To all of these obstacles in human nature were added the defects of the tax system. Almost invariably the tax was levied by the Legislature upon the State as a whole or upon the county, and the constitutions or the laws in some cases forbade the progressive smaller division to levy special taxes for any purpose. Graded schools began, however, to appear in the incorporated towns which were not subject to the same tax limitations as the rural districts, and in time it became easier to levy supplementary local taxes by legislative act, judicial interpretation, or constitutional changes.
Gradually public sentiment in favor of schools grew stronger. The legislatures raised the rate of taxation for school purposes, normal schools were established, log schoolhouses began to be replaced by frame or brick structures, uniform textbooks became the rule and not the exception, teachers' salaries were raised, and the percentage of attendance climbed upward, though there was still a remnant of the population which did not attend at all. The school term was not proportionately extended, since a positive mania for small districts developed—a school at every man's door. In the olden days large districts were common, and many of the children walked four or five miles to school in the morning and back home in the afternoon. No one then dreamed of transporting the children at public expense. The school authorities were often unable to resist the pressure to make new districts, and necessarily a contracted term followed. In 1900 the average school term in North Carolina was not longer than in 1860, though much more money was spent, and the salaries were little higher. It must be remembered, of course, that no appropriations were made for negro education before the Civil War.
Both during and after the War many schools were opened for negroes by Freedmen's Aid Societies, various philanthropic associations, and denominational boards or committees. As public schools were established for negroes, some of these organizations curtailed their work and others withdrew altogether. Others persisted, however, and new schools have been founded by these and similar organizations, by private philanthropy, and also by negro churches. As a result there are independent schools, state schools, and Federal schools. The recent monumental report of the Bureau of Education reports 653 schools for negroes other than regular public schools. ¹ Of these 28 are under public control, 507 are denominational schools (of which 354 are under white boards and 153 under negro boards), and 118 are classed as independent. This last group includes not only the great national schools, such as Tuskegee and Hampton, but small private enterprises supported chiefly by irregular donations. These private and independent schools owned property valued at $28,496,946 and had an income of over $3,000,000. State and Federal appropriations at the date of the report reached about $963,000.
¹ Negro Education, Bureau of Education Bulletins 38 and 39 (1916). This work supersedes all previous collections of facts upon negro education.
During the first years after the downfall of the Reconstruction governments the negro received a fair proportion of the pittance devoted to public schools. Governor Vance of North Carolina, in recommending in 1877 an appropriation to the University for a "professorship for the purpose of instructing in the theory and art of teaching" went on to state that "a school of similar character should be established for the education of colored teachers, the want of which is more deeply felt by the black race even than the white.… Their desire for education is a very creditable one, and should be gratified so far as our means will permit." Instead of establishing the chair of pedagogy recommended by Governor Vance, the Legislature appropriated the money to conduct the summer school for teachers at the University. An appropriation of equal amount was made for negroes and similar allowances have been continued to the present. Proportionately larger appropriations have been made for the whites in recent years. Other States have established normal schools for negroes, but in none of them is the supply of trained negro teachers equal to the demand.
The negro public schools were organized along the same lines as the white, so far as circumstances permitted, but the work was difficult and remains so to this day. The negro teachers were ignorant, and many of them were indolent and immoral. In only a few places in the South do whites teach negroes in public schools. The enthusiasm for education displayed just after emancipation gradually wore off, and many parents showed little interest in the education of their children. Education had not proved the "open sesame" to affluence, and many parents were unwilling or unable to compel their children to attend school. As a contributory cause of this reluctance the poverty of the negro must be considered. It was difficult for the negro to send to school a child who might be of financial aid to the family. To many negro parents it seemed a matter of little moment to keep a child away from school one or two days a week to assist at home. It must also be remembered that the negro tenant farmer is migratory in his habits and that he often moved in the middle of the short term. Consequently the whole value of the term might easily be lost by the transfer. It is not surprising that the final product of such unstable educational conditions was not impressive.
The idea of the first educational missionaries to the negroes of the South was to turn them into white men as soon as possible by bringing them into contact with the traditional culture of the whites through the study of Latin, Greek, mathematics, and sometimes Hebrew, especially in the case of students for the ministry. The attempt was made to take the negro, fresh from slavery and with no cultural background, through the course generally pursued by whites. Numerous "universities" and "colleges" were founded with this end in view. Hampton Institute with its insistence upon fitting education to the needs of the race was unique for a time, though later it received the powerful support of Tuskegee Institute and its noted principal and founder, Booker T. Washington. The influence of this educational prophet was great in the North, whence came most of the donations for private schools. In imitation many mushroom schools have recently added "rural" or "industrial" to their names, but few of them are doing work of great value. Where the school appeals chiefly to the negro for support, liberal use is made of such high-sounding names as "college" and "university." The negro still thinks that the purpose of education is to free him from manual labor, and he looks with little favor upon a school which requires actual industrial training. For the same reason he is quick to protest when the attempt is made to introduce manual training into the public schools.
Partly because of this opposition on the part of the negroes themselves, partly because industrial training is more expensive than purely academic training, and partly because such training has only recently been recognized as part of education, the South has made little provision for the industrial education of the negro at public expense. According to the Report on Negro Education, few of the agricultural and mechanical schools maintained partly by the Federal land grants and partly by the States are really efficient. A few state or city schools also give manual training. About one-third of the private schools for negroes offer industrial courses, but much of this work is ineffective—either so slight as to be negligible or straight labor done in return for board and tuition and without regard to educational value. Hampton and Tuskegee are known to do excellent work, and a few of the smaller schools are to be classed as efficient; but in the great majority of negro schools the old curriculum is still followed, and the students gladly submit to its exactness. Why study something so plebeian as carpentry when one may study such scholarly subjects as Latin or Greek?
Most institutions for negroes desire to do work of college grade. Some with not a single pupil above the elementary grades nevertheless proudly call themselves colleges. Other so-called colleges have secondary pupils but none in college classes. Thirty-three institutions do have a total of 1643 students in college classes and 994 students in professional courses, but these same schools enroll more than 10,000 pupils in elementary and secondary grades. Some of them are attempting to maintain college classes for less than 5 per cent of their enrollment, and the teaching force gives a disproportionate share of time to such students. Two of these thirty-three institutions have nearly all the professional students, and two have nearly half the total number of college students. Only three can properly be called colleges—Howard University at Washington, Fisk University, and Meharry Medical College at Nashville, Tennessee.
While several of the Southern States have greatly increased their expenditures for schools since 1910, in some cases more than doubling them, the proportion devoted to negro schools has not been greatly increased, if indeed it has been increased at all. For example, in North Carolina, which assigns for negro education much more than the average of the States containing any considerable proportion of negroes, the total paid to negro teachers in 1910-11 was $340,856, as against $1,715,994 paid to white teachers. Five years later, negro teachers received $536,272, but white teachers received $3,258,352. In other words, in the former year all the negro teachers received one-fifth as much as all the whites, while five years later they received about one-sixth; that is, something less than one-third the total number of children received about one-seventh of the money expended for instruction. A part of this wide difference in expenditure may be explained or even defended. The districts or townships which have voted additional local taxes are usually those in which there are comparatively few negroes. The average salary paid to negro teachers, although low, is as large as can be earned in most of the occupations open to them, and any sudden or large increase would neither immediately raise the standard of competency nor insure a much larger proportion of the ability of the race. The percentage of school attendance of negro children is lower than in the case of white children. Very few negro children, whether because of economic pressure, lack of ability, or lack of desire for knowledge, complete even the fifth grade. Among negroes there is little real demand for high school instruction, which is more expensive than elementary instruction. Therefore, the proportion of the total funds spent for negro education might properly be less than their numbers would indicate. If the proportionate amount spent today for the instruction of certain racial groups of the foreign population could be separated from the total, it would be found that less than the average is spent upon them for the same reasons. However, when all allowances have been made, it is obvious that the negro is receiving less than a fair share of the appropriations made by the Southern States for education.