GENERAL NOTES.
The Peabody Educational Fund.
The Board of Trustees of the Peabody Educational Fund—George Peabody’s gift of $2,100,000 in aid of education in the South—held its annual meeting October 2d, in New York City. The Treasurer reported receipts of $80,000, and disbursements of $77,000. The principal statements of Dr. Sears’s annual report were the following:
The year just brought to a close has been one of unusual pecuniary embarrassment to all the schools of the South. While every branch of the department of education has been affected by it, that relating to the employment of teachers has suffered most. Notwithstanding these discouraging circumstances, the schools in most of the States, instead of deteriorating, have advanced in almost every respect. The attendance was never so great; the interest of the people never so general. An approximation, near or remote, in the great mass of teachers, to the standard of those professionally educated, has been effected, sometimes by county organizations, under State supervision; sometimes by bringing together teachers from all the counties of a Congressional district; and, in one instance, by assembling the teachers of a whole State to receive instruction for a period of six weeks. This is a new feature in the school operations of the Southern States, and is now more rapidly revolutionizing modes of instruction than any other measure that has been tried. No part of the funds at our disposal has produced greater or better results than that contributed to this object. The scholarships established last year have had an excellent effect. Those given to the New Orleans Normal School, in amounts of $150 each, were used for the benefit of pupils from the country parishes. They were ten in number. Those of the Nashville Normal College, of $200 each, were for pupils from beyond the limits of Tennessee.
The number of white children in Virginia, December 1, 1877, between five and twenty-one years of age, was 280,149; that of colored children, 202,640, making in all, 482,789. Of these, 139,931 white children and 65,043 colored were enrolled in the public schools, amounting to 204,974, or somewhat less than one-half. The average daily attendance was only 117,843. The current expenses for the public schools and school officers were $949,721; and for permanent improvements in real estate, houses and furniture, $100,625. Although the current expenses were reduced $36,000, the school work was increased, and the number of pupils was 5,000 greater than the year before. It is well known that the State is largely in debt; and the courts have decided that the school fund may be used for the benefit of the creditors.
In North Carolina the provisions for education are altogether inadequate. There is a great lack of funds, and also of proper organs to execute the law. So long as a meagre State tax is the sole reliance for the support of schools, they will inevitably languish. Double the amount of money now raised would be a scanty supply. The organization of boards of education, and of the other branches of school administration, is radically defective.
The report of the new Superintendent of South Carolina for 1877 shows that 2,483 schools, with an attendance of 102,396 children, out of 228,128, were in operation for a period averaging three months. The State had appropriated $100,000 for their support.
In Georgia, English branches only are taught in the public schools. The total enrolment in 1877 was 191,000. Of this number, 64,000 were colored children. The school funds amounted to $434,000, including $143,000 which was raised by towns and cities. There is a prospect that, under the new Constitution, there will be a large increase of funds.
A letter from Florida reports that in 1877 there were 30,406 pupils in the public schools—about 4,000 over the number reported the previous year. There is an improvement also in the quality of teachers, in the average length of school terms, and in the interest taken by the people.
Few well-graded and well-taught schools are to be found in Alabama. The number of children of school age, in 1877, was 369,447; the number enrolled in the public schools, 141,230, about three-fifths of whom were white. The school expenditures for teachers and superintendents were $384,993.
In Mississippi, the Superintendent regards the situation as hopeful and encouraging. The statistics are very imperfect, as only sixty-five of the seventy-five counties made any report. These give 160,528 as the number of children in school, and $481,251 as the amount of money expended. The enumeration of persons of school age, giving the number of 324,989, is said to “fall far short of the actual number.”
In Louisiana there has been a period of careful re-organization of the public school system, rather than of marked success in achieving decided results in the educational work of the State. The loss of the interest on the trust fund for the year, by an unconstitutional act of the Legislature, and the failure to collect much over half of the $500,000 appropriated by the State, proved very prejudicial to the country districts, where the number of colored children required a much larger number of schools. In the parishes reported, the aggregate attendance of white children was 16,042, and of colored children, 17,511. There are about 20,000 more colored than white children in the State.
The Secretary of the Board of Education of Texas, writing July 30, after saying that the reports giving the statistics of the schools the present year have not yet been received, adds: “Under our present law, our schools have prospered as they never have before.”
Arkansas has provided for 237 Normal beneficiaries, who are entitled to four years’ free tuition. There were last year twenty Normal students in the collegiate course, and thirty-one in the preparatory school. At Pine Bluff there is a branch Normal college for colored teachers, arranged on nearly the same plan, and entitled to the same number of beneficiaries.
The school population of Tennessee, in 1877, was 442,458; 111,523 being colored. The enrolment was 227,643—43,043 being colored; an increase of 33,463 over the enrolment of the previous year. The schools have improved as much in the quality of the instruction given as in the attendance. The amount of school money during the year was $718,423, which is $120,311 less than that of the year preceding. Notwithstanding this diminution of funds, the number of schools was increased by 807, and that of teachers by 791.
West Virginia is one of the least fluctuating of the Southern States in regard to education, and its history is that of a slow but steady growth. The number of persons of school age, or from six to twenty-one years, for the year 1877, was 192,606, being an increase over the previous year of 7,810. Of these, 125,332 actually attended school, being a numerical increase of attendance of 1,828 over the preceding year, and an increase in the average daily attendance of 11,191. There was an increase, also, of 161 in the number of teachers employed. The total value of school property in the State is $1,714,600, being an increase on the preceding year of $54,132. The total expenditure for the year was $921,307, being a decrease of $65,270, caused mainly by a reduction in the rate of teachers’ salaries, and in the number of school-houses built during the year.
During the past year, the income of the fund was distributed as follows: Virginia, $15,350; North Carolina, $4,500; South Carolina, $3,600; Georgia, $6,000; Florida, $3,900; Alabama, $1,100; Texas, $8,550; Mississippi, $600; Louisiana, $8,000; Arkansas, $6,000; Tennessee, $14,600; West Virginia, $5,050.
—A general press dispatch from Washington reports that Mr. Keating, editor of the Memphis Appeal, having had his attention called to a statement by Dr. Ramsey, of Washington, that white women in Memphis have had to take colored men for nurses, or go without, and that the latter have abused their opportunities, pronounces the story utterly untrue. He says that white women have not been put to the necessity of taking colored men for nurses; the other part of the statement is a libel upon the negroes of Memphis. He says: “All honor to them. They have done their duty. They have acted by us nobly as policemen and as soldiers, as well as nurses; they have responded to every call made upon them, in proportion to their number, quite as promptly as the whites. A few of them threatened trouble at one time about food, but they were at the moment suppressed by a company of soldiers of their own color. The colored people of Memphis as a body deserve well of their white fellow-citizens. We appreciate and are proud of them.”—Tribune.
—There is an Episcopal “Theological Seminary and High School” in Virginia. Several colored young men applied for education for the ministry, and were turned away, rather than allow them to receive education with white people.—Independent.
—A General Missionary Conference will be held in London, Oct. 21st–27th. Among the topics to be discussed are the following, which bear especially upon the work of the A. M. A.: “Results of Emancipation, Social and Religious: Probable Influence on Africa,” by E. B. Underhill, LL.D.; “Discovery in Africa as bearing on the new Mission Schemes in Central Africa,” by Sir Fowell Buxton. Rev. Dr. O. H. White, Secretary of the Freedmen’s Aid Society of Great Britain, will represent the Association in the Conference.
—A company for developing commerce with Africa has been organized, under the title of the American and African Commercial Company. Articles of Incorporation have been filed by Congressman Cain, and Messrs. Watts and Porter, well-known colored men. The Capital Stock is 500,000.
—The French Roman Catholic Mission here [Zanzibar] has lately established a station fifteen or twenty miles from Kidudwe, in the Nguru Country, and now a party of ten Jesuit missionaries are leaving Bagamoyo to establish a mission at Ujiji.
—The Methodist Mission at Boporo, Africa, east of Liberia, has met with unexpected repulses. The people wanted trade, and in their disappointment became hostile to the missionaries. They can obtain no site for a mission building. The people were forbidden to give or sell them anything, even to eat, and this interdict had to be bought off. But the missionaries do not despair.