In 1915 St. Louis had a Negro school population of 7,233 and an enrollment of 5,811. Nine grade schools and a high school were maintained by the city to accommodate these children.[98] In 1916 a Negro industrial[99] school was opened for delinquent youth, and $40,000 was appropriated to build two cottages on the city farms at Bellefountaine for delinquent Negro children. The Negro schools are modern and well equipped. Kindergarten classes are provided, manual training courses are open to the boys and domestic science classes are provided for the girls. In the year of 1915-16 three elementary night schools were in session with an enrollment of 759.
The Negro school population of Kansas City is also well provided for. In 1880 this city had a Negro school population of 2,035[100] and there was an enrollment of 623 or of 30.5 per cent of the school population. In 1911 the Negro school population was 6,500 and the number of pupils enrolled reached 3,251. 54.1 per cent of the Negro school population and 47 per cent of the white school population were enrolled in the public schools. The school property[101] devoted to the use of the Negroes was valued at $465,565 and the value of the property devoted to the white people was $5,792,468. The Negro population which comprised 9.7 per cent of the total population had public school property valued at 7.4 of the total. The average cost for each white pupil enrolled was $42.20 a year and the average cost for each Negro child was $35.02. In 1910-11, there were 86 Negro teachers in the system. There was one teacher for every 37 children enrolled in the white schools and one teacher for every 41 Negro pupils. In the same year the Negro night schools had an enrollment of 472. In 1915 there were ten elementary and one high school[102] devoted to the use of the Negroes. The Negro school population had increased to 7,637 and the enrollment was 3,654.
In 1915 there were fifteen colored schools in the State doing work of a high school grade. Two of these, Sumner High School of St. Louis and Lincoln High School of Kansas City are first class high schools.[103] The Negro high schools of Hannibal and of Springfield are ranked second class and the high schools of Chillicothe and St. Joseph are rated third class. The other nine high schools are unclassified.
Until the opening of the new Dunbar High School in Washington, District of Columbia, in 1916 the Sumner High School was considered the finest Negro high school in the country. This school was established in 1875 and had only twenty pupils[104] in 1885. By the year 1900 the enrollment had increased to 250. In 1907 the city appropriated $297,827[105] for the building of the new Sumner High School, a magnificent building. It is three stories high and is well equipped. It contains a large auditorium, and gymnasiums on the top floor. On the second floor are laboratories, for the teaching of chemistry, physics, physiology, and biology. Courses for girls are given in domestic science and in domestic art. The school also maintains a commercial department. In the basement there are shops in which the boys are taught carpentry, cabinet making, machinery, and blacksmithing. A swimming pool for the boys is also located in the basement. There is provided a cafeteria at which the children can purchase at a small cost their noonday meal. It is possible for the pupil to take any one of the several courses. He may prepare himself to enter a first-class college, to enter the business world, or to become an artisan.
Sumner High School also maintains[106] a normal training course for its girl graduates. The Cottage Avenue graded school is under the supervision of the High School principal and it serves as an observation school for those taking normal work. This high school also maintains an evening school. In 1915-16 the enrollment was 457. The Negroes of St. Louis are very proud of their high school, and it is well patronized. In 1915-16 the enrollment[107] was 811 and in 1916-17 it passed the 1,000 mark. There were employed in this high school in 1915 thirty-five teachers who received an average salary of $127 a month. The school has a library containing about 2,000 volumes and equipment[108] valued at $30,000.
The Lincoln High School of Kansas City, although it is not as large or as well equipped as Sumner High School, is nevertheless a good high school. The first Negro high school[109] was opened in the Lincoln Grade School Building. A high school building was erected on Eleventh Street in 1890. This building was used as such until the erection of the present high school, the site of which was purchased in 1899 and the new building was opened September 6, 1906. In 1915 this school had an enrollment[110] of 462 pupils. Seventeen instructors were employed at the average salary of $115 a month. Besides the regular high school courses, this school has departments of domestic science and domestic arts for the girls. Vocational courses are open to the boys and a course in military training has recently been opened for the boys. In 1915 the equipment[111] of the school was valued at $10,000. The library contained a number of valuable works.
In the development of Negro education in keeping with the policy of establishing high schools the State in 1879 assumed complete control[112] of Lincoln Institute. Prior to this date, the legislature had merely given the normal department of this institution $5,000 annually for the purpose of training teachers. The Thirty-fourth General Assembly established an academic and a college department in the school, and the Thirty-sixth General Assembly established an industrial department. The State has since then dealt very liberally with its Negro normal school. In 1915 the legislature appropriated[113] $116,600 for the bi-annual period of 1915-1916. This school then had a campus of twenty acres, upon which was situated six modern buildings and a model training school for the use of students preparing to teach. The school also had a farm of sixty acres. The property[114] of the school was valued at $222,202. There were thirty-one teachers employed and the school enrollment was 343. The academic work is divided between a high school course and a two year normal course. Graduates from the normal department obtain life certificates to teach in Missouri. The following trades are taught: domestic science and domestic art, carpentry, wood-turning, machinery and blacksmithing. The work which this school has done in preparing teachers for the Negro rural schools of the State cannot be over estimated.
Because of these many efforts in behalf of Negro education, therefore, Missouri stood in 1915 in the lead of the ex-slave States in the provisions which it had made for the education of Negro children. Only the District of Columbia stood ahead of it in the amount of money[115] which was invested in public school property for Negroes. The District of Columbia had $135.30 invested for every Negro child of school age and Missouri had $50 for each Negro child. Oklahoma and West Virginia ranked next to Missouri, each having $26.00 invested for every Negro child of school age. Missouri ranked first among the States in the proportion of the total school investment devoted to the education of the Negro child. Missouri had 96 per cent as much invested for each Negro child as was invested for each white child while the District of Columbia had only 74 per cent as much invested in Negro school property[116] as it had invested in white school property for every child of school age. If we leave out the District of Columbia, which is not comparable with a State, Missouri stood at the head of the States, in which separate schools were maintained for Negro children, in the annual expenditure for every child of school age. Missouri spent $12.13 for every Negro child[117] of school age enumerated. This was more than was spent by 12 of the southern States for every white child enrolled. Missouri's nearest rivals, Oklahoma and West Virginia, spent $11.16 and $10.38 for every Negro child respectively. As the result of her excellent school system, Missouri had, according to the census of 1910, a smaller proportion of her population illiterate[118] than did any of the other ex-slave States.
Henry Sullivan Williams