than I had when Emancipation took place. They have shown capacity to receive education and a disposition to elevate themselves, which is exceedingly gratifying, not only to me but to every right thinking Southern man."
The Hon. Gustavus J. Orr, LL. D., once School Commissioner of Georgia, gave a manly expression on the progress of the race, in an address before the Chautauqua Association, some summers ago, his subject being, "The Education of the Negro; his Rise, Progress and Present Status." Dr. Orr asserts—"They have been declared free; to this we most heartily consent. They have been admitted to all the rights of citizenship; in this we acquiesce. Our state constitutions and our laws have declared that they shall be educated. To bring about this result we will do all that in us lies."
We quote this to show the expressed will of the better class of white citizens to aid us in our education. Let us state here for the commendation of the South, that forty millions of dollars have been spent by the states in Afro-American education. Half of this amount has been donated by the North.
Bishop A. G. Haygood, decidedly the best friend to the black man in the South, says these laudable words in regard to his progress:
"The most unique and altogether wonderful chapter in the history of education is that which tells the story of the education of the negroes of the South since 1865. No people were ever helped so much in twenty-five years, and no illiterate people ever learned so fast." This tribute Bishop Haygood paid the Afro-American in Harpers' Magazine of July, 1889.
Mr. Lewis H. Blair, a wealthy and influential merchant of Richmond City, has written a work entitled "The Prosperity of the South dependent upon the Elevation of the Negro." In this he speaks gloriously of the Afro-American and his
