One teacher of the Port Royal group, herself of African descent, was Charlotte S. Forten of Philadelphia. She was a graduate of the State Normal School, Salem, Massachusetts, and had taught in the same city. Refusing a residence in Europe, she joined one of the parties for Port Royal to teach among her own people. This woman enjoyed the friendship of Whittier and, as a beautiful singer herself, the poet sent her directly his Hymn written for the scholars of St. Helena Island which she taught them to sing for the Emancipation Proclamation exercises of January 1, 1863.[25]
The banner school on "St. Helen's Isle" and Port Royal was the one in charge of Laura M. Towne, of Philadelphia, and supported by the Philadelphia Society. After three years' work this school had reached a fair degree of organization. The school was conducted in the building sent in sections as referred to above and was known as the "Penn School" in honor of the society which supported it. Classes were grouped as primary, intermediate, and higher, each in charge of one teacher in a separate room. The branches of study, however, were the same in all—reading, spelling, writing, geography, and arithmetic.[26] The situation here described represents in the embryo the present day Penn Normal and Agricultural Institute.
Similarly well housed was the school taught by Elizabeth Hyde Botume, of Boston, under the auspices of the New England Society. It commands interest for the reason that it was the beginning in industrial training on these islands. As plantation laborers the pupils knew little or nothing of sewing. To supply this need Miss Botume solicited the necessary apparatus from her northern friends and began work on some old contraband goods stored in an arsenal. She reported that sewing was a fascination to all and that "they learned readily and soon developed much skill and ingenuity."[27] This school has come down today as the Old Fort Plantation School. The work of these two women thus took on a permanent character and to this extent largely formed an exception to the general informality of the schooling at Port Royal.
Obviously, the heroic efforts of the several societies to assist the blacks amounted to far more than school-room procedure. Indeed, this was a very small part of the work of the teachers and it was so regarded by them. They visited the little cabins, counselled and advised their wards, attended church, and taught them in the Sabbath Schools. Three years of this intermingling between the culture of New England and the most degraded slaves in America resulted in some promising signs for the latter. There was some improvement in manners and dress and an increase in wants. At the stores set up on the islands they were buying small articles for the improvement of their surroundings.[28] For the first time they were now being paid wages. At the tax sales in March, 1863, when 16,479 acres were up for auction they purchased about 3,500 acres at the price of 93½ cents an acre. Shortly afterwards they had doubled this amount.[29] As free laborers, however, they were somewhat disappointing to their new employers since old habits still persisted. All in all, with some three thousand or one-third of the whole number having received "more or less" instruction in books the societies were well satisfied with the experiment and at the close of the war increased their efforts at Port Royal and throughout the State.
Organization and Relationship
The Freedmen's Bureau as established by Act of Congress March 3, 1865, "with the supervision and management of all abandoned lands and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel states," was an outgrowth of the Port Royal experiment and other such enterprises carried on elsewhere. Social conditions in the South at the close of the war called for increased efforts on the part of northern benevolence, but this was only possible through governmental aid and supervision. The societies already at work during the war made appeals to the government toward this end. One committee, for example, on December 1, 1863, stated that the needs represented "a question too large for anything short of government authority, government resources, and government ubiquity to deal with."[30]
The organization of the Freedmen's Bureau as affecting South Carolina consisted of a commissioner at Washington, an assistant commissioner for the State at large with headquarters at Charleston, and sub-assistant commissioners—one for each of the five districts into which the State was divided. Furthermore, there was a subdivision of each district with agents in charge. For the educational work of the Freedmen's Bureau there was a corps consisting of a general superintendent on the commissioner's staff, a State superintendent correspondingly on the assistant commissioner's staff at Charleston, and the various sub-assistant commissioners and agents who combined the supervision of schools with their other duties. The personnel of this hierarchy consisted of General O. O. Howard, Commissioner, J. W. Alvord, general superintendent of education, General Rufus Saxton, General R. K. Scott, Colonel J. R. Edie, successively, assistant commissioners, and Reuben Tomlinson, Major Horace Neide, Major E. L. Deane, successively, State superintendents of education. These officers, beginning with the lowest, made to their respective chiefs monthly, quarterly or semi-annual reports which were finally submitted to the commissioner at Washington, who was required to make "before the commencement of each regular session of Congress, a full report of his proceedings."
The duties of the general superintendent were to "collect information, encourage the organization of new schools, find homes for teachers and supervise the whole work."[31] Similarly, the State superintendent was to take cognizance of all that was "being done to educate refugees and freedmen, secure proper protection to schools and teachers, promote method and efficiency, and correspond with the benevolent agencies ... supplying his field."[32] On October 5, 1865, Tomlinson sent out this notice to the people of the whole State: "I request all persons in any part of this state ... to communicate with me furnishing me with all the facilities for establishing schools in their respective neighborhoods."[33]
Between the Freedmen's Bureau and the several aid societies there was perfect understanding. Howard announced: "In all this work it is not my purpose to supersede the benevolent agencies already engaged, but to systematize and facilitate them."[34] So close was the cooperation between the efforts of the Bureau and the societies that it is hard in places to separate the work of the two.