The 80 or 90 dots in New Mexico show that nearly all the population is illiterateall but 10 or 15 per cent. The 50 or 60 dots in most of the cotton or plantation States show that about half or more than half the population cannot read. In a few other slave States it is about one-third, in some a quarter, and in some of the Northwestern States, from a fourth to a tenth of the people. Quite a number of the Northern States, east and west, have from five to ten per cent.; while Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Nevada, and Utah are the only States having but three per cent., or less. Of course, this includes the illiterate of all classes-foreign and slave, as well as native white. It shows how great a work each State has to do in proportion to the number of its inhabitants; but it does not show anything definitely of the causes operating to increase or perpetuate illiteracy among our own free people, born and educated in our own land. View 10 shows us that the per cent. of illiteracy increased from 1840 to 1850, not only in the whole country, but especially in New England, (chiefly from foreign sources,) and in some of the Western and Southern States. View 11, on the contrary, shows how it was diminished in the next decade, not only in the whole country, but in most of the Southern and Western States, though still increasing in New England, in Mississippi, and on the Pacific slope. View 12 shows that during the whole twenty years there was some improvement in respect to the per cent. of total illiteracy in the whole country, and in what States and parts of the country it was most marked. But a great increase of the evil is seen in New England and the Middle States, as also in Michigan and in one or two other States, for the main causes of which we need not go beyond the fact of ignorant immigration from Canada and Europe, and of slave migration toward the extreme South and Southwest. It is not so important or instructive to investigate minutely here the improvement in the percentage of some of the States, as it will be in connection with the views of native white illiteracy. It is here complicated so much with the relative increase of slaves and whites, as well as with the influence of foreigners, that it teaches but little. Mississippi, for instance, lost, on the whole, 3 per cent. between 1850 and 1860, (View 11;) but this was due to the greater increase of the slave population-the ratio of white illiteracy actually diminished one per cent. It may, however, be noticed here that the improvement was not confined to particular States. It was very general throughout the South and West-almost everywhere except in New England. It is noticeable particularly in the northern tier of slave States, and in some Western States. It must have been due to some common cause or causes operating over those vast areas and large sections and groups of States. But this is not the best place to consider it in detail. Another thing strikes us on looking at these three maps, and that is the comparative harmony and uniformity of the results of the three census reports of 1840, 1850, and 1860. We have already noticed (page 19, View 3) the bearing of this upon the question of the reliability of the census statistics on this subject. It is very manifest here. Whether we look at these three maps with reference to the whole country, or look at larger or smaller sections, or groups of States, or at individual States, the conviction becomes irresistible that these corresponding and harmonious results of the three successive census reports are due to the fact that they are substantially correct; that there are no irregularities or inaccuracies in them that can in any way materially affect the general conclusions to which they lead, and the great lessons which they teach. It only remains for us to do the work to which they point us. CAUSES AND REMEDIES. It would be premature to enter upon a full discussion of the causes and remedies of this evil before we come to the Views of percentage of native white illiteracy, which show its density (its proportion to the whole adult native white population of each State) and bring out its relations to the special local influences which have been operating to produce or remove it. Indeed, maps of some of the States, showing its distribution in the several counties, and thus bringing us more directly to see its relations to general and special causes, ought first to be studied. Views of such minute geographical distribution by counties would be as much more instructive than these maps of its distribution among the States as these maps are more instructive than the single group of dots for the whole United States, to be seen in the lower right-hand corner of Views 6, 7, 10, or 12; and such county Views need to be prepared, and shall be, as soon as circumstances will permit, and the necessary means can be obtained. But already the maps we have been looking at and studying point to several important causes; the influx of ignorance from Canada, and through Canada, and to the great Atlantic ports, by immigration; the influence of slavery in the plantation States, and even more among the poorer farming population flowing westward from the older and wealthier portions of Virginia and North Carolina to the mountain valleys and to the newly-settled parts of those States, and of Kentucky and Tennessee, and even beyond the northern banks of the Ohio; the peonage and other adverse causes bearing upon the untaught population of New Mexico; the influences which have come down from some of the early settlers and immigrants of New York, Pennsylvania, and some other States, as compared with the school influences inherited in New England; and unfavorable circumstances and difficulties in new and sparse settlements in the pioneer Western States. But there must be-there are, other causes more universal, more fundamental, more permanent, impairing the efficiency of schools, preventing the successful use of maternal and family agencies, aggravating the effect of other adverse circumstances, preventing or taking away the anxiety of the untaught to learn, preventing the beginner's early and speedy success, disheartening him, and deterring him from persevering in his efforts at self culture in this elementary and all-essential branch of study-in this very root of all study and progress. Full investigations of this subject will establish the fact that even in our most favored sections-in New England, in New York, and the Middle States, and in the Northwest-and in the most favored parts of them, in towns and cities where money has been most lavished and pains have been least spared, our schools have not been as efficient as they ought to be; not half as efficient as they can and must be made. It will appear also that, hitherto, home efforts, and self-teaching, and Sunday-school, and neighborly and friendly assistance have been of little or no avail; they have hardly been available or practicable. It is believed that the mother's teaching, home-teaching, teaching by masters and mistresses, by friends and Sunday-school teachers, and with these, after these, and more than these, self-teaching can be made even more effective than schools. EDWIN LEIGH. SCHOOL STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES, COMPILED FROM THE MOST RECENT INFORMATION. Teachers pay their own board, which averages $12 per month. school-truant age, 6 to 16; school money distributed on basis of the enumer ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 60,299 21 14,233 13 235,602 00 199,692 60 287,806 67 16,438 48 97,646 82 15,707 70 323,179 25 71,866 02 1,649,718 03 933,285 52 227,747 47 730,032 60 8,493,349 89 3,671,904 75 918,183 23 Nebraska. Vermont.. West Virginia] Wisconsin 216,761 06 2,237,414 37 a Consisting of outstanding claims, lands, &c. b Including town deposit fund of $763,661 83. e Poll tax. d Interest on lands. e Fuel, repairs, and insurance. f Teachers' board. g Estimated. h Furniture and apparatus. i Including balance in hand, $1,761,901 56. Balance on hand Sept. 1, 1869. k For the two years that the free school law was in operation. 56,068 58 56,008 58 48,324 55 7,243 67 55,568 22 279,661 52 h58,075 43 2,525,253 52 16,814 75 87 47 165,290 50 968,242 43 j1,878,533 30 4,910,641 86 2,765,644 34 85,845 22 51,442 39 400,006 27 37,440 78 1,231,426 22 456,503 77 11,410 81 288,135 42 1,987,436,22 |
