Negro professional men, on the other hand, get little or no white patronage. No negro pastor preaches to a white congregation, and no negro teaches in a school for whites. Negro lawyers, dentists, and doctors are practically never employed by whites. In the past the number engaged in these professions has been negligible, and that any increase in the total of well trained negro professional men will make an immediate change in the attitude of whites is unlikely. The relation of lawyer and client or physician and patient presumes a certain intimacy and subordination to greater wisdom which the white man is not willing to acknowledge where a negro is involved. Negro women, trained or partially trained, are employed as nurses, however, in increasing numbers. In 1865, the great mass of negroes was wholly illiterate. Some of the free negroes could read and write, and a few had graduated at some Northern college. Though the laws which forbade teaching slaves to read or write were not generally enforced, only favored house servants received instruction. It is certain that the percentage of illiteracy was at least 90, and possibly as high as 95. This has been progressively reduced until in 1910 the proportion of the illiterate negro population ten years old or over was 30.4 per cent, and the number of college and university graduates was considerable though the proportion was small. Since the percentage of native white illiteracy in the United States is but 3, the negro is evidently ten times as illiterate as the native white. This comparison is not fair to the negro, however, for illiteracy in the urban communities in the United States is less than in the rural districts, owing largely to better educational facilities in the cities; and 82.3 per cent of the negro population is rural. ¹ ¹ In New England negro illiteracy is 7.1 per cent in the cities and 16.9 per cent in the rural communities. Then, too, the great masses of negroes live in States which are predominantly rural and in which the percentage of white illiteracy is also high. The percentage of native white illiteracy in the rural districts of the South Atlantic States is 9.8 and in the East South Central is 11.1 per cent. Negro illiteracy in the corresponding divisions is 36.1 per cent and 37.8 per cent. In the urban communities of these divisions, illiteracy on the part of both whites and negroes is less. Native white illiteracy is 2.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively, while negro illiteracy in the towns was 21.4 and 23.8 per cent respectively.