How deep and fundamental this is, can be best realized by the comparative density of illiteracy already prevailing at the South. Fifty out of every hundred negroes ten years old and over can neither read nor write, and nearly thirteen out of every hundred whites are in the same condition of darkness. In the United States as many as 231 counties report a proportion of twenty per cent of illiterate white men of voting age, and of the total, 210 of these counties are in the South. Now the conditions represented by all these figures—and at best they can only bring the matter vaguely to our conception—in one sense, on account of the magnitude of the work to be done and the difficulties in the way, are of a nature almost to take hope and courage from us. On the other hand, the absolute need of doing the work, the fruits that must follow, and the progress already made are a clarion call to patience, patriotism, faith, and unresting effort. But before taking up the progress already made, it would be well to remind ourselves once more of some of the causes which have brought about the present state of affairs and render the Southern situation as to popular education a peculiar one. In the first place, there was the all but disheartening poverty due to the collapse of the entire social and industrial system of the South. War, followed by Reconstruction, did the work with ruthless thoroughness. From 1860 to 1880 taxable property at the South suffered a decrease in value of $2,167,000,100, that is, to less than one-half its value at the breaking out of the War. Indeed, in 1870 the one little state of Massachusetts paid considerably over one-half the amount of taxes paid by the entire South. It is clear, then, that for nearly twenty years the South was under the simple yet stern and inexorable compulsion of how to live. In this light, therefore, what it did accomplish in the matter of training its children is to be regarded as a really heroic achievement, and is no occasion of blame because, by comparison, it seems so little. Absolutely, it is worthy of all praise.