believe that there is no other remedy for evils that now threaten
her very existence, but the remedy of Christian education. Thus we
are brought face to face with the problem of illiteracy. Illiteracy
in a republic; what does it signify? It is the creeping paralysis
that unnerves its arm; it is the malaria that poisons its blood;
it is the cataract that dims and finally destroys its vision; it
is the slow decay that consumes its life. Illiteracy, ignorance,
in a republic is, and must always be, assailing and undermining
its very foundations. It is the natural and deadly foe of free
government. No republic can live, no republic ought to live, in
which the voters are ignorant. Voting in a republic is governing;
and no man has any right to govern me who does not know enough to
govern himself. No man has any right to take part in the government
of the nation, who has not some notion of what right government
is. I protest against such government. I have never consented
to the justice of it, and I never will. I do not believe that
the State has any right to intrust this responsible business of
governing—and voting is governing—to the hands of men who cannot
read the ballots that they cast and who have no conception of the
duties of a citizen.
But the State has done it; and what has been done cannot be undone
by any political methods. It is with the consequences that we
have to do. And the consequences are tremendous, appalling to
those who stop to consider them. The total number of men of voting
age in the Southern States at the last census was 4,154,125. Of
these 1,354,974 could neither read nor write. A little more than
thirty-two per cent. of the voters of those States were at that
time wholly illiterate. Think of that! Almost one-third of all the
voters in sixteen States of the Union so ignorant that they cannot
write their own names or read the simplest English sentence! And
these are our rulers.
I know very well that you will find among these thirteen hundred
thousand illiterate voters not a few men of great natural
shrewdness and considerable general information, who may be fairly
qualified to discharge the duties of citizenship. There are men
to whom all print is shut, who can see quite as far into public
questions as many of those to whom print is as wide open as it
was to Silas Wegg. The alphabet test is by no means an infallible
test. Some who could not pass this test are well qualified for
citizenship. On the other hand, there are tens of thousands of
those who are reported among the literates, who are put down as
being able to read and write, and who are yet utterly ignorant.
They can manage to scrawl their names, perchance, or to skip and
tumble about a little among simple words in a primer: but the
reading and writing of which they boast is of no sort of use to
them as fitting them to vote intelligently. You would need to add a
great many figures to that array in the census if you should state
fully the facts in regard to the illiteracy of the Southern States.
I think we shall all agree with Dr. Haygood when he says, as he
did at the meeting of the National Educational Association in
Washington last winter, “This is bad enough.” And perhaps we should
also be able to agree with him in the further statement that it “is
far from being the worst of this sad case. The worst,” he says,
“is this: the illiterate vote in these States is increasing. From
1870 to 1880 the increase of this army of ignorant voters in the
South amounted to 187,671.” Of course this is worse, in one sense;
for the more we learn of this illiteracy the worse we are off, no
doubt. But there is a brighter side to this picture, thank God!
It is dark enough, at best; and I want you to see it in all its
blackness; but I do not want to paint it any blacker than it is.
After you have seen the facts just as they are, you will still find
on your hands a stupendous task; but you will have, I trust, some
reasons for believing that it is not a hopeless task.
It is true, then, as Dr. Haygood says, that there was a positive
increase of illiterate voters in the South between 1870 and 1880.
He makes this increase in round numbers 197,000; the figures I have
found increase it a little to 208,000. But that is not a _relative_
increase. The increase in the illiterate vote does not keep pace
with the increase of the population. The population increased 30
per cent. in the ten years; the illiterate vote increased less than
20 per cent. In 1870, more than 40 per cent. of the voters of the
South were illiterate; in 1880, only 32 per cent. were illiterate.
This is what I call very substantial gain. Under the circumstances
I am inclined to call it a splendid gain, one that is quite worth
singing the doxology over, one that should cause us all to thank
God and take courage.
But there are other features of the case to my own mind still more
significant. Dr. Haygood says in the same address to which I have
referred: “In this downward progress the two races keep well
together.” We have seen that it is not a downward, but an upward
progress. And I think we shall see that instead of the two races
keeping well together, one of them is falling a good ways behind.
Which is it? “The increase of the illiterate _white_ vote,” says
Dr. Haygood, “was 93,279; of the illiterate negro vote, 94,392.
The whites being in the majority, take the South as a whole, the
increase of the illiterate vote is relatively greater among the
Negroes.”
This is a great misconception. Dr. Haygood has no purpose whatever
of misrepresenting the facts; we all know that. No man in the
country is doing better work for the colored people than he is
doing; no man deserves more honor; but he has misapprehended
the facts in this statement; and I know that he will be glad to
be corrected. It is true, then, that the actual increase of the
illiterate white vote in the Southern States during the last decade
was about the same as that of the illiterate Negro vote; 93,000
of the one, 94,000 of the other. But how was it in 1870? In that
year there were in the Southern States 317,281 adult whites who
were illiterate, and 820,022 adult Negroes. There were at that
time considerably more than two and a half times as many Negro
illiterates as white illiterates. Now, if the Negroes have added to
their eight hundred thousand illiterates only about 94,000, while
the whites have added to their three hundred thousand about 93,000,
it seems to me that the relative increase is immensely greater
among the whites than among the Negroes. In fact, the increase
of the illiterate white vote, in the ten years, was more than
twenty-eight per cent., while the increase of the illiterate Negro
vote was only eleven and a half per cent.
Dr. Haygood gives the figures with respect to several of the
States. “In Georgia,” he says, “the illiterate white voters in
1870 were 21,899; in 1880, 28,571; the illiterate Negro voters in
Georgia, in 1870, were 100,551; in 1880, 116,516.” Let us see what
these figures mean. In Georgia, in 1870, the whole number of males
of voting age was 237,640; in 1880, it was 321,438. The increase
of adult males was, therefore, about 31 per cent. But the increase
in the whole number of illiterate voters was only about 18-1/2 per
cent. according to Dr. Haygood’s figures. The white illiterates,
however, increased 30-1/2 per cent. while the colored illiterates
increased not quite 16 per cent.
Two other States in which we are deeply interested, are reported
to us in Dr. Haygood’s figures, and, neglecting the numbers which
he gives, I will give you the percentages, which he neglects. In
Kentucky the number of male adults has increased 23 per cent. and
the whole number of illiterate voters about 21-1/2 per cent. But
the per cent. of increase among the illiterate white voters is very
nearly 23, almost keeping up with the increase of population, where
the per cent. of increase among illiterate Negro voters is not
quite fourteen.
In Tennessee the facts are still more striking. The increase in the
whole number of males of voting age was, in the ten years, about 26
per cent., while the increase in the number of illiterate voters
was only 13 per cent. The illiterate voters increased only half as
fast as the voting population. Here, evidently, a very successful
attack has been made upon the strongholds of illiteracy. But where
have these victories been gained—among the whites or the Negroes?
Almost wholly among the latter. The number of illiterate white
voters increased during the ten years 24 percent., almost as fast
as the population, while the illiterate Negro voters increased
during the same period _less than five per cent._
Taking these three States together, we find that the percentage of
increase of males of voting age was 27; of illiterate voters, 18;
of illiterate white voters, 25; of illiterate Negro voters, 12.
Now these figures completely overthrow the statement that the
increase of illiteracy is relatively greater among the Negroes
than among the whites. They show that the proportions are all the
other way, tremendously the other way; the difference between the
two races is startling. The whites are gaining a little in this
battle with the powers of darkness; but it is very little; they
are scarcely doing more than hold their own; but the Negroes are
gaining splendidly; it is to them that the large increase in the
percentage of intelligent voters is mainly due.
Now what does this mean? Of course it is due to several causes.
The Negroes had had but about five years of opportunity when the
census of 1870 was taken; in 1880 they had had fifteen years of
opportunity. That a better chance has been offered them, and that
they are taking the chance that has been offered them, these
figures assure us. But they tell us something more, that, to us, is
very significant. The gains of intelligence among the Negroes in
all parts of the South have been much more rapid than those of the
whites; but they have been more rapid in these three States than in
most other parts of the South; and why? Why? Did you ever hear of
Fisk, and Berea and Atlanta? The census tables have heard of them,
if you have not.
It is to the hundreds of young people that go out every year from
these colleges, and such as these, teaching in public and in
private schools pupils of their own color, that this gain in the
battle with illiteracy at the South is due. They are the children
of the light, who are waging this victorious battle with the
powers of darkness. There has been great improvement, of course,
in the public schools of the South during this decade; but in
this improvement the whites have shared as well as the blacks;
the great reasons for the more rapid advancement of the blacks
are, first, that they are more eager for instruction than the
ignorant whites, and, secondly, that they are better supplied with
teachers—missionaries of education, who not only do much to supply
the demand for knowledge already existing, but who do still more to
increase this demand.
We come back, now, from our brief excursion into this fruitful and
fascinating realm of percentages, to confront again that large
mass of illiteracy that lies athwart the path of this nation. Huge
it is, but, thank God, it looks not so vast and unmanageable as
once it seemed. It is growing; but the nation is growing faster;
relatively it is decreasing. It is far too formidable yet to be let
alone; so long as ignorance rules almost one-third of our rulers
in all of these sixteen States, no man has any right to relax
his vigilance or abate his energies. What these figures show is
simply this, that work tells; that our money is not wasted; that
our labor is not in vain in the Lord; that if we will only keep
it up with our giving and our working, if we will only see to it
that these same agencies that have done this grand work in the
past ten years are fully equipped to carry it on with increasing
vigor, we may hope to gain in the next ten years still more rapid
and decisive victories. The word that comes to every friend of
the American Missionary Association, to every benefactor in deed
or in purpose of these noble schools, is the word that Grant sent
to Sheridan after the battle of Five Forks: “Push things!” You’ve
got ’em running, these legions of ignorance and darkness; up and
after them; harry them on the flank, press them in the rear, till
they plunge like the herd of devil-pestered hogs, into the Gulf of
Mexico.
You have got the forces to do this work. All you want to do is to
give them a better equipment. You want no new machinery; you only
want more power; no new organizations, but reinforcements of those
in the field.
The kinds of educational work that this Association is doing
are exactly the kinds of work that must be done. The industrial
training given in some of the schools is admirable; the normal
training of teachers is work whose results are immediate and
beneficent; the higher education, too, is abundantly justified. If
there are any who have doubts on this last score, I am not one of
them. There is nothing that these six millions of colored people
need to-day more than they need thoroughly educated men of their
own race to be their leaders. More than any other class in this
country, they are in danger of being misled by petty demagogues and
small philosophers. We cannot too soon furnish them with social
and political and religious guides who have been trained by severe
discipline to think clearly, to consider questions broadly and
historically, to reason judicially and dispassionately, to chasten
the exuberance and verbosity of their own people with the dignity
and judgment that are the fruits of sound learning. Such examples
of high character and broad culture scattered about here and there
among the Negro people will do more to form their ideals and direct
their progress than can be done in any other way. I tell you that
the money spent in making first-class men in these colleges is as
well invested as any other money that you spend. The only thing to
be desired about such schools as Fisk and Atlanta is that their
standards be made higher and more inflexible, year by year, and
that their work be more and more thorough, so that the diploma
shall mean in every case just as much as the diploma of Amherst or
Williams or Bowdoin.
It is a Christian education that pupils are receiving in these
schools of ours. Most of the pupils who go out from them to become
pastors, teachers, lawyers, physicians, merchants, citizens,
fathers and mothers are Christian men and women; and they become
messengers of a pure Gospel, living epistles of Christ, wherever
they go. Especially as teachers do they make their influence felt.
We cannot Christianize the public school systems of the Southern
States; but if we can Christianize the teachers, that is a much
more effective service. And that is precisely what we are doing in
all these Southern schools.
This Association has been promoting Christian education at the
South in quite another fashion. Gently, without censure or
denunciation, by the silent influence of Christly lives, it has
been teaching the Southern people that caste is un-Christian. It
is a great lesson; it is a lesson hard to learn; and we must not
wonder at it: the social maxims and usages of centuries are not
changed in a day. But it will be learned by and by; patience and
fidelity and sweet reasonableness in those who teach it will have
their reward in God’s good time. It only needs that we should
quietly bear our testimony and wait; the leaven may be hidden
now, but it is working; and the time will surely come, and as
speedily as it ought to come, when from churches and from schools
the color line will disappear. I do not think that the people who
have commissioned and who support this Association in its work—the
great Congregational communion, on which it mainly depends—can
propose to themselves any better sort of work than that which this
Association is doing, or can afford to carry on that work in any
other way or by any other hands. It is true, as the figures I have
quoted have shown, that the colored people have received most of
the benefit of this work, and that the whites have profited by it
but little. This is true of the educational work, and of the church
work as well. But it is not because the schools and churches of
this Association are not open to whites and blacks on equal terms.
It is simply because they _are_ open to whites and blacks on equal
terms. This is the only reason why the whites do not generally
avail themselves of these excellent advantages. It is because the
basis on which these schools and churches rest is frankly and
thoroughly Christian—because caste is not tolerated in them—that
the white people of the South have held aloof from them. For the
present, until their convictions and feelings on this subject
shall have changed, the white people of the South will, generally,
hold themselves aloof from any church or school that rests on this
basis, no matter by whom it may be administered. Any society that
is as frankly and thoroughly Christian as this society has always
been, will have the same difficulty in reaching the whites that
this society experiences.
It is possible that churches or schools might be established at
the South, nominally open to both races, but really intended
exclusively for the whites, into which some whites could be drawn.
You might put it into the constitution that no distinctions of
color were recognized in the church, and you might still keep
saying: “Of course colored people are welcome here, if they want to
come; but we think they will be happier and better off in churches
of their own.” Probably the colored people would not accept this
kind of welcome; and possibly some whites would be satisfied
with this method of establishing the color line. It would be an
effective method, no doubt. But is this the sort of thing that the
people calling themselves Congregationalists want to do? For one I
feel sure that it is not worth doing. I don’t believe that we can
afford to propagate two kinds of Congregationalism down there, one
of which is frankly and bravely Christian in its dealings with the
caste of color, and the other of which is, to say the least, less
frankly Christian, consenting, by its silence, to the maintenance
of the color line. Such a policy seems to me something other than
Christian, something less than Christian: and I, for my part, have
no time and no money to spend in propagating a Congregationalism
that is broader or narrower, or higher or lower, or tighter or
looser than simple Christianity. When our zeal for the propagation
of Congregationalism leads us to slur over the everlasting verities
of Christ’s kingdom, it is leading in doubtful ways.
It has been said that this Association is handicapped by its
record and its methods in the work of reaching the whites of the
South. Perhaps it is. So was He handicapped in His work among
the Pharisees, of whom it was said: “Why eateth your Master with
publicans and sinners?” The burden it is bearing is the cross of
Christ; nothing else. It has gone down into humiliation with its
Master to succor and save these His brethren. Would it be better
for the Association to fling aside this burden? Would it be wise
for any other society going down into that field to work to refuse
to take it up or to try to hide it from the sight of men?
The disability under which this Association labors is its glory.
And I do not believe that it will prove to be a permanent
impediment in its work. No; that cannot be. I believe in the
victorious might of Christian principles. The heroic faith and
patience of the men and women who have been toiling there so long
among Christ’s little ones, identifying themselves with the lowly
and giving their lives for them, neither striving nor crying
against the scorn that has greeted them, reviled but reviling
not again, must triumph in the end. It is the one power that is
irresistible. The barriers of caste will go down before it, and
the color line will no longer stain the threshold of the Christian
Church.
So, then, I do not believe that we, as Congregationalists, need any
other agency in the Southern field than the one that has wrought
there so nobly in the years now past. I am sure that even the
educational work of this Association would be obstructed by the
entrance of any other missionary organization into this field.
Because I love and honor the Home Missionary Society, I do not want
to see it compromise itself or imperil the interests of Christ’s
kingdom at the South by turning from its proper work, its urgent
work, to try a doubtful experiment. And I trust this Association,
in all love and kindness, but with all needful frankness, will
express its wishes in this matter. Two little boys were astride of
a hobby-horse, and the one who was riding ahead was being crowded
out of the saddle, and was clinging with some difficulty to the
neck of the wooden steed. Finally he ventured: “Jimmy, don’t you
think if one of us should get off I could ride a little better?”
I hope that the American Missionary Society will say, by her
representatives here, to her honored sister, the American Home
Missionary Society: “Don’t you think that if one of us should keep
out of this Southern field, I could do my work in it a little
better?” I am sure that she has earned the right to express this
wish, and I have not the slightest fear that the wish will not be
heeded.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF PROF. C. G. FAIRCHILD.
From the trend of the discussion this morning I find that a
large responsibility has drifted into my hands. There is among
the churches in the North a deep, unmistakable interest in those
long-neglected ignorant whites of the South. It is a difficult
problem to tell how to turn this into channels that shall benefit
these people without on the one hand neglecting the work already
undertaken by this Association or, on the other, giving some
suspicion of countenancing a color line and perhaps bringing a
clashing of interests between sister societies. In the report
on education just received, special attention was turned to the
mountain whites. Perhaps the solution of our difficulties may be
found here. Certainly there will arise in your minds no suspicion
of waning interest in the colored people or sympathy with caste on
the part of those who have heretofore been closely connected with
this mountain work at Berea College and the surrounding regions.
It is their unanimous conviction that work undertaken for these
mountain people with firm faith in Christian brotherhood and
unswerving courage will assist in unfurling upon a higher masthead
the broad motto borne on the seal of Berea College for twenty-five
years past: “God hath made of one blood all nations of men.”
The term “mountain” stands for much more than appears at first.
It stands for a larger, more inviting and fertile section than
many are aware of. It comprises a stretch of country commencing in
the Virginias and extending to Alabama, 500 miles one way by 200
the other. Much of the land, not simply in valleys, but also upon
the benches of hillsides and even upon the broad mountain tops,
is as fertile as the better known sections of the South. At the
base of these hills lies an untold wealth of coal, iron and other
minerals which is, as yet, almost untouched, while the summits of
these hills are still crowned with the virgin forests. This country
supports now a population of two millions, though its capabilities
are wretchedly developed. The growth since the war in these regions
has been at almost double the ratio of that of other parts of the
South.