8. In New England and the Middle States, (a late law in Connecticut excepted) there appears to be no distinction made by law, with reference to the privileges of education or religious worship, between the blacks and the whites. In all these states, and in Missouri, Maryland, Delaware and Ohio, they are allowed by law, not only to send their children to the public schools, but to establish schools for themselves exclusively. Many such schools are patronized by the benevolent friends of the race among the whites. By a late law of Ohio, they cannot receive any benefit from the public school funds. In Alabama, they may not attend schools or have instruction among themselves. A prohibitory law, passed in Georgia, about eighteen months since, debars them from all the privileges of school education in that state. They may however be taught the catechism, or such moral lessons and portions of Scripture as they can commit to memory. With respect to other states no definite information has been received. In Connecticut a law has recently been passed forbidding the establishment of schools for the education of colored children from other states. III. _Intellectual and Moral Condition of the Free Blacks._ It is to be feared that the statements now to be made will meet with an ungracious reception among a certain portion of the community. As a powerful means of enlisting public sympathy in behalf of the African race, the advocates of the Society have sometimes entered into an exposition of such facts as would most accurately unfold their intellectual and moral condition. Accordingly, those who oppose the Society have attempted to show that it is the “disparager of the free blacks.” It were, however, wholly impracticable to arouse public sympathy, either where no suffering or degradation exists, or where their existence is unknown. All benevolent operations must proceed upon the supposition that there is want to be alleviated, or ignorance to be enlightened, or degradation to be pitied; and the vigor with which such operations are sustained by the benevolent will be proportioned, not so much to the degree of this want, ignorance and degradation, as to their thorough and perfect exposure. The Colonization Society is not singular in its proceedings. In whatsoever sense this society is the “disparager of the free blacks,” in the same sense are the Bible and Tract Societies the “disparagers” of those to whom they extend their benevolence. In the same sense also, and to a higher degree, is the Foreign Missionary Board the “disparager” of the Heathen. Were that society to deny or to conceal the deep degradation and licentiousness of the American Indians, and of the Pagan world generally, it is difficult to conceive with what arguments they could successfully approach the sympathies of their patrons.