Several educational trusts created years ago for the benefit of the Negroes have now ceased their work. The Peabody fund of about three million dollars was much depleted by the repudiation of the Mississippi and Florida bonds, and has now been entirely distributed. For some years it was devoted to building up primary teaching on condition that the localities benefited should themselves spend larger sums. Then it went into normal schools. In 1882 the Slater fund of one million dollars was given solely for the education of Negroes. The General Education Board in its allocations to Southern institutions has liberally remembered several of the negro institutions as well as the white. CHAPTER XXIII OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATION In the two previous chapters white and negro education have been described as parts of the social and governmental system of the South; there, as in the North, the tacit presumption is that education is desirable, that it is essential for moral and material progress, that both the parents and the community must make great sacrifices to secure it. White education hardly needs defense in the South; most of the people wish to see the opportunities of life open to promising young people, believe in the spread of ideas, and look on education as the foundation of the republic. Does the principle, as in the North, apply to all the elements of population? Is the education of the Negro as clearly necessary as that of the White? Should the same method apply to the training of the two races? On the contrary, there is in most Southern white minds hesitation as to the degree of education suitable for the blacks; and a widespread disbelief in any but rudimentary training, and that to be directed toward industrial rather than intellectual ends.