r of vital
significance to our American history which of these statements is
to be accepted? Yesterday I saw posted on the wall of a New Haven
church the statement of _5 per cent_. It used to be considered
allowable to make wild statements on this subject when presenting
the claims of Southern education. Indeed I have known the
statement to be made in such a connection, that _none_ of the
Negroes could read or write before the war. I yield to no one in
my estimate of the importance of the work of Northern teachers
and Northern schools in the education of the colored people. But
their value is not magnified by such exaggerated and reckless
over-statement. Rather is it brought under serious question and
damaging suspicion.

You have done and are still doing most valuable work in the
interest of historical accuracy, and to clear away the fogs of
misconstruction and misapprehension concerning the Negro people
which have prevailed for at least a hundred years. I could wish
that you might see your way as an editor to insist on alteration
in a manuscript containing such a misstatement, or at least add
an editorial comment on the point.

Wishing for your _Journal_ continued and increasing circulation
and popular support, I remain,

Faithfully, yours,
G. S. DICKERMAN.

The editor made the following reply:

February 28 1920.

DR. G. S. DICKERMAN,
140 Cottage Street,
New Haven, Conn.

_My dear Dr. Dickerman:_

I have your interesting letter in which you make a strong plea
for accuracy in the writing of history that the Negro may receive
justice at the hands of those represented as treating the records
of the race scientifically. You insist that, prior to the
emancipation of the race, more than five per cent of the Negro
population was literate, and refer to my _Education of the Negro
Prior to 1861_ to support you in that statement. You must
observe, however, that I maintain that ten per cent of the adult
Negroes had the rudiments of education. It might, therefore, be
possible for some one to prove that less than ten per cent of the
whole Negro population was at that time able to read and write.

Thanking you for your inte