ether in amity and co
operation for the advance of education and for moral progress.
Illustrations are multiplying on every side of the desire on the
part of the progressive South to fulfil the duties and meet the
heavy responsibilities thrust upon it by the masses of population
submerged in ignorance.

These immense masses are the burden not only of the South, but of
the American people at large. Ignorant labor is shiftless and
wasteful labor. The growth of varied and inter-related manufactures
cannot rest upon a labor element of clumsiness and stupidity. Civil
duties demand intelligence and morals. The best patriotism of the
South joins hands with that of the North in the elevation of the
lowly and ignorant. What has been done is only the initiation of the
ten times more which must be done.

It is a significant fact that the last national census showed that
the white illiteracy of the South was deeper than even the foreign
illiteracy of the North; while that of the Southern black population
was fearfully darker. Both public and private efforts are being made
in countless communities of the South to begin the lifting of this
great burden. Some of the States have already taken encouraging
measures in this direction. While there are reactions, the general
tide is that of progress. It is easy to make too much of the violent
reactionary outcries of a few Southern newspapers. It must be
remembered that these shrill expostulations against progress are
comparatively isolated and do not represent the general and
deliberate sense of the intelligent South. The day has come when
intelligent leaders, North and South, can unite their efforts and
push forward the work of popular upliftment throughout the South.
The lesson of the hour is not that of impatience and denunciation,
but of mutual sympathy and co-operation. The hopeful progress of the
past is a presage to the magnificent progress assured to the
immediate future.

No more timely words have been spoken than those of a Southern
philanthropist when he said: "The Negro must be educated. It is
absolutely necessary to both races that his education go on. In our
extremity we look to wise and just people in the Northern States to
help us to help both races."

F. P. W.

* * * * *

GREETINGS TO PORTO RICANS.

At a meeting of the representatives of the different benevolent
societies of our Protestant denominations who are entering upon
mi