“There are 352 counties in the United States in which one-half the Negro population at least 10 years of age was illiterate in 1900. With the exception of New Madrid County, Mo., all these counties are in the South. “If the educational facilities of the country should remain up to their present standards, but not improve, and should impart the elements of education to as large a proportion of the rising generation as they have done to those between 10 and 14 years in 1900, then, at the end of the generation, illiteracy among the Negroes in the country will have sunk from 44.5 to 30.1 per cent.; that is, nearly one-third of it will have disappeared. At the same time, illiteracy among the whites in the country will have sunk, immigration aside, from 6.2 to 3.5 per cent.; that is, about three-sevenths of the illiteracy among the whites will have disappeared. “At the present time, nearly one-half of the Negroes in the Southern States are unable to write, but if educational facilities for that race remain about as they are at present for another generation, and be availed of to the same extent, the proportion would sink to one-third. The illiteracy of the Negro at the present time is about four times that of the white in both the North and the South; in the North a little less, in the South a little more.” COST OF VIRGINIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Total amount of State and Local Taxes expended in Virginia on Public Schools from 1870-71 to 1890-91—20 years $22,759,249.38 Amount received from Peabody Fund 296,134.00 Private contributions 324,926.59 —————————————— Total $23,380,309.97 ============== Cost of Negro education in Public Schools, including total Current Expenses $4,792,290.06 Amounts appropriated by the State to Hampton and Virginia Normal Institutes 471,708.72 Cost of permanent improvements, sites, buildings, etc., for Colored Schools 588,223.05 ————————————— Total cost of Colored Public Schools and Normal Institutes for 20 years $5,852,222.57 Total cost of White Schools for same period 17,528,087.60 —————————————— Total of all Public Schools same period $23,380,310.17 ============== Percentage of whole fund expended on White Schools $75.00 Percentage of whole fund expended on Colored Schools 25.00 —————— $100.00 Actual statistics for 1891 show the following facts: