s indeed a great evil and hindrance. The
enlightened and refined cannot find fellowship with the ignorant, the
benighted, the untutored. If this be the line of demarkation, we can and
will remove it. No people ever made more heroic efforts to rise from
ignorance to enlightenment. Forty-three per cent. of the Negro race can
read and write, and with time we can bring our race up to a high degree
of civilization. We are determined, by the help of Providence, and the
strength of our own right arms, to educate our people until the reproach
of ignorance can no longer be brought against us. When we do, will our
white brothers accord that respect which is the due of intelligence and
culture?

Does our white brother look with disdain upon us because we are not
cleanly and neat? It is true that the masses of our race have not shown
that regard for personal cleanliness and nicety of dress, which a
wealthy and educated people have the means and the time for. Our people
by the exigencies of their lot, have had to toil and toil in menial
places, the places where drudgery was demanded and where contact with
dust and filth was necessary to the accomplishment of their work. But
even this can be remedied, and cleanliness and neatness can be made a
part of the Negro's education until he can present, as thousands of his
race are now doing, a creditable appearance. Will improvement along
these lines help us to gain the esteem and respectful consideration of
our white brothers? If so, the time is not far distant when this barrier
will be removed. Education will help solve this difficulty as it does
all others, and give to our race that touch of refinement which insures
physical as well as mental soundness.--_mens sana in corpore sano._

But is our moral condition the true reason of our ostracism? Are we
remanded to the back seats and ever held in social dishonor because we
are morally unclean? Would that we could reply by a denial of the
allegation and rightly claim that purity which would be at the
foundation of all respectable social life. But here we ask the
charitable judgment of our white brethren, and point them to the heroic
efforts we have made and are making for the moral elevation of our race.
Even a superficial glance at the social side of the Negro's life will
convince the unprejudiced that progress is being made among the better
classes of our people toward virtuous living. Chastity is being urged
everywhere in the school house