What, then, are our prospects in this respect? Look at the monitions recorded in our census. Let it be first conceded, that the fact that a man cannot read and write is not, in itself, proof that he is not intelligent and virtuous. Many, in our country, by intercourse with men and things, by the discussions of religion and politics, and by the care of their affairs, gain much reflection and mental discipline. Still, a person who cannot read a word in a newspaper, nor a line in his Bible, and who has so little value for knowledge as to remain thus incapacitated, as a general fact, is in the lowest grade of stupidity and mental darkness. So that the number who cannot read and write is, perhaps, the surest exponent of the intellectual and moral state of a community. For though this list may embrace many intelligent and virtuous persons, on the other hand, there are probably as many, or more, of those classed as being able to read and write, who never have used this power, and who are among the most stupid and degraded of our race. Look, then, at the indications in our census. In a population of fourteen millions, we find _one million_ adults who cannot read and write, and _two millions_ of children without schools. In a few years, then, if these children come on to the stage with their present neglect, we shall have _three millions_ of adults managing our state and national affairs, who cannot even read the Constitution they swear to support, nor a word in the Bible, or in any newspaper or book. Look at the West, where our dangers from foreign immigration are the greatest, and which, by its unparalleled increase, is soon to hold the sceptre of power. In Ohio, more than one third of the children attend no school. In Indiana and Illinois scarcely one half of the children have any schools. Missouri and Iowa send a similar, or worse report. In Virginia, _one quarter_ of the white adults cannot even write their names to their applications for marriage license. In North Carolina, _more than half_ the adults cannot read and write. The whole South, in addition to her hordes of ignorant slaves, returns _more than half_ her white children as without schools. My countrywomen, what is before us? What awful forebodings arise! Intelligence and virtue our only safeguards, and yet all this mass of ignorance among us, and hundreds of thousands of ignorant foreigners being yearly added to augment our danger! We are not even stationary. We are losing ground every day. Every hour the clouds are gathering blacker around us. Already it is found, that the number of _voters_ who cannot read and write, and who yet decide every question of safety and interest, exceeds the great majority that brought in Harrison. Already the number of criminals and felons, who, on dismission from jails and penitentiaries, are allowed to vote, exceeds the majority that brought in our chief magistrate in 1836![1]