The Rev. Dr. A. D. Mayo, eminent alike for his learning and philanthropy, and a Northern educator of note, declared not long ago that “No other people in human history has made an effort so remarkable as the people of the South in reëstablishing their schools and colleges. Overwhelmed by war and bad government, they have done wonders, and with the interest and zeal now felt in public schools in the South, the hope for the future is brighter than ever.” “Last year,” he says, speaking in 1888, “these sixteen States paid nearly $1,000,000 each for educational purposes, a sum greater according to their means than ten times the amount now paid by most of the New England States.” Virginia has expended on her public schools, including the session of 1890-91, according to the figures of Colonel Ruffin, the Second Auditor of Virginia, taken from official sources, $23,380,309.97. Her Negro schools cost her for the year 1889-90, by the same estimate, $420,000, of which the Negroes paid about $60,000.[98] Governor Gordon, of Georgia, in a recent address, said of that State: “When her people secured possession of the State government, they found about six thousand colored pupils in the public schools, with the school exchequer bankrupt. To-day, instead of six thousand, we have over one hundred and sixty thousand colored pupils in the public schools, with the exchequer expanding and the schools multiplying year by year.” He says further, “The Negroes pay one-thirtieth of the expense, and the other twenty-nine-thirtieths are paid by the whites.” The other Southern States have not been behind Virginia and Georgia in this matter. Now what has the Negro accomplished in this quarter of a century? The picture drawn by Dr. Field of his accomplishment in Massachusetts would do for the South. “They work in the fields, they hoe corn, they dig potatoes; the women take in washing.” They are barbers and white-washers, shoe-blacks and chimney-sweeps. Here and there we find a lawyer or two, unhappily with their practice in inverse ratio to their principle. Or now and then there is a doctor. But almost invariably these are men with a considerable infusion of white blood in their veins. And even they have, in no single instance, attained a position which in a white would be deemed above mediocrity. Fifteen years ago there were in Richmond a number of Negro tobacco and other manufacturers in a small way. Now there are hardly any except undertakers. They do not appear to possess the faculties which are essential to conduct any business in which reason has to be applied beyond the immediate act in hand. They appear to lack the faculty of organization on which rests all successful business enterprise.