hat of Georgia.

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, p. 339]

[Footnote 2: _African Repository_, vol. xxxi., pp. 117-118.]

In view of this renewed interest in the education of the Negroes
of the South we are anxious to know exactly what proportion of
the colored population had risen above the plane of illiteracy.
Unfortunately this cannot be accurately determined. In the first
place, it was difficult to find out whether or not a slave could read
or write when such a disclosure would often cause him to be dreadfully
punished or sold to some cruel master of the lower South. Moreover,
statistics of this kind are scarce and travelers who undertook to
answer this question made conflicting statements. Some persons of that
day left records which indicate that only a few slaves succeeded in
acquiring an imperfect knowledge of the common branches, whereas
others noted a larger number of intelligent servants. Arfwedson
remarked that the slaves seldom learned to read; yet elsewhere
he stated that he sometimes found some who had that ability.[1]
Abolitionists like May, Jay, and Garrison would make it seem that the
conditions in the South were such that it was almost impossible for a
slave to develop intellectual power.[2] Rev. C.C. Jones[3] believed
that only an inconsiderable fraction of the slaves could read.
Witnesses to the contrary, however, are numerous. Abdy, Smedes,
Andrews, Bremer, and Olmsted found during their stay in the South
many slaves who had experienced unusual spiritual and mental
development.[4] Nehemiah Adams, giving the southern view of slavery
in 1854, said that large numbers of the slaves could read and
were furnished with the Scriptures.[5] Amos Dresser, who traveled
extensively in the Southwest, believed that one out of every fifty
could read and write.[6] C.G. Parsons thought that five thousand
out of the four hundred thousand slaves of Georgia had these
attainments.[7] These figures, of course, would run much higher were
the free people of color included in the estimates. Combining the two
it is safe to say that ten per cent. of the adult Negroes had the
rudiments of education in 1860, but the proportion was much less than
it was near the close of the era of better beginnings about 1825.

[Footnote 1: Arfwedson, _The United States and Canada_, p. 331.]

[Footnote 2: See their pamphlets, addresses, and books referred to
elsewhere.]

[Footnote 3: Jones, _Religious Instruction of N