But admirable as their work has been, if we wisely consider the magnitude of the task that remains, we shall begin to apprehend that we have only picked up here and there a few pebbles on the shore, while the great ocean of ignorance stretches vast and untouched before us. The following statistical tables are only too familiar: _Number of Males in the late Slave-holding States twenty-one Years of age and upward who could not Read and Write in 1870 and 1880_: ——————1870.—————— ——————1880.—————— White. Colored. White. Colored. Total 217,371 850,032 410,550 944,424 Total number of illiterates of voting age in the late slave-holding States in 1870 1,167,303 In 1880 1,354,974 Increase of illiterate voters in the South from 1870 to 1880 187,671 Increase of illiterate whites of voting age from 1870 to 1880 93,279 Increase of illiterate colored people of voting age from 1870 to 1880 94,392 Total number of males of voting age in the South in 1880 4,154,125 Total number of illiterate males of voting age in the South in 1880 1,354,974 32.3 per cent of the voters in the South are illiterate. Of the illiterates 69.7 per cent are colored and 30.3 are whites. From these tables it appears that the illiterate voters in each one of the eight Southern States having the largest proportion of emancipated slaves exceed in number the majority of votes ever cast even at the most important elections. In one of these States the ignorant voters constitute an absolute majority of the total voting population of the State. In more than one-third of the Union the ignorant voters are almost one-third of the total number of voters. Most seriously important of all, these tables show that the illiterate voters of the South have increased in the last ten years, from 1870 to 1880, almost two hundred thousand. This increase of ignorant voters in the last decade exceeds the number of votes cast in any one of more than twenty of the States of the Union at the last Presidential election. Adopting a phraseology that was very familiar in the political debates of a generation ago, it may be truly said that ignorance at the ballot box has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.