TENNESSEE.
Statistics of Teaching by Students now in Fisk University.
From reports carefully made out by students now in attendance on Fisk University, the following facts are ascertained:
Ninety have at some time been engaged in school teaching. Of these, sixty-two are members of the collegiate department and twenty-eight of the normal department. The time taught in all, including the past year, is 1,630 months, or reduced to school years of nine months each, 161 1-9 years.
It is found that during the year 1880, seventy-two have taught school, the sum of the months being 309. This reduced to school years of nine months each, gives 34⅓ years.
The sum total of salaries earned in 1880, is $9,129. From this must be subtracted for cost of board and travel, $3,236, leaving a net gain of $5,893.
The entire number of pupils taught during the year is 5,641, and the sum of average daily attendance is 3,717.
Of the seventy-two who taught these schools, sixty-seven did labor in Sunday-schools, forty-four as teachers, seven as superintendents and sixteen as both teachers and superintendents. The total attendance on these Sunday-schools was 3,963. Besides this, four did labor in preaching, twelve held prayer-meetings and one held Bible readings. The number of conversions reported is 151.
Thirty-two taught in Tennessee, twenty-two in Mississippi, eight in Texas, four in Alabama, four in Arkansas, two in Georgia, one in West Virginia, and one in Missouri.
Inferences drawn from these statistics:
1. Nearly all the students in Fisk University of sufficient age and advancement in scholarship, teach during their courses of study. It is found that eighty per cent. of the students in the collegiate department have taught. Those who have not taught are too young to take charge of a school. The per cent. of those in the Normal department who have taught, is less, because the advancement in scholarship is less, as is also the average age.
2. The average salary per month is $29.54. The average cost for board and travel, not calculating other expenses, is $10.47. This leaves the net gain per month of $19.07. This in reality is reduced somewhat by loss of time often incurred in securing a school, or in waiting for it to begin after it is secured.
3. It is seen that the students are making very praiseworthy efforts to gain an education, and that they earn annually a large sum of money to secure that end. Still, at a net gain of $19.07 a month, the student cannot entirely support himself. Parents should consider well this fact, not fully understood, as it would appear, by some of those able to assist their children. Those kind friends who have given to the Student Aid Fund of the University, will see that their benefactions are needed and well bestowed.
4. This condition of things, if the strain is not allowed to be too severe, has a compensating benefit to the student, who grows strong by contending with difficulties. He learns the value of education by its cost. He obtains that practical experience which students ordinarily have to acquire after graduation. He is also kept in sympathy with the people among whom his future labors are to lie.
5. These statistics show that, while in the midst of their own arduous labors as students, these young people are accomplishing a great amount of good in a field to which now, happily, the eyes of the nation are turned, the education of the colored people. During the last year, when, for reasons not necessary now to give, a less number of students than usual were engaged in teaching, they had under their training an army of between five and six thousand children, and performed the labor of more than the ordinary lifetime of a man; and, including former years, they have done the work of more than a hundred and sixty years.
6. But the whole good is not to be estimated in years. The great mass of the teachers among the colored people, as among the white, teach with little if any more preparation than what is gained in the common schools. The coming into a community of one who has enjoyed superior advantages, introduces a better idea to which others will seek to attain. One of the most threatening obstacles in the way of colored education has been the great lack of competent colored teachers. The paying of incompetent teachers is almost, if not entirely, a waste of the public money. Viewing from this standpoint, the long and expensive journeys necessarily taken by the students of Fisk University to reach their schools, may not be a loss but a benefit, by scattering further the good influence of the University. In a region where one good teacher is sent, ten schools will be made better.
7. In addition to the devotional exercises held in their schools by the greater majority of the students, much other religious work is done. During the last year six preached, twelve held prayer-meetings and one Bible readings, while ninety-six per cent. of all are now engaged in Sunday-school labor. A more accurate knowledge of the Scriptures and better idea of Christian living must be the result of these labors.
8. From a list of institutions of learning where some of those, now students in Fisk University, studied before coming to it, many of them of high standing and scattered over the land, it is seen that this University cannot claim these good results entirely as its own. It shows also that the University, situated as it is, midway between the gulf and the lakes, is becoming a great central school of learning.
9. No mention is made in these statistics of any students not now in attendance on the University. The exact number of those in that class who are now teaching, is not known. It is known, however, that many such are devoting their entire time to teaching and some of them are already occupying positions of honor and importance as educators. According to estimates derived from reports given by former students not now in connection with the University, the number of pupils taught annually by them cannot be far from 10,000, making a total, with those before mentioned, of more than 15,000.—Fisk Expositor.