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all his mirth and fire-his poetry, his sentiment, and his humour-he has few of the mechanical advantages of education.
He can only make his mark, and swell the black list of the marshal's returns.
Yet a vast majority of the illiterates in the census are American-born.
Out of the five million six hundred thousand persons in the Republic who cannot read and write only three quarters of a million are of foreign birth.
Of course, again, the Negroes count in these black lists; but Negroes are now citizens, with political rights.
They count two millions and three-fourths.
Red men and Yellow men add a little to the dark totals; yet, when all the Red, Yellow, and Black ignorance is deducted, there remain, as representing pure White ignorance, gross and pagan ignorance, no less than two million eight hundred thousand souls.
Of this army of White barbarians in America, the census shows that more than two millions are American-born!
Such figures stun the mind.
On looking into details, the enquirer is staggered to perceive that the older and richer States are no better educated than the rest.
Nobody would expect to
1875.
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