Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/65

Rh 7106 pupils, and in the free States, 8927. Here, too, the figures fail to indicate the actual difference in the numbers of such as receive a superior education; for the greater part of the eighty-seven "Universities and Colleges" of the South are much inferior to the better Academies and high schools of the North. In the libraries of all the Universities and Colleges of the South there are 223,416 volumes; in those of the North, 593,897. The libraries of the Theological schools of the South contain 22,800 volumes; those of the North, 102,080. The difference in the character and value of these volumes does not appear in the returns.

In the slave States there are 1,368,325 free white children between the ages of five and twenty; in the free States, 3,536,689 such children. In the slave States, at schools and colleges, there are 301,172 pupils; in the free States, 2,212,444 pupils, at schools or colleges. Thus, in the slave States, out of twenty-five free white children between five and twenty, there are not quite five at any school or college; while out of twenty-five such children in the free States, there are more than fifteen at school or college.

In the slave States, of the free white population that is over twenty years of age, there is almost one tenth part that are unable to read and write; while in the free States there is not quite one in one hundred and fifty-six who is deficient to that degree.

In New England there are but few born therein and more than twenty years of age, who are unable to read and write; but many foreigners arrive there with no education, and thus swell the number of the illiterate, and diminish the apparent effect of her free institutions. The South has few such emigrants; the ignorance of the Southern States therefore is to be ascribed to other causes. The Northern men who settle in the slave-holding States, have perhaps about the average culture of the North, and more than that of the South. The South therefore gains educationally from immigration as the North loses.

Among the Northern States, Connecticut, and among the Southern States, South Carolina, are to a great degree free from disturbing influences of this character. A comparison, between the two will show the relative effects of the respective institutions of the North and South. In Connecti-