be less than it is?
Ought not the record to be worse rather than better? Of the 14,846
juvenile delinquents given an opportunity to re-enter society and walk
in the straight path through reformatories, only 1,943 were Negroes.
With the doors of almshouses swung wide to 73,046 paupers, racial
pride prevented poor Negroes entering these homes of mercy, and only
6,467 allowed themselves to become objects of public charity. With a
larger percentage of unskilled than skilled Negro laborers in 1890,
only 2,253 of 6,546 convicts whose employments were known were in the
penitentiaries of the land. Of 45,233 criminals but 253 were persons
who had enjoyed higher educational advantages, and not a single
educated Negro figures in the enumeration.

What are the remedies for existing criminality, and how may its
increase be checked? Popular secular education for whites and blacks,
compulsory, if possible, erected on a broad basis of Christianity, is
the only safe, enduring, moral, and economic remedy. Mere secular
education may not be relied upon to restrain crime, and we must
honestly own that our only hope is in the diffusion of true religion.
The church should take the initiative in this matter, the state, aye,
the nation should come to the assistance of the church, and of those
states in which the burden is too great for them to bear it
successfully. If the Holy Scriptures be not the basis of all worthy
knowledge our civilization is a fraud. Individual philanthropy has
done much towards aiding in the matter of education, particularly
so-called higher education. May not individual wealth help to minimize
ignorance, dissipate poverty, help the feeble in mind and morals of
the race to robust Christian manhood? "For many men of great
possessions, the voice of conscience is effective, as the contemplated
grasp of the tax-gatherer could never be. Around them they see
ignorance to be banished, talent missing its career, misery appealing
for relief. They know that the forces of the times have brought them
their large fortunes, only through co-operation and the protection of
the whole community; so with justice in their hearts, as well as
generosity, they found the benefactions which are doing so much to
foster the best impulses of American life; and in this response to
public duty they find conferred upon riches a new power and
fascination."

The reform schools for juveniles throughout the North and West, and
those in Virginia, repres