e War of the Rebellion,
and abating nothing of its intense keenness since, with the remarkable
reduction in the illiteracy of the mass of the people, as is eloquently
disclosed by the census reports--it is in these results that no cause for
complaint or discouragement can be found. The whole race here stands on
improved ground over that it occupied at the close of the War of the
Rebellion; albeit, even here, the individual has outstripped the mass of
the race, as it was but natural that he should and always will. But, while
this is true and gratifying to all those that hope the Afro-American
people well, it is also true, and equally gratifying that, as far as the
mass is concerned, the home life, the church and the school house have
come into the life of the people, in some sort, everywhere, giving the
whole race a character and a standing in the estimation of mankind which
it did not have at the close of the war, and presaging, logically, unless
all signs fail, a development along high and honorable lines in the
future; the results from which, I predict, at the end of the ensuing half
century, builded upon the foundation already laid, being such as to
confound the prophets of evil, who never cease to doubt and shake their
heads, asking: "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" We have the
answer already in the social and home life of the people, which is so vast
an improvement over the conditions and the heritage of slavery as to
stagger the understanding of those who are informed on the subject, or
will take the trouble to inform themselves.

If we have much loose moral living, it is not sanctioned by the mass,
wedlock being the rule, and not the exception; if we have a vast volume of
illiteracy, we have reduced it by forty per cent. since the war, and the
school houses are all full of children eager to learn, and the schools of
higher and industrial training cannot accommodate all those who knock at
their doors for admission; if we have more than our share of criminality,
we have also churches in every hamlet and city, to which a vast majority
of the people belong, and which are insistently pointing "the way, the
light and the truth" to higher and nobler living.

Mindful, therefore, of the Negro's two hundred and forty-five years of
slave education and unrequited toil, and of his thirty years of partial
freedom and less than partial opportunity, who shall say that his place in
American life at the present day is no