Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/480

472 imparted to them. Under these influences, schools were opened in all parts of the South; and the good work begun by the Northern people has, to some extent, been supplemented by the people of the South, and by the colored people themselves, in opening and maintaining such schools as Morris Brown College at Atlanta, Allen University at Columbia, and Paul Quinn College at Waco, with others of equal or lower grade. As a result of all this educational work, it is now quite certain that one-third of all the colored people of the South, over ten years of age, can read; and while we must not forget the other two-thirds who can not read, yet in locating the field for the colored man's paper, the one-third who can read must be given the chief place. From these must come, in the main, the subscribers; and without subscribers the publisher of a paper can not hope to command advertisements.

The reading population, among whom the colored man must circulate his paper, is probably about equal to the city of New York. I am now speaking with reference to the South alone. Two things will at once present themselves to our view, as we attempt to survey this field. First, we will notice that the literary appetite is quite weak, and the taste undeveloped; and, second, we will observe that the field is very poorly supplied. In regard to the appetite, I make one remark to point out its weakness. It is a recognized fact that colored readers in the South care almost exclusively for local news. Indeed, they simply desire to see their own locality written up. The news of the great, wide world, or even the news of the great, wide country, or the news even narrowed down to the experiences and doings of their own race, as they are scattered abroad throughout our land, is not desired to any great extent by them. They have but little appetite for it, and so are not willing to pay for it. This localism can not be disregarded at present.