y, in these respects. That we
are progressing, there can be no doubt; indeed, in view of all the
circumstances, our progress has been marvelous.

Take the matter of wealth. Since freedom, hundreds and thousands of
our people have become property owners in the South. Many of them are
prosperous and successful farmers; thousands and hundreds of thousands
of acres of land have come into their possession, hundreds and
thousands of them in the cities own their own homes, and are engaged
in small but lucrative business enterprises of one kind or another.
They are now paying taxes on some three hundred million dollars' worth
of property. That is not a very large sum, I admit, considered as the
aggregate wealth of a whole race, numbering some seven or eight
millions; but whether much or little, it indicates progress, and very
considerable progress, and that is the point to which I am directing
attention. The acquisitive faculty in the Negro is being developed;
his eyes are being opened more and more to the importance of getting
wealth; and slowly, but surely, he is getting it.

Educationally, the same is true. Thirty years ago there were but few
educational institutions among us, but few professional men--doctors,
lawyers, ministers--ministers of intelligence--teachers; but few men
and women of education. Now, there are thousands of well-equipped men
and women in all the professions, and thousands upon thousands of men
and women of education in every part of the country. Not only are
there institutions, founded especially for our benefit, crowded with
students, but all the great institutions of the land are now open to
us, and in all of them, with scarcely an exception, are to be found
representatives of our race; and the number in such institutions is
steadily increasing. The last report of the Commissioner of Education
shows that in the common schools of the sixteen former slave States
and the District of Columbia, there are enrolled 1,429,713 pupils, and
that in these schools, some twenty-five thousand teachers are
employed. It also shows that there are 178 schools for secondary and
higher education, with an enrollment of over forty thousand pupils.
There are, of course, thousands of our people who are still very
ignorant, but that there is vastly more intelligence in the race now
than at the close of the war, no one will pretend to deny. The
colleges and universities, the high and normal schools, are turning
out hundreds