The work of the public school for the education of the Negro was supplemented by two other classes of schools. In 1867[28] the State Superintendent called attention to three classes of schools which were educating the Negroes in the State. In the first place there were those supported by benevolent societies in other States. These schools were generally supplied with white teachers and were doing good work. There were then the private or subscription schools, which were supported by the tuition of the pupils and in many cases these were taught by colored teachers of inferior qualifications. Finally there were the public schools as contemplated by the law. A few such schools had been established in the large towns and cities.
In 1869[29] it was estimated that there were in the State 34,000 Negro children of educable age. For their accommodation there were 59 Negro public schools with an average attendance of 2,000. This report also states that the majority of these schools were taught in churches and cabins with walls admirably adapted for ventilation and for admission of copious shower baths of rain. The same year Colonel Seely, Agent for the Freedman's Bureau in Missouri, reported 114 schools for the freedmen. Most of these were public schools and the attendance was 6,240. The ninth census for 1870, reported that 9,080 Negro children were attending school in Missouri. Thus we see that the public schools of this period were greatly aided by mission and private schools.
In 1868 the legislature enacted a law[30] which gave the State Superintendent the authority to assume the powers of the school board for establishing and maintaining a school for Negro children when the township, city, or village, neglected to establish and to maintain such a school in accordance with the law. The same year the school law was amended[31] so as to require the township, the city or the incorporated village to establish one or more schools for Negro children when there was more than fifteen children in the jurisdiction. A Negro school could be closed for six months when the attendance for any month dropped below ten.
There is evidence to show that the State Superintendent used his power to establish Negro schools when the local authorities neglected this task. In 1873, he reported:[32] "I have established between 50 and 60 Negro schools in the State without resorting to the expedient of a tax as indicated and authorized by law." In 1875 he reported: "I have levied taxes for Negro schools in three instances. The medicine is good and effective and I trust it will be administered in every similar case in the State until the Negroes enjoy schools equally good in every way as the white schools." Thus we see that by the Law of 1868 the State Superintendent had the power to remedy conditions as far as the Negroes were concerned but there was no evidence to show that he used this power prior to 1872, although there are reports of violations of the law. In 1874 there was passed a law[33] which made a school official subject to a fine of not less than fifty or more than five hundred dollars, for the persistent neglect or refusal to perform any duty or duties pertaining to his office. In view of this and the offensiveness of the results threatened in the civil rights bill,[34] the State Superintendent[35] was astonished at the number of delinquencies and persistent evasions of the law.
The Commissioner of Education was able to report in 1870: "This State has a larger proportion of schools[36] for Negro children than any former slave State. Opposition to the education of the Negroes is rapidly disappearing. Their rapid improvement and good conduct help to disarm prejudice." Among the methods of evading the law the following were reported; the failure to enumerate the Negro children, the complaints of a lack of funds, and the plea of an inability to secure teachers. In 1875 the State Superintendent reported[37] that the citizens of Calloway County, the most strongly southern county in the State during the Civil War, were evincing the greatest readiness to provide good schools for their large Negro population. This, he believed, augured well for the future of the Negro schools of the State, since it indicated a growing kindly disposition of the southern element of the State towards them. How great was the change in sentiment can be readily seen by contrasting this report with those of the county superintendent for 1866 and 1867. In 1866 the Superintendent of Calloway reported[38] much objection to public schools in that county on account of the impartial application to children of all races and colors. The only Negro school in the county had been established under very discouraging circumstances at Fulton. In many rural districts there were not enough children to permit the establishment of a school and in other districts the existing opposition to Negro schools made their establishment impossible. The next year it was reported[39] that the white schools were better fitted for pigs than for children and that there was no interest at all in the education of Negro children.
Another factor which effected the development of the Negro school system was the sparseness of the Negro population. In many districts and even in some counties there were not enough Negro children to form a school. In 1871, reports[40] were received from 109 of the 115 counties of the State. Thirty-nine of the 109 counties did not report a single school district with the required number of Negro children to establish a school. The other seventy counties reported 395 school districts having twenty or more Negro children of school age. The same counties also reported 158 schools for these children. In their annual letters for 1872 twenty-one county superintendents called attention to the fact that the Negro population was so distributed over the counties that it was impossible to provide schools for them according to the law. Three of these superintendents asked that the law might be so amended as to provide for Negro children in the sparsely settled districts, and one superintendent advocated[41] that in districts in which there were too few Negro children to form separate schools, they should be admitted to the white schools.
That same year the State Superintendent reported[42] that in several cases in which no schools were provided because of the small number of pupils, that their parents had asked why their children could not enter the white schools since there was no direct law prohibiting it. The next year[43] the Negro children in several districts did enter the white schools with the tacit consent of the white population. When the State Superintendent was asked whether or not they could be ejected[44] he replied that there was no law to that effect. At this time the enactment of a civil rights bill was being agitated in the State. This bill[45] provided that the public schools of the State should be open to all children regardless of color. When the civil rights bill was defeated in 1874, there was passed another bill which aimed to relieve the situation in the sparsely settled districts.
In 1869 the legislature had passed a law[46] permitting two or more districts, each of which had less than fifteen Negro population but which when taken together had more than that number, to establish a union school for those children. This law on account of its lack of force did not accomplish much good. In 1874 the law[47] was amended in such a way as to make it obligatory for two or more districts, each of which had too few Negro children, to form a school to unite to form a union school. It was also ordered that all taxable property in a township in which a Negro school was situated should be taxed for its support.
In 1875 each district supported its own school[48] for white children, while the whole township in which a Negro school was situated was taxed for its support. No district in the State could be compelled by the law to maintain a school for its white children, but if there were more than fifteen Negro children in the district, the law compelled the local authorities to establish a school for them. If they failed to do so, the law directed the State Superintendent to establish and to levy taxes for the support of Negro schools in such communities. In those districts in which there were too few Negro children to form a separate school, union schools were to be established. The last mentioned law, however, was passed too late to have much effect upon the period under discussion. School officials who refused to perform the duties of their office could be fined[49] not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars.
In the larger centers of the State where there was a large Negro population the necessity of establishing schools[50] for the Negroes seems to have been better realized. Thirty-nine out of seventy-three towns and villages incorporated under the special Act for Towns and Villages, reported[51] a sufficient population for a Negro school. There were 19,879 white and 3,609 Negro pupils enrolled in the public schools of these thirty-nine towns and villages. The length of the school term was the same in the white and the Negro schools in a number of cases; but the average length was lower in the Negro schools than in the white schools. The average length of the white school was thirty-four weeks and the average length of the Negro school term was twenty-eight weeks. The average expense a pupil in these schools was 8.1 cents a day for each white pupil and 7.8 cents a day for each Negro pupil. The average attendance in the Negro schools was below that in the white schools. The average attendance of the white schools was 61.89 per cent and that of the Negro schools was 51.86 per cent of the enrollment.