VIII. The Presbyterian Church at the North, in May, 1865, adopted a deliverance in favor of special efforts in behalf of the “lately enslaved African race.” From the 28th annual report of the Board of Missions for Freedmen, it appears that, besides building churches, special exertions have been put forth “in establishing parochial schools, in planting academies and seminaries, in equipping and supporting a large and growing university.” The report mentions fifteen schools,—three in North Carolina, four in South Carolina, three in Arkansas, and one in each of the States of Texas, Mississippi, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee. $1,280,000 have been spent. “In the high schools and parochial schools, we have (May, 1893) 10,520 students who are being daily moulded under Presbyterian educational influence.” The United Presbyterian Church reports for May, 1893, an enrollment in schools of 2,558. The Southern Presbyterians have a Theological Seminary in Birmingham, Alabama, which was first opened in Tuskaloosa in 1877.

IX. The Episcopal Church, through the Commission on Church Work among the Colored People, during the seven years of its existence, 1887–1893, has expended $272,068, but the expenditure is fairly apportioned between ministerial and teaching purposes. The schools are parochial “with an element of industrial training,” and are located in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, but the “Reports” do not give the number of teachers and scholars. The Friends have some well conducted schools, notably the Schofield in Aiken, South Carolina. They have sustained over 100 schools and have spent $1,004,129. In the mission work of the Roman Catholic Church among the negroes, school work and church work are so blended that it has been very difficult to make a clear separation. Schools exist in Baltimore, Washington, and all the Southern States, but with how many teachers and pupils and at what cost the Report of the Commission for 1893 does not show. A few extracts are given. “We need,” says one, “all the help possible to cope with the Public Schools of Washington. In fact our school facilities are poor, and, unless we can do something to invite children to our Catholic Schools, many of them will lose their faith.” Another person writes: “Next year we shall have to exert all the influence in our power to hold our school. Within two doors of our school a large public school building is being erected; this new public school building will draw pupils away from the Catholic School, unless the latter be made equally efficient in its work.”

X. On February 6, 1867, George Peabody gave to certain gentlemen two million dollars in trust, to be used “for the promotion and encouragement of intellectual, moral, or industrial education among the young of the more destitute portions of the Southwestern States of our Union.” This gift embraced both races, and Dr. Barnas Sears was fortunately selected as the General Agent, to whom was committed practically the administration of the Trust. In his first report he remarked that, in many of the cities aided by the Fund, provision was made for the children of both races, but said that, as the subject of making equal provision for the education of both races was occupying public attention, he thought it the safer and wiser course not to set up schools on a precarious foundation, but to confine help to public schools and make efforts in all suitable ways to improve or have established State systems of education. Still, in some localities aid was judiciously given, and the United States Superintendent of Education for the negroes in North Carolina gave testimony that but for the Peabody aid many of the colored schools would be closed. “Our Superintendents have aided largely in distributing the Peabody Fund in nearly all the States.” “Great good has thereby been accomplished at very little added expense.” The Peabody Fund bent its energies and directed its policy towards securing the establishment of State systems of education which should make adequate and permanent provision for universal education. State authorities would have more power and general influence than individuals, or denominational or private corporations. They represent the whole people, are held to a strict accountability, protect “from the charge of sectarianism and from the liability of being overreached by interested parties.” State systems, besides, have a continuous life and are founded on the just principle that property is taxable for the maintenance of general education. The Fund now acts exclusively with State systems, and continues support to the negroes more efficiently through such agencies.

XI. Congress, by land grants since 1860, has furnished to the Southern States substantial aid in the work of Agricultural and Mechanical education. On March 2, 1867, the Bureau of Education was established for the collection and diffusion of information. This limited sphere of work has been so interpreted and cultivated that the Bureau, under its able Commissioners, especially under the leadership of that most accomplished American educator, Dr. W. T. Harris, has become one of the most efficient and intelligent educational agencies on the continent. To the general survey of the educational field and comparative exhibits of the position of the United States and other enlightened countries, have been added discussions by specialists, and papers on the various phases of educational life, produced by the incorporation of diverse races into our national life or citizenship. The Annual Reports and Circulars of Information contain a vast mass of facts and studies in reference to the colored people, and a digest and collaboration of them would give the most complete history that could be prepared.

The Bureau and the Peabody Education Fund have been most helpful allies in making suggestions in relation to legislation in school matters, and giving, in intelligible, practical form, the experiences of other States, home and foreign, in devising and perfecting educational systems. All the States of the South, as soon as they recovered their governments, put in operation systems of public schools which gave equal opportunities and privileges to both races. It would be singularly unjust not to consider the difficulties, social, political, and pecuniary, which embarrassed the South in the efforts to inaugurate free education. It required unusual heroism to adapt to the new conditions, but she was equal in fidelity and energy to what was demanded for the reconstruction of society and civil institutions. The complete enfranchisement of the negroes and their new political relations, as the result of the war and the new amendments to the Constitution, necessitated an entire reorganization of the systems of public education. To realize what has been accomplished is difficult, at best—impossible, unless we estimate sufficiently the obstacles and compare the facilities of to-day with the ignorance and bondage of a generation ago, when some statutes made it an indictable offence to teach a slave or free person of color. Comparisons with densely populated sections are misleading, for in the South the sparseness and poverty of the population are almost a preventive of good schools. Still the results have been marvellous. Out of 448 cities in the United States, with a population each of 8,000 and over, only 73 are in the South. Of 28, with a population from 100,000 to 1,500,000, only 2 (St. Louis being excluded) are in the South. Of 96, with a population between 25,000 and 100,000, 17 are in the South. The urban population is comparatively small, and agriculture is the chief occupation. Of 858,000 negroes in Georgia, 130,000 are in cities and towns, and 728,000 in the country; in Mississippi, urban colored population, 42,000, rural, 700,000; in South Carolina, urban, 74,000, rural, 615,000; in North Carolina, urban, 66,000, against 498,000 rural; in Alabama, 65,000 against 613,000; in Louisiana, 93,000 against 466,000. The schools for colored children are maintained on an average 89.2 days in a year, and for white children 98.6, but the preponderance of the white over the black race, in towns and cities, helps in part to explain the difference. While the colored population supplies less than its due proportion of pupils to the public schools, and the regularity of attendance is less than with the white, yet the difference in length of school term in schools for white and schools for black children is trifling. In the same grades the wages of teachers are about the same. The annual State school revenue is apportioned impartially among white and black children, so much per capita to each child. In the rural districts the colored people are dependent chiefly upon the State apportionment, which is by law devoted mainly to the payment of teachers’ salaries. Hence, the school-houses and other conveniences in the country for the negroes are inferior, but in the cities the appropriation for schools is general and is allotted to white and colored, according to the needs of each. A small proportion of the school fund comes from colored sources. All the States do not discriminate in assessments of taxable property, but in Georgia, where the ownership is ascertained, the negroes returned in 1892 $14,869,575 of taxable property against $448,883,959 returned by white owners. The amount of property listed for taxation in North Carolina in 1891 was, by white citizens, $234,109,568; by colored citizens, $8,018,446. To an inquiry for official data, the auditor of the State of Virginia says: “The taxes collected in 1891 from white citizens were $2,991,646.24, and from the colored, $163,175.67. The amount paid for public schools for whites, $588,564.87; for negroes, $309,364.15. Add $15,000 for Colored Normal and $80,000 for colored lunatic asylum. Apportioning the criminal expenses between the white and the colored people in the ratio of convicts of each race received into the Penitentiary in 1891, and it shows that the criminal expenses put upon the State annually by the whites are $55,749.57 and by the negroes $204,018.99.”

Of the desire of the colored people for education the proof is conclusive, and of their capacity to receive mental culture there is not the shade of a reason to support an adverse hypothesis. The Bureau of Education furnishes the following suggestive table:

Sixteen former Slave States and the District of Columbia.
Year.Common School Enrollment.Expenditures.
White.Colored.Both Races.
1876–771,827,139571,506$11,231,073
1877–782,034,946675,15012,093,091
1878–792,013,684685,94212,174,141
1879–802,215,67484,70912,678,685
1880–812,234,877802,37413,656,814
1881–822,249,263802,98215,241,740
1882–832,370,110817,24016,363,471
1883–842,546,4481,002,31317,884,558
1884–852,676,9111,030,46319,253,874
1885–862,773,1451,048,65920,208,113
1886–872,975,7731,118,55620,821,969
1887–883,110,6061,140,40521,810,158
1888–893,197,8301,213,09223,171,878
1889–903,402,4201,296,95924,880,107
1890–913,570,6241,329,54926,690,310
1891–923,607,5491,354,31627,691,488
Total amount expended in 16 years, $295,851,470.

In 1890–91 there were 79,962 white teachers and 24,150 colored. To the enrollment in common schools should be added 30,000 colored children, who are in normal or secondary schools. The amount expended for education of negroes is not stated separately, but Dr. W. T. Harris estimates that there must have been nearly $75,000,000 expended by the Southern States, in addition to what has been contributed by missionary and philanthropic sources. In Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, annual grants are made for the support of colored normal and industrial schools.

The negroes must rely very largely upon the public schools for their education, and so they should. They are, and will continue to be, the most efficient factors for uplifting the race. The States, at immense sacrifice, with impartial liberality, have taxed themselves for a population which contributes very little to the State revenues, and nothing could be done more prejudicial to the educational interests of the colored people than to indulge in any hostility or indifference to, or neglect of, these free schools. Denominations and individuals can do nothing more harmful to the race than to foster opposition to the public schools.

XII. A potential agency in enlightening public opinion and in working out the problem of the education of the negro has been the John F. Slater Fund. “In view of the apprehensions felt by all thoughtful persons,” when the duties and privileges of citizenship were suddenly thrust upon millions of lately emancipated slaves, Mr. Slater conceived the purpose of giving a large sum of money to their proper education. After deliberate reflection and much conference, he selected a Board of Trust and placed in their hands a million of dollars. This unique gift, originating wholly with himself, and elaborated in his own mind in most of its details, was for “the uplifting of the lately emancipated population of the Southern States and their posterity, by conferring on them the blessings of Christian education.” “Not only for their own sake, but also for the sake of our common country,” he sought to provide “the means of such education as shall tend to make them good men and good citizens,” associating the instruction of the mind “with training in just notions of duty toward God and man, in the light of the Holy Scriptures.” Leaving to the corporation the largest discretion and liberty, in the prosecution of the general object, as described in his Letter of Trust, he yet indicated as “lines of operation adapted to the condition of things” the encouragement of “institutions as are most effectually useful in promoting the training of teachers.” The Trust was to be administered “in no partisan, sectional, or sectarian spirit, but in the interest of a generous patriotism and an enlightened Christian spirit.” Soon after organization the Trustees expressed very strongly their judgment that the scholars should be “trained in some manual occupation, simultaneously with their mental and moral instruction,” and aid was confined to such institutions as gave “instruction in trades and other manual occupations,” that the pupils might obtain an intelligent mastery of the indispensable elements of industrial success. So repeated have been similar declarations on the part of the Trustees and the General Agents that manual training, or education in industries, may be regarded as an unalterable policy; but only such institutions were to be aided as were, “with good reason, believed to be on a permanent basis.” Mr. Slater explained “Christian Education,” as used in his Letter of Gift, to be teaching, “leavened with a predominant and salutary Christian influence,” such as was found in “the common school teaching of Massachusetts and Connecticut,” and that there was “no need of limiting the gifts of the Fund to denominational institutions.” Since the first appropriation, near fifty different institutions have been aided, in sums ranging from $500 to $5,000. As required by the Founder, neither principal nor income is expended for land or buildings. For a few years aid was given in buying machinery or apparatus, but now the income is applied almost exclusively to paying the salaries of teachers engaged in the normal or industrial work. The number of aided institutions has been lessened, with the view of concentrating and making more effective the aid and of improving the instruction in normal and industrial work. The table appended presents a summary of the appropriations which have been made from year to year.