Here then, with the fact staring us in the face, that the one potential vote of every five votes that decides all the great political questions of the day—questions involving the most complex and far-reaching principles of government—questions of finance, of diplomacy, of commerce, of trade, of the tariff, of the relations of capital and labor, and others whose solution perplexes the minds of our very ablest statesmen—is an utterly ignorant vote, can the American people hesitate to demand of Congress not only immediate but adequate remedial legislation in the shape of ample national aid to elementary education for all of school age, and obligatory attendance within reasonable limits? But this is not the only fact bearing heavily upon the question of the necessity of national aid to our public school system. If we examine the details of these census tabulations we shall find that much the larger portion of this illiteracy is found in some thirteen or fourteen states. Taking these states and territories in which the proportion of “illiterates” (those unable to write) to the total state or territorial population of ten years of age and upward exceeds 25 per cent., we find that ratio to be: In Alabama, 50.9 per cent.; Arkansas, 38; Florida, 43.4; Georgia, 49.9; Kentucky, 29.9; Louisiana, 49.1; Mississippi, 49.5; New Mexico, 65; North Carolina, 48.3; South Carolina, 55.4; Tennessee, 38.7; Texas, 29.7; and Virginia, 40.6. Massing these twelve states and one territory together, we find they include a population of 10,079,130 of ten years of age and upward, of which number no less than 4,324,513, or over two fifths, are unable to write—forty-three out of every one hundred unable to sign their own names—while of the 26,682,477 persons of like age in the remaining states and territories, the number of such illiterates is but 1,915,445, or a little over seven in every one hundred. We are all of course aware that this large proportion of illiteracy in the states named is largely owing to the presence of the colored population. Nevertheless the fact remains that these people, to whom all the rights of citizenship have been accorded, and who will hereafter form a very important and possibly predominating factor in the administration of the affairs of many of these states, as well as an important factor in national affairs, must remain for a long time in ignorance unless some other means of educating them be adopted than that which now obtains.