a rule is enacted in laws, that the races shall be educated separately. This requires practically two public school systems. Even George W. Cable, our ablest Southern advocate of the Negro's equal rights every-where, says in The Silent South, on page 33: "One thing must be said. I believe it is wise that all have agreed not to handicap education with the race question, but to make a complete surrender in that issue, and let it find adjustment elsewhere, and in the school last." This opinion is not quoted to approve it, but as indicating a phase of public sentiment in the South and not altogether unknown in the North.

Northern patriotic philanthropy must continue to do more and more each year. What has been done is scarcely a beginning. Only a small proportion of the pulpits among the seven millions of colored people in the South have as yet been filled with intelligent, efficient ministers. The Christian leadership of the nation in all sections comes from Christian schools, and the more ignorant a populace the greater danger there is that Christian leadership may not be held. Millions of the poor white and colored people in the South are in the bonds of moral, social, and intellectual degradation. No more important missionary field can be found on earth.

As to the quality of the education, it should be, as far as possible, under Christian leadership. The commercial and political power of the new and rising South is a glorious fact in which every true American should rejoice. But what shall that new South be? Shall it be the old South over again in sectionalism and race prejudice, only more powerful in ruling the nation and in riveting un-American and un-Christian social, civil, and political bondage upon millions of our brothers and sisters more galling than slavery itself?

More than any other organized moral power in America the Methodist Episcopal Church is responsible for the proper answer to this question.

Je Harbell.