Let me give you two or three further facts. In 1878 the freedmen of Prince Edward County, Virginia, owned 2,305 acres of land, an increase in eight years of 1,847 acres. In the county of Rockbridge, Virginia, two thousand blacks were assessed for $50,000 worth of real estate. In 1876 the colored people of Georgia owned land valued at $1,234,104, and other property to swell the total to $6,134,829. In the single State of Georgia these people, from not owning a dollar, have come to possess property greater in value than the entire sum spent by this Association in 21 years. Who says that this alabaster box of ointment has been wasted?
Material prosperity indicates a certain degree of intelligence. The ignorant are not the wealthy nations of the globe. The work of this Association in bringing these people up to a degree of intelligence somewhat commensurate with their opportunities, and in lifting them to a level of citizenship co-ordinate with the welfare and prosperity of the State, has directly aided in this increase of the material forces of the nation’s welfare. For if the actual amount of property were not increased, yet the prospective wealth of the nation must be by converting 6,000,000 illiterate paupers into educated, independent property-holders.
I find this in the last issue of the American Missionary, which supports my position with high authority: “It has been estimated at Washington that the annual profit to the country by the conversion of illiterate into educated labor cannot be less than $400,000,000.” This work has been done by this Association.
Money given to the endowment of its institutions at the South would yield a hundred fold in half a generation.
WHITE TOP MOUNTAIN, VIRGINIA.
THE SOUTH.
Rev. Joseph E. Roy, D.D., Field Superintendent.