The Chicago agency of Alice H. Birch has been abandoned, and her old patrons may order any game previously advertised by her, at her home, Portland, Traill Co., Dakota.
The Commissioner of Education has prepared a table showing the illiteracy among voters in the South, which presents a painfully interesting study for educators and statesmen. In the formerly slaveholding States there are 4,154,125 men legally entitled to vote. Of these, 409,563 whites, and 982,894 colored, are unable to write even their names, and their ability to read is very limited. Many, who profess to be able to read, can only with difficulty spell out a few simple sentences in their primers, and really get no knowledge, such as the citizen needs, from either books or papers. Thousands of them have neither books nor papers, and could not read them if they had. Surely a great work must be done for these freed men and poor whites before they are quite equal to all the duties of citizens in a country like ours.
[EDITOR’S TABLE.]
Q. Dec´orus or deco´rus, which?
A. Webster authorizes both, giving preference to the latter. The former has the advantage of placing the accent on the root syllable, a rule that is very helpful in settling questions of pronunciation, and conforms to usage in the accentuation of cognate words, as “dec´orate,” “dec´oration,” etc. We prefer it.
Q. What is the meaning of “liberal,” in the phrases, “liberal education,” and “liberal religious views?”
A. An education extended much beyond the practical necessities of our every-day business and social life, is liberal. It is not a possession belonging alone to the alumni of colleges and universities. Any person of culture, who, with or without the aid of teachers, has mastered the curriculum of studies prescribed by colleges, or its equivalent, is liberally educated. In the best sense, a man of “liberal religious views” is generous, freely according to others the right to their opinions on all subjects about which good men may differ. He is not creedless, but not bigoted; and cordially approves “things that are most excellent,” wherever they are found. The claim to great liberality, set up by those who have no rule of faith, and no views they are willing to formulate, does not seem well founded.