It is often asked, “Why don’t the South do more in this work of educating and lifting up the negroes?” Sometimes the question has been asked angrily—perhaps because ignorantly. I believe the South can do more than it is doing—certainly more than it has done. But I think it likely that we have done as much as any other people in like circumstances would have done. History does not record of any people such vast, rapid and radical changes of opinion and sentiment on subjects that had been fiercely fought over on hundreds of bloody fields, as has taken place in the South during the last fifteen years on the questions that grow out of the negro’s emancipation and enfranchisement. But the Southern States have done more than most people suppose. There are nearly one million negro children in our public schools in the South. In speaking of what the South has done and has not done in the work of educating the negroes, let it be remembered that the white people of the South have not been on beds of roses since 1865. The war and its consequences made the South poor beyond conception by those who have not had our experience. It left the North rich. The majority of our people have had a sharp struggle to live; most of them have been unable to educate their own children. Let me tell you of a man I talked with last summer. I went with my family and a little party on what we might call a camp-fishing expedition. As we approached the place where we proposed to spend a few days in recreation, my attention was attracted by a white woman pulling fodder in a little field near a cabin. That night her husband came to our camp, offering such welcome as he could. We had a long talk together. He had been a Confederate soldier, and he had on his body the marks of seven bullet wounds. He never owned a slave, he had fought for what he had been taught to believe were the rights of the States. He is a laborer on the farm of the man who owned the land where he lived. He gets $140 a year, cabin rent, a few acres tended by his wife and little girls, and the privilege of his winter wood. He said his employer is one of the kindest of men, and does for him all he can do. The landlord himself has small margins of profit. The poor fellow has five children, the eldest a bright girl, aged fourteen. She looked dwarfed and older than her years; she had been nurse and drudge for the little ones. These children came to our camp by invitation, and the oldest promised to come one afternoon and show my own children how to fish. I had my heart set on her coming; I wanted my children to know more about such people. She did not come at the time appointed, but that night she came to tell us why. Her cotton dress was wet with the dew and her little hands were fodder-stained. She said to me: “I am sorry I could not come; mother and I had so much fodder to take up that we have just got through.” This child and I had much talk together.