But while we may all be well content with what has thus
been accomplished by Mr. Peabody's Trust during the more
than sixteen years since it was established, we cannot be
blind to its utter inadequacy to the full work of Southern
education. Indeed, all that has been done hitherto has
only served to reveal to us more distinctly the vastness of
the field which remains to be occupied. The statistics of
illiteracy, — of persons over ten years of age who can
neither read nor write, but who are or are to be voters, —
as taken from the last census, give a fearful prospect for
our country, and call for the most earnest efforts of all who
have our republican institutions at heart. I dare not face
the figures, or ask you to face them, by setting them down
as I find them in the latest statistical tables. South and
North, East and West, they are ominous of unspeakable
danger in the future. When we contemplate such masses
of children growing up to wield the elective franchise, not
merely without the capacity of writing or reading their
own votes, but without a particle of that early discipline
and subordination to authority which is an essential ele-
ment of school education, the very idea of successful self-
government seems almost hopeless.
