This unprecedented manifestation of a hunger and thirst for education was promptly met by a large supply of missionary teachers and educational facilities. The promise, however, was larger than the fulfilment. Old people could not learn, and young people must improve by the diligent application of persistent effort extending through years. Such is the teaching of all history and experience. This the negroes did not know, and many of their friends had apparently forgotten it. Reaction came, and with it disappointment and discouragement. “It’s no use, chile, I’se too old to learn,” said the old negroes; and young Sambo, with a characteristic genuinely human, began to develop a passion for sport rather than study. The fact is, the wonderful passion for study exhibited by the Freedmen was abnormal. It is not natural for scholars to be running ahead of their teachers and enthusiastically shouting back for them to come on. As a rule, the teacher must lead. Ability to inspire pupils with a love for study is one of the essentials for success in teaching. The work of education, like everything else good in this world, must be pushed. A full recognition of these facts dictated the original policy of the A. M. A. in its educational work among the Freedmen, and has shaped its policy ever since. Institutions were planted and fostered with a view to permanency. Interest in sustaining them might rise or fall, but the work, in order to succeed, must be patiently carried forward. The flood-tide of enthusiasm on the part of the Freedmen, as a matter of course, began to ebb when the difficulties of obtaining an education fairly dawned upon them. Some of their friends at the North, seeing this, began to lose faith in their educability, and as a consequence began also to withhold their support from the work. But the American Missionary Association said, “This is just as we expected,” and instead of yielding, buckled down to its work all the more earnestly, and argued for its continuance all the more forcefully. The reaction would again react. The tide of interest would return with healthier beat, and the second call would be more effective than the first. It was a firm faith in such an outcome that prompted the annual reports which, for several years, held out this bow of promise, while that ugly debt was hanging like a threatening cloud over all the work; and the faith has been justified by the results. The reaction of the reaction has come. The tide is setting back again with normal flow. The cause is advocated from the leading pulpits; our foremost statesmen endorse it; the most influential newspapers editorially commend it; the debt has been wiped out; our schools are crowded to their utmost capacity, and there is to-day sounding in the ears of the public a louder call for the immediate enlargement of work for the education of the Freedmen than has ever yet been heard. It is not the old, with heads filled with all sorts of fantastic notions, who