Nor did the people only learn how to read, write and work arithmetic, but all kinds of industrial schools were started throughout the South; first in one place, then in another, so that the young men learned different trades, and thus qualified themselves to learn a living in coming years. And they not only learned, but they learned well, were ambitious to excel, took naturally to it, and earned the good will and praise of their teachers. In short, after the war was over, the South was both cursed and blessed by a race of "volunteers," who came down from the North, and whose mission was to take advantage of the new state of things. The curse came in with those carpet-baggers, who came to take all they could get, and hold on as long as ever they could. It is true that they were not all bad, for indeed they ran all the way from good to middling. But they have generally been looked upon as a set of rapacious men, who came down to help themselves first, last and all the time; and when all was done, if anybody else could be benefitted by them, so much the better! But with the teachers things were altogether different. They can in no sense be compared with the carpet-baggers, for they were a perfect blessing—all of them, or nearly all, being "volunteers" for the South, and for the benefit of freedmen, and for them alone. They were sent forth, as I have stated before, by the churches and societies of the North, and the national government encouraged them and their efforts in every possible way. And not only were public schools set on foot all over the land, but there were a great many who opened private schools, and thus the work went merrily on. And the walls of the new educational structure began to rise rapidly on all sides, "for the people had a mind to work," and, as the ancient Romans said, "Labor conquers all things." [Illustration: _DE SOTO DISCOVERING MISSISSIPPI RIVER._]