This proposition is borne out also by the testimony of the great majority of the Southern whites who live in constant touch with the blacks; who have known them in every relation of life in a way that no one who has not lived among them can know them. Universally, they will tell you that while the old-time Negroes were industrious, saving, and, when not misled, well-behaved, kindly, respectful, and self-respecting, and while the remnant of them who remain still retain generally these characteristics, the “new issue,” for the most part, are lazy, thriftless, intemperate, insolent, dishonest, and without the most rudimentary elements of morality. They unite further in the opinion that education such as they receive in the public schools, so far from appearing to uplift them, appears to be without any appreciable beneficial effect upon their morals or their standing as citizens. But more than this; universally, they report a general depravity and retrogression of the Negroes at large in sections in which they are left to themselves, closely resembling a reversion to barbarism. It is commonly assumed that progress, as applied to a class or a race, signifies some advance in moral standing, or, at least, some improvement in the elements of character on which morality is based. It is unfortunate that the statistics in the field of morality cannot be obtained; but in this field, as in others, the testimony of those who have had the best opportunities for observation is all one way. Southerners of every class and calling, without exception, bear witness to the depressing fact that, leaving out the small upper fraction, the Negro race has not advanced at all in morality.