er. There
must have been a considerable increase between 1863 and 1870, but
one can hardly suppose it to have been over 4 per cent, or 84,212,
which substantiates the estimate of about 10 per cent of the
Negroes as able to read and write at the date of emancipation. We
may suppose that the number of those who were able to read, but
did not add to this the accomplishment of writing, must have been
much larger.

The existence of so large a body of Negroes who already had the
rudiments of an education goes far to account for the rapid growth
of schools as soon as the Negroes were made free, and especially
for that eagerness that was shown for advanced learning which
made an almost immediate demand for secondary schools and colleges
at the more important centers of population throughout the South.
The people had received, in some way or other, a love of education
and a start in obtaining it under the old slave system, so that
when the new chance came they were ready to make a good use of it.

G. S. DICKERMAN.

BOOK REVIEWS

_The Centennial History of Illinois, Volume III. The Era of the
Civil War 1848-1870._ By ARTHUR CHARLES COLE. The Illinois
Centennial Commission, Springfield, Illinois, 1919.

This volume of this work deals with the period of the most dramatic
history of the State. After discussing the frontier and the rise of
railroads, the author directs his attention to the agitation and
compromise of 1850, the origin of the Republican party, the
Lincoln-Douglass Debates, the election of 1860, the appeal to arms,
the war in Illinois, new abolitionists and copperheads, and the war in
its relation to agriculture and the industrial revolution. The book is
illustrated with such portraits as those of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen
A. Douglass, Lyman Trumbull and Richard Yates. There are maps showing
the foreign-born population in 1860, the presidential election in
1848, the vote for treasurer in 1854, the vote for congressmen in
1858, the vote on the constitution in 1862, the vote for
congressmen-at-large in 1860, and the presidential election in 1868.
The volume closes with an adequate bibliography and a useful index.

As a book on the Civil War is not uncommon, one does not ordinarily
expect many things new from such a volume inasmuch as most of them
cover familiar ground. In connecting the