I have looked into the statistics and I find that North Carolina spends more per hundred dollars of taxable property for school purposes than Massachusetts, which is perhaps the leading American state in educational expenditures. In 1906 North Carolina raised $.40 on every one hundred dollars, while Massachusetts raised $.387. But this does not mean, of course, that North Carolina has reached the standard of Massachusetts; it only shows how the people, though not rich, have been willing to tax themselves. And they have only just begun; the rate of illiteracy of the state, as in all the South, is still excessive among both white and coloured people. According to the last census, North Carolina has more illiterate white people than any other state in the Union, a condition due, of course, to its large population of mountaineers. While the progress already made is notable the leaders still have a stupendous task before them. At the present time, although taxing itself more per hundred dollars’ worth of property than Massachusetts, North Carolina pays only $2.63 each year for the education of each child, whereas Massachusetts expends $24.89—nearly ten times as much.
I do not wish to over-emphasise the work in North Carolina; I am merely using conditions there as a convenient illustration of what is going on in greater or less degree all over the South. One of the group of early enthusiasts in North Carolina was P. P. Claxton, who is now in charge of the educational campaign in Tennessee. With President Dabney, formerly of the University of Tennessee and State Superintendent Mynders, Mr. Claxton has conducted a state-wide campaign for education. Every available occasion has been utilised: picnics, court-days, Decoration Days: and often the audiences have been larger and more enthusiastic than political rallies. Indeed, the meetings have been carried on much like a political campaign. At one time over one hundred speakers were in the field. Every county in the state was stumped, and in two years it was estimated that over half of the entire population of the state actually attended the meetings. Labour unions and women’s clubs were stirred to activity, resolutions were passed, politicians were called upon to declare themselves, and teachers’ organisations were formed. The result was most notable. In 1902 the state expended $1,800,000 for educational purposes; in 1908—six years later—the total will exceed $4,000,000.
A similar campaign has been going on in Virginia, under the auspices of the Coöperative Educational Association, in which the leaders have been Dr. S. C. Mitchell, Professor Bruce Payne, President Alderman, and others. In this work Ex-Governor Montague has also been a force for good, both while he was governor and since, and Governor Swanson at present is actively interested. Local leagues were formed in every part of the state to the number of 324. Negroes have also organised along the same line and now have ten local associations in five counties.
How the South Is Taxing Itself
One of the most striking features of the movement has been the development of the system of local taxation for school purposes—which is a long step in the direction of democracy. In the past the people have looked more or less to some outside source for help—to state or national funds, or the private gifts of philanthropists, or they have depended upon private schools—but now they are voting to take the burden themselves. In other words, with the building up of a popular school system, supported by local taxation, education in the South is becoming, for the first time, democratic. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this movement in stimulating the local pride and self-reliance of the people, or in inspiring each community with educational enthusiasm.
Another development of profound influence has been going on in the South. As I have already pointed out, the so-called “Northern philanthropist” has long been interested in Southern education, especially Negro education. For years his activities awakened, and indeed still awaken, a good deal of hostility in some parts of the South. Many Southerners have felt that the Northerners, however good their intentions, did not understand Southern conditions, and that some of the money was expended in a way that did not help the cause of progress in the South.
South and North Work Together
But both the Northerners (whatever their mistakes in method may have been) and the new Southern leaders were intensely and sincerely interested in the same thing: namely, better education and better conditions in the South. It was natural that these two groups of earnest and reasonable men should finally come together in a spirit of coöperation; and this is, indeed, what has happened. Out of a series of quiet conferences held in the South grew what has been called the “Ogden movement” and the Southern Education Board. This organisation was made up of three different classes of men: first, a group of the Southern leaders of whom I have spoken—Mitchell, Alderman, Dabney, Curry, Houston, Hill, McIver, Claxton, Edgar Gardner Murphy, Sydney J. Bowie, and Henry E. Fries; second, Southern men who, living in the North, were yet deeply interested in the progress of the South—men like Walter H. Page, George Foster Peabody, and Frank R. Chambers; and, finally, the Northerners—Robert C. Ogden, who was president of the board, William H. Baldwin, H. H. Hanna, Dr. Wallace Buttrick, Albert Shaw, and Dr. G. S. Dickerman.
One of the inspirers of the movement, also a member of the board, was Dr. H. B. Frissell, who followed General Armstrong as principal of Hampton Institute.
Each year conferences have been held in the South, a feature of which has been the “Ogden Special”—a special train from the North bringing Northern citizens to Southern institutions and encouraging a more intimate acquaintanceship on both sides. No one influence has been more potent than this in developing a spirit of nationalisation in the Southern educational movement.