We note with pleasure the rapid strides of education among the colored people in sixteen years. In 1864-5 I visited large schools in slave-pens that had become useless for the purposes for which they were designed. The stumps of their whipping-posts and the place of the dreaded auction block was vacated. Although many of their public schools are not all that could be desired, yet they have them, and they are doing a good work. In Virginia, beginning with 1871, the colored children enrolled for successive years numbered as follows: 38,554; 46,736; 49,169; 54,945; 62,178, 65,043; 61,772; and 35,768. In South Carolina the enrollment from 1870 was, 15,894: 38,635; 46,535; 56,249; 63,415; 70,802; 55,952; 62,120; and 64,095. In Mississippi, beginning with 1875, the enrollment was 89,813; 90,178; 104,777; and 111,796. At the present we foot up the astonishing number of 738,164 pupils. Maryland has appropriated two thousand dollars per annum for the support of normal schools for the training of colored teachers. An ex-Confederate and ex-slave-holder of high degree subscribed five thousand dollars toward a college for colored people under the patronage of one of the colored Churches in the State of Georgia. All honor is due such noble deeds. May there be more to follow his good example.
From the best authorities we have the figures of over a million communicants among the colored people in the United States. Of those in the Southern States we have as follows, at this date, 1881:
African Methodists, . . . . . . . . . . 214,808
Methodist Episcopal Church (Colored), . 112,000
Colored Baptist Church, . . . . . . . . 500,000
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, . . . 190,000
Methodist Episcopal Church, . . . . . . 300,000
Almost every Church in the North has contributed to educational purposes in the South, but they are doing none too much. The Friends have done much toward supporting a school in Helena, Arkansas, under the supervision of Lida Clark, an untiring worker for that people. But we have not the figures of amounts. But the Methodist Episcopal Church has done, and is still doing, a great work, as our figures will show, in building commodious schoolhouses in various States.
Schools of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church for 1880-81:
CHARTERED INSTITUTIONS.
TEACHERS. PUPILS.
Central Tennessee College, Nashville, Tenn., . . . 12 433
Clark University, Atlanta, Ga., . . . . . . . . . . 7 176
Chiflin University, Orangeburg, S. C., . . . . . . 9 388
New Orleans University. New Orleans, La., . . . . . 4 200
Shaw University, Holly Springs, Miss., . . . . . . 8 277
Wiley University, Marshall, Texas, . . . . . . . . 6 323
THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS.
Centenary Biblical Institute, Baltimore, Md., . . . 4 118
Baker Institute; Orangeburg, S. C., . . . . . . . . … …..
[Footnote: Pupils enumerated in the other schools]
Thompson Biblical Institute, N. Orleans, La., . . . … …..
[Footnote: Pupils enumerated in the other schools]
MEDICAL COLLEGE.
Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn., . . . . . 8 35