Note 34 — PART I SOUTHWARD HO! (continued 2)

Among the native (as opposed to foreign-born) white population of the Southern States, there were in 1900 about 11 per cent. of illiterates of ten years old and upwards, as against a percentage of 4·6 for the whole United States. But this 11 per cent. showed a great improvement during twenty years; for in 1880 there were over 20 per cent. of illiterates. Among the coloured population of the same States, the illiterates in 1900 numbered about 48 per cent., as against 75 per cent. in 1880. It must be remembered that nearly 85 per cent. of the people of the South live in sparsely populated rural districts, where it is difficult for the schoolmaster to reach the children or the children the schoolmaster. In the whole United States, the annual expenditure per head of the pupils in average attendance at public schools is over $21, whereas in Alabama and the Carolinas it is only $4·50; yet in these States 50 per cent. of the whole State revenues for general purposes is appropriated to public education. See an admirable paper in “The Present South,” by Edgar Gardner Murphy. At the close of the war, says Mr. Murphy, “the South—defeated, impoverished, desolate—was forced to assume the task of providing for the education of two populations out of the poverty of one.”