EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS
Apologists for Reconstruction have repeatedly asserted that the
Reconstruction governments gave to the South a system of public schools
unknown up to that time, with the implication that this boon more than
compensated for the errors of those years. The statement has been so
often made, and by some who should have known better, that it has
generally been accepted at its face value. The status of public
education in the South in 1860, it is true, was not satisfactory, and
the percentage of illiteracy was high. Any attempt to distract attention
from these facts by pointing out the great proportion of the Southern
white population in colleges and academies is as much to be deprecated
as the denial of the existence of public schools at all.[1]
[Footnote 1: Some States had done little for public schools before 1860,
but others had made more than a respectable beginning. Delaware
established a "literary fund" in 1796, Tennessee in 1806, Virginia in
1810, Maryland in 1813, and Georgia in 1817. Kentucky and
Mississippi soon followed their example; North Carolina began to create
such a fund in 1825; Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland,
North Carolina, and South Carolina appropriated a part or the whole of
their shares of the "surplus" distributed by the Federal Government
under the Act of 1836 to increase these funds or establish new ones for
the support of schools; and some States levied considerable taxes for
the support of educational institutions.]
In general the public schools of the South began as charity schools, but
this was also the case in several of the older States in other parts of
the country. These schools were generally poorly taught in the early
years, and it has been questioned whether the training which the pupils
received compensated them for the humiliating acknowledgment of poverty
which their attendance implied. The amount of money available was small,
and the teacher was generally inefficient or worse, but these "old field
schools" did help some men on their way. Several States went beyond the
idea of charity in education, and some of the towns and cities
established excellent schools for all the people.
The literary fund in North Carolina, for example, amounted to nearly
$2,250,000 in 1840. The rapid increase of this fund had led to the
establishment of public schools in 1839. To every district which raised
$20 by local taxation, twice that amount was given from the income of the
literary fund. With the election of Calvin H. Wiley as state superintendent
of education in 1852, substantial progress began. In 1860 there were over
3000 schools, and the total expenditure was $279,000. The number of
illiterates had fallen proportionately and actually, and ten years more of
uninterrupted work would have done much to remove the stigma of illiteracy.
The school fund was left intact during the Civil War, and most of the
counties continued to levy school taxes. A part of the fund was lost,
however, through the failure of the banks in which it was invested, and the
remainder was squandered by the Reconstruction government. In spite of all
discouragements, Superintendent Wiley held on until deposed by the
provisional governor in 1865. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that
the schools of this State were better in 1860 than they were in 1880.
During the Reconstruction period a system of schools was established in
every one of the seceding States. On paper these schemes were often
admirable. Usually they were modeled after the system in the State from
which some influential carpetbagger came, and under normal conditions,
if honestly and judiciously administered, they would have answered their
ostensible purposes and would have done much to raise the intellectual
level of the population. Conditions, however, were not normal. The
production of wealth was hindered, and taxes had been increased to the
point of confiscation. In States which had been ravaged by war, and of
which the whole economic and social systems had been dislocated, an undue
proportion of the total social income was demanded for the schools. Under
existing conditions the communities could not support the schemes of
education which had been projected. This fact is enough to account for
their failure, for when an individual or a community is unable to pay the
price demanded, it matters little how desirable or laudable the object
may be.
As if to make failure doubly certain, the schools were neither honestly
nor judiciously administered. Much money was deliberately stolen, and
much more was wasted. Extravagant salaries were paid to favorites, and
unnecessary equipment was bought at exorbitant prices. The authorities
in several States seemed more interested in the idea of educating negro
children with white children than in the real process of education.
Though in but four States--South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Arkansas--were mixed schools the only schools, such an arrangement was
understood to be the ultimate goal in several other States. Several of the
state superintendents were negroes, and others were carpetbaggers dependent
upon negro votes. Before the end of Reconstruction, several of these were
forced to flee to avoid arrest for malfeasance in office. In those States
where mixed schools alone were provided, white children did not attend and
were thus cut off from educational opportunities at public expense. Where
separate schools were provided, the teachers were often carpetbaggers who
strove "to make treason odious." It is hardly surprising that some parents
objected to having their children forced to sing _John Brown's Body_ and
to yield assent to the proposition that all Southerners were barbarians and
traitors who deserved hanging.
Just after the close of the Civil War, thousands of white women went
South to teach in schools which were established for negroes by Northern
churches or benevolent associations. Every one who reads the reports of
such organizations now, fifty years after, must be touched by the lofty
faith and the burning zeal which impelled many of these educational
missionaries; but he must also be astonished by their ignorance of the
negro and their blindness to actual conditions. They went with an ideal
negro in their minds, and at first, they treated the negro as though he
were their ideal of what a negro ought to be. The phases through which
the majority of these teachers went were enthusiasm, doubt,
disillusionment, and despair. Some left the South and their charges,
holding that conditions were to blame rather than their methods; but others
were clearsighted enough to realize that they had set about solving the
problem in the wrong way.
Beginning with the assumption that the negro was equal or superior to
the white in natural endowment and burning with resentment against his
"oppressors," they attempted to bridge the gap of centuries in a
generation. They were anxious to bring the negro into contact with the
culture of the white race and thereby they strengthened the conclusion
to which the negro had already jumped that educational and manual labor
were an impossible combination. Then, too, in order to prove the
sincerity of their belief in the brotherhood of mankind, they entered
into the most intimate association with their pupils and their families.
Some of them, we know, were compelled to struggle hard to overcome their
instinctive repugnance to such intimacy. All of them taught by
implication, and some by precept as well, that the Southern whites who held
themselves apart were enemies to the blacks. That these teachers did some
good is undoubted, but whether in the end a true balance would show more
good than harm is not so certain.
When the native whites resumed control after the days of Reconstruction,
their first thought was to reduce the expenses of the State. Tax levies
were cut to the bone, school taxes among them. The school funds did not
always suffer proportionately, however. In 1870, when the whites secured
control in North Carolina, the expenditure for public schools in that
State was $152,000. In 1874, the school revenue was over $412,000, and
the number of white pupils was almost the same as in 1860; in addition
55,000 negroes were receiving instruction, but the school term was only
ten weeks. The negro seems to have received in the first years of the
new régime a fair share of the school money, but that share was not
large. The reaction from Reconstruction extravagance was long-continued,
and perhaps has not disappeared today.
Though the South was unable properly to support one efficient system, it
now attempted to maintain two, one for whites and the other for blacks.
Necessarily both systems were inadequate. The usual country school was only
a rude frame or log building, sometimes without glass windows, in which one
untrained teacher, without apparatus or the simplest conveniences,
attempted to give instruction in at least half a dozen subjects to a group
of children of all ages during a period of ten to fifteen weeks a year.
Often even this meager period was divided into a summer and winter term, on
the plea that the older children could not be spared from the farms for the
whole time or that bad roads and stormy weather prevented the youngest from
attending during the winter.
Though it seems almost incredible under such conditions, something was
nevertheless accomplished. Many children, it is true, learned little or
nothing and gave up the pretense of attending school. Others, however,
found something to feed their hungry minds and, when they had exhausted
what their neighborhood school had to offer, they attended the academies
which had been reëstablished or had sprung up in the villages nearby or
at the countyseat. Between 1875 and 1890, it was not at all uncommon to
find in such academies grown men and women studying the regular high school
subjects. Some had previously taught rural schools and now sought further
instruction; and others had worked on the farms or had been in business.
Men of twenty-five or thirty sat in classes with town children of fifteen
or sixteen, but made such a large proportion of the total attendance that
they did not feel embarrassed by the contrast in ages.
In the eighties there were scores of these academies, institutes, and
seminaries in the towns of the South. They were not well graded; the
teachers may never have heard of pedagogy. Their libraries were small or
altogether lacking, and their apparatus was scanty; but in spite of
these drawbacks an unusually large proportion of the students were
desirous to learn. Many teachers loved mathematics or Latin, and some of
the students gained a thorough if narrow preparation for college. An
examination of college registers of the period shows a considerable
proportion of students of twenty-five or thirty years of age. There is
even a case where a college student remained out a term in order to
attend a session of the Legislature to which he had been elected. The
college students of the late seventies and early eighties were serious
minded and thought of questions as men and not as boys. Though the
clapper of the college bell was sometimes thrown into the well or the
president's wagon was transferred to the chapel roof, these things were
often done from a sort of sense of duty: college students were expected
to be mischievous. Yet the whole tone of college life was serious. There
were no organized college athletics, no musical or dramatic clubs, no
other outside activities such as those to which the student of today
devotes so much of his attention, except, of course, the "literary
societies" for practice in declamation and debating.
Though many towns established graded schools before 1890 by means of
special taxes, the condition of rural education at this time was
disheartening. The percentage of negro illiteracy was falling, because
it could not easily be raised, but the reduction of white illiteracy was
slow. The school terms were still short, and many of the school
buildings were unfit for human occupation. On the other hand, the
quality of the teachers was improving. The short term of the schools was
being lengthened by private subscription in some districts, and new and
adequate buildings appeared in others. Progress was evidently being
made, even if it was not obtrusive, and in that progress one of the
leading factors was the Peabody Fund.
In 1867 George Peabody, a native of Massachusetts but then a banker of
London, who had laid the foundation of his fortune in Baltimore, placed
in the hands of trustees $2,100,000 in securities to be used for the
encouragement of education in the Southern States. The Fund was
increased to $3,500,000 in 1869, though a considerable part consisted of
bonds of Mississippi and Florida which those States refused to recognize
as valid obligations. The chairman of the trustees for many years was
Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, and the other members of the board
were distinguished men, both Northern and Southern. The first general
agent, as the active administrator was called, was Barnas Sears, who at
the time of his election was president of Brown University.
Dr. Sears was an unusual man, who comprehended conditions in the South
and was disposed to improve them in every feasible way by using the
resources at his command. He had no inflexible program and was willing
to modify his plans to fit changing conditions. The income of the Fund
appears small in this day of munificent foundations, but it seemed large
then; and its effects were far-reaching. Sears was not an educational
reformer in the modern sense. He seems to have had no new philosophy of
education but took the best schools of the nation as a standard and strove
to bring the schools of the South up to that standard. Through the aid of
the Fund model schools were established in every State. The University of
North Carolina opened its doors to the teachers of the State for
professional training during the summer and was apparently the first of the
summer schools now so numerous and popular. Direct appropriations in aid of
schools were made out of the Fund, provided the community by taxation or
subscription raised much larger sums. The Peabody Normal College at
Nashville, Tennessee, was founded, and no effort was spared to develop a
general interest in public education. Advice to legislatures, trustees, or
communities was given when asked but so tactfully that neither resentment
nor suspicion was aroused.
Before his death, Dr. Sears had chosen Dr. J.L.M. Curry as his
successor, and the choice was promptly ratified by the trustees. Dr.
Curry was a thorough Southerner, a veteran of both the Mexican and the
Civil War. He had first practiced law and had sat in the House of
Representatives of the United States and of the Confederate States. At
the time of his election to the management of the Peabody Fund he was a
professor in Richmond College, Virginia, and a minister of the Baptist
Church. He had a magnetic personality, an unyielding belief in the value
of education for both white and black, and the temperament and gifts of
the orator. As a Southerner, he could speak more freely and more
effectively to the people than his predecessor, who had done the pioneer
work. During the years of his service, Curry therefore gave himself
chiefly to the development of public sentiment, making speeches at every
opportunity before societies, conventions, and other gatherings. As he
himself said, he addressed legislatures "from the Potomac to the Rio
Grande."
While the influence of the Peabody Fund and its agents was large, it was
not the only influence upon the educational development of the South.
There were throughout that section men who saw clearly that the main
hope centered in education for black and white. They talked in season
and out, though sometimes with little apparent result, for the opposing
forces were strong. Among these forces poverty was perhaps the
strongest. It is difficult to convince a people who must struggle for
the bare necessities of life that taxation for any purpose is a positive
good; and a large proportion of the families of the rural South handled
little money. This was true even for years after the towns began to feel
the thrill of growing industrialism. It has sometimes seemed that the
poorer a man and the larger the number of his children, the greater his
dread of taxes for education.
Then, too, the Southern people had followed the tradition of Jefferson
that the best government is that which assumes the fewest functions and
interferes least with the individual. Many honest men who meant to be
good citizens felt that education belonged to the family or the church
and could not see why the State should pay for teaching any more than
for preaching, or for food, or clothing, or shelter. There were, of
course, those claiming to hold this theory whose underlying motives were
selfish. They had property which they had inherited or accumulated, and
they objected to paying taxes for educating other people's children. It
must be said, however, that as a class, the larger taxpayers have been
more ready to vote higher taxes for schools than the poor and
illiterate, whose morbid dread of taxation has been fostered by the
politician.
There were others who were cold to the extension of public education on
account of the schools already existing. In many towns and villages
there were struggling academies, often nominally under church auspices.
Towns which could have supported one school were trying to support two
or three. In few cases was any direct financial aid given by the
religious organization, but the school was known as the Methodist or the
Presbyterian school, because the teaching force and the majority of the
patrons belonged to that denomination. The denominational influence
behind these schools was often lukewarm toward the extension of public
education, and the ministers themselves had been known to make slighting
references to "godless schools." There was still another class of people
who really opposed public schools because they did not believe that the
masses should be educated. This class was, however, small and is perhaps
more numerous in other sections of the Union than in the South.
Last, but by no means the least, of the obstacles to general public
education was the question of its influence upon the negro. The apparent
effects of negro education were not likely to make the average white man
feel that the experiment had been successful. The phrase that "an educated
negro was a good plough-hand spoiled" seemed to meet with general
acceptance. The smattering of an education which the negroes had
received--it would be difficult to call it more--seemed to have improved
neither their efficiency nor their morals. As a result there were many
white people so shortsighted that they would starve their own children
rather than feed the negro.
To all of these obstacles in human nature were added the defects of the
tax system. Almost invariably the tax was levied by the Legislature upon
the State as a whole or upon the county, and the constitutions or the
laws in some cases forbade the progressive smaller division to levy
special taxes for any purpose. Graded schools began, however, to appear
in the incorporated towns which were not subject to the same tax
limitations as the rural districts, and in time it became easier to levy
supplementary local taxes by legislative act, judicial interpretation,
or constitutional changes.
Gradually public sentiment in favor of schools grew stronger. The
legislatures raised the rate of taxation for school purposes, normal
schools were established, log schoolhouses began to be replaced by frame
or brick structures, uniform textbooks became the rule and not the
exception, teachers' salaries were raised, and the percentage of
attendance climbed upward, though there was still a remnant of the
population which did not attend at all. The school term was not
proportionately extended, since a positive mania for small districts
developed--a school at every man's door. In the olden days large
districts were common, and many of the children walked four or five miles
to school in the morning and back home in the afternoon. No one then
dreamed of transporting the children at public expense. The school
authorities were often unable to resist the pressure to make new districts,
and necessarily a contracted term followed. In 1900 the average school term
in North Carolina was not longer than in 1860, though much more money was
spent, and the salaries were little higher. It must be remembered, of
course, that no appropriations were made for negro education before the
Civil War.
Both during and after the War many schools were opened for negroes by
Freedmen's Aid Societies, various philanthropic associations, and
denominational boards or committees. As public schools were established
for negroes, some of these organizations curtailed their work and others
withdrew altogether. Others persisted, however, and new schools have been
founded by these and similar organizations, by private philanthropy, and
also by negro churches. As a result there are independent schools, state
schools, and Federal schools. The recent monumental report of the Bureau
of Education reports 653 schools for negroes other than regular public
schools[1]. Of these 28 are under public control, 507 are denominational
schools (of which 354 are under white boards and 153 under negro
boards), and 118 are classed as independent. This last group includes
not only the great national schools, such as Tuskegee and Hampton, but
small private enterprises supported chiefly by irregular donations.
These private and independent schools owned property valued at
$28,496,946 and had an income of over $3,000,000. State and Federal
appropriations at the date of the report reached about $963,000.
[Footnote 1. _Negro Education_, Bureau of Education Bulletins 38 and 39
(1916). This work supersedes all previous collections of facts upon
negro education.]
During the first years after the downfall of the Reconstruction
governments the negro received a fair proportion of the pittance devoted
to public schools. Governor Vance of North Carolina, in recommending in
1877 an appropriation to the University for a "professorship for the
purpose of instructing in the theory and art of teaching" went on to
state that "a school of similar character should be established for the
education of colored teachers, the want of which is more deeply felt by
the black race even than the white.... Their desire for education is a
very creditable one, and should be gratified so far as our means will
permit." Instead of establishing the chair of pedagogy recommended by
Governor Vance, the Legislature appropriated the money to conduct the
summer school for teachers at the University. An appropriation of equal
amount was made for negroes and similar allowances have been continued
to the present. Proportionately larger appropriations have been made for
the whites in recent years. Other States have established normal schools
for negroes, but in none of them is the supply of trained negro teachers
equal to the demand.
The negro public schools were organized along the same lines as the
white, so far as circumstances permitted, but the work was difficult and
remains so to this day. The negro teachers were ignorant, and many of
them were indolent and immoral. In only a few places in the South do
whites teach negroes in public schools. The enthusiasm for education
displayed just after emancipation gradually wore off, and many parents
showed little interest in the education of their children. Education had
not proved the "open sesame" to affluence, and many parents were unwilling
or unable to compel their children to attend school. As a contributory
cause of this reluctance the poverty of the negro must be considered. It
was difficult for the negro to send to school a child who might be of
financial aid to the family. To many negro parents it seemed a matter of
little moment to keep a child away from school one or two days a week to
assist at home. It must also be remembered that the negro tenant farmer is
migratory in his habits and that he often moved in the middle of the short
term. Consequently the whole value of the term might easily be lost by the
transfer. It is not surprising that the final product of such unstable
educational conditions was not impressive.
The idea of the first educational missionaries to the negroes of the
South was to turn them into white men as soon as possible by bringing
them into contact with the traditional culture of the whites through the
study of Latin, Greek, mathematics, and sometimes Hebrew, especially in
the case of students for the ministry. The attempt was made to take the
negro, fresh from slavery and with no cultural background, through the
course generally pursued by whites. Numerous "universities" and "colleges"
were founded with this end in view. Hampton Institute with its insistence
upon fitting education to the needs of the race was unique for a time,
though later it received the powerful support of Tuskegee Institute and
its noted principal and founder, Booker T. Washington. The influence of
this educational prophet was great in the North, whence came most of the
donations for private schools. In imitation many mushroom schools have
recently added "rural" or "industrial" to their names, but few of them are
doing work of great value. Where the school appeals chiefly to the negro
for support, liberal use is made of such high-sounding names as "college"
and "university." The negro still thinks that the purpose of education is
to free him from manual labor, and he looks with little favor upon a
school which requires actual industrial training. For the same reason he
is quick to protest when the attempt is made to introduce manual training
into the public schools.
Partly because of this opposition on the part of the negroes themselves,
partly because industrial training is more expensive than purely
academic training, and partly because such training has only recently been
recognized as part of education, the South has made little provision for
the industrial education of the negro at public expense. According to the
_Report on Negro Education_, few of the agricultural and mechanical schools
maintained partly by the Federal land grants and partly by the States are
really efficient. A few state or city schools also give manual training.
About one-third of the private schools for negroes offer industrial
courses, but much of this work is ineffective--either so slight as to be
negligible or straight labor done in return for board and tuition and
without regard to educational value. Hampton and Tuskegee are known to do
excellent work, and a few of the smaller schools are to be classed as
efficient; but in the great majority of negro schools the old curriculum is
still followed, and the students gladly submit to its exactness. Why study
something so plebeian as carpentry when one may study such scholarly
subjects as Latin or Greek?
Most institutions for negroes desire to do work of college grade. Some
with not a single pupil above the elementary grades nevertheless proudly
call themselves colleges. Other so-called colleges have secondary pupils
but none in college classes.
Thirty-three institutions do have a total of 1643 students in college
classes and 994 students in professional courses, but these same schools
enroll more than 10,000 pupils in elementary and secondary grades. Some
of them are attempting to maintain college classes for less than 5 per
cent of their enrollment, and the teaching force gives a
disproportionate share of time to such students. Two of these
thirty-three institutions have nearly all the professional students, and
two have nearly half the total number of college students. Only three
can properly be called colleges--Howard University at Washington, Fisk
University, and Meharry Medical College at Nashville, Tennessee.
While several of the Southern States have greatly increased their
expenditures for schools since 1910, in some cases more than doubling
them, the proportion devoted to negro schools has not been greatly
increased, if indeed it has been increased at all. For example, in North
Carolina, which assigns for negro education much more than the average
of the States containing any considerable proportion of negroes, the
total paid to negro teachers in 1910-11 was $340,856, as against
$1,715,994 paid to white teachers. Five years later, negro teachers
received $536,272, but white teachers received $3,258,352. In other words,
in the former year all the negro teachers received one-fifth as much as all
the whites, while five years later they received about one-sixth; that is,
something less than one-third the total number of children received about
one-seventh of the money expended for instruction. A part of this wide
difference in expenditure may be explained or even defended. The districts
or townships which have voted additional local taxes are usually those in
which there are comparatively few negroes. The average salary paid to negro
teachers, although low, is as large as can be earned in most of the
occupations open to them, and any sudden or large increase would neither
immediately raise the standard of competency nor insure a much larger
proportion of the ability of the race. The percentage of school attendance
of negro children is lower than in the case of white children. Very few
negro children, whether because of economic pressure, lack of ability, or
lack of desire for knowledge, complete even the fifth grade. Among negroes
there is little real demand for high school instruction, which is more
expensive than elementary instruction. Therefore, the proportion of the
total funds spent for negro education might properly be less than their
numbers would indicate. If the proportionate amount spent today for the
instruction of certain racial groups of the foreign population could be
separated from the total, it would be found that less than the average is
spent upon them for the same reasons. However, when all allowances have
been made, it is obvious that the negro is receiving less than a fair share
of the appropriations made by the Southern States for education.
The inadequate public schools for negroes have been excused or justified
upon the ground that private and church schools are supplying the need.
This is true in some localities, for the great majority of negro private
schools, no matter by what name they are called, are really doing only
elementary or secondary work. These schools, however, only touch the
beginnings of the problem and have served in some degree to lessen the
sense of responsibility for negro education on the part of the Southern
whites. Where there is one of these schools supported by outside
philanthropy, the public school is likely to be less adequately equipped
and supported than in the towns where no such school exists. But at
best, these schools can reach only a small proportion of the children.
The difficulty lies in public sentiment. As a rule the tax rate is fixed
by the State but collected by the county, and the county board divides
the amount plus any local taxes levied, among the schools. Districts of the
same number of pupils may receive widely varying amounts, according to the
grade of instruction demanded. Generally, a part of the fund is
apportioned per capita, and the remainder is divided according to the
supposed special need of the districts. A white district which demands
high grade teachers is given the necessary money, if possible. Few colored
schools have advanced pupils, and only sufficient funds for a cheaper
teacher or teachers may be provided. Colored districts are often made too
large. The white districts ask so much that little more than the per
capita appropriation is left for the colored schools. The negroes are
politically powerless and public sentiment does not demand that money be
taken from white children to be given to negroes.
Mention should be made of several funds which have been established by
philanthropists for the education of the negro. The John F. Slater Fund,
founded by a gift of $1,000,000 in 1882, has now reached $1,750,000. The
greater part of the income is devoted to the encouragement of training
schools. No schools are established by the Fund itself, but it coöperates
with the local authorities and the General Education Board. The Jeanes
Fund of $1,000,000 established by a Quaker lady, Miss Anna T. Jeanes of
Philadelphia, expends the greater part of its income in helping to pay
the salaries of county supervisors for rural schools. These are usually
young colored women, who work under the direction of the county
superintendents and visit the rural schools. They give simple talks upon
hygiene and sanitation, encourage better care of schoolhouses and grounds,
stimulate interest in gardening and simple home industries, and encourage
self help. Their work has been exceedingly valuable. The Phelps Stokes
Fund of $900,000, founded by Miss Caroline Phelps Stokes, is not wholly
devoted to the negroes of the South. It has been expended chiefly in the
study of the negro problem, in founding fellowships, and in making
possible the valuable report on negro education already mentioned. In 1914,
Mr. Julius Rosenwald of Chicago offered to every negro rural community
wishing to erect a comfortable and adequate school building a sum not to
exceed $300, provided that the community would obtain from private or
public funds at least as much more.
The interest of the General Education Board is not limited either to negro
or even to Southern education, but it has done much for both. This great
foundation has paid salaries of state supervisors of negro schools in
several States and has coöperated with the Jeanes Fund in maintaining
county supervisors of negro schools. It has appropriated over half a
million dollars to industrial schools and about one-fourth as much to negro
colleges. Farm demonstration work, of which more is said elsewhere, is
also of aid to the negroes. The Board has realized, however, that the
development of negro schools is dependent upon the economic and educational
progress of the whites, and has contributed most to white schools or to
objects of a nature intended to benefit the whole population.
All testimony points to the conclusion that there is now real enthusiasm
for education among the Southern whites. The school terms are being
extended, often by means of local taxes levied in addition to the
minimum fixed by the State; the quality of the teaching is improving;
and popular interest is growing. In many sections, the school is
developing into a real community center. Good buildings are replacing
the shacks formerly so common. North Carolina is proud of the fact that
for more than fourteen years an average of more than one new school a day
has been built from plans approved by the educational department. More
and more attention is being paid to the surroundings of the buildings.
School gardens are common, and some schools even cultivate an acre or two
of ground, the proceeds of which go to furnish apparatus or supplies. Many
of the Southern towns and cities have schools which need not fear
comparison with those in other sections.
The crying need is more money which can come only in two ways, by
reforming the system of taxation, and by increasing the amount of
taxable property. All through the South the chief reliance is a general
property tax with local assessors who are either incompetent or else
desirous of keeping down assessments. The proportion of assessment to
value varies widely, but on the average it can hardly be more than fifty
per cent; and, as invariably happens, the assessment of the more
valuable properties is proportionately less than that of the small farm
or the mechanic's home. The South is growing richer, but the conflict
with the North set the section back thirty or forty years, while the
remainder of the country was increasing in wealth. Even today the South
must build two school systems without the aid of government land grants,
which have had so much to do with the successful development of the
schools of the Western States, and without the commercial prosperity
which has come to the East. The rate of taxation levied for schools in
many Southern communities is now among the highest in the United States.
During the past ten years, hundreds of public high schools have been
established, more than half of which are rural. Some still follow the
old curriculum, but a new institution known as the "farm life school" is
now being developed. Many other schools have such a department attached
and usually give instruction in household economics as well. The General
Education Board estimates that $20,000,000 has been spent for improved
buildings since the appointment of professors of secondary education in
Southern universities. This, by the way, is one of the most useful
contributions of the Board. These men, chosen by the institutions
themselves as regular members of the faculty but with their salaries
paid by an appropriation from the Board, may give a course or two in the
university, but their chief duties are to coordinate the work of the
high schools and to serve as educational missionaries. They go up and
down the States, exhorting, advising, and stimulating the people, and
the fruits of their work are present on every hand.
The South has a superabundance of colleges. Some of them have honorable
records; others represent faith and hope or denominational zeal rather
than accomplishment. Some of the older institutions were kept open
during War and Reconstruction but others were forced to close. With the
return of white supremacy old institutions have been revived and new
ones have been founded. The number of students has increased, but the
financial difficulties of the institutions have hardly diminished. Few
had any endowment worth considering, and the so-called state
institutions received very small appropriations or none at all. Good
preparatory schools were few and, since the colleges were dependent upon
tuition fees, many students with inadequate preparation were leniently
admitted. Preparatory departments were established for those students
who could not possibly be admitted to college classes. Necessarily the
quality of work was low, though many institutions struggled for the
maintenance of respectable standards. One college president frankly
said: "We are liberal about letting young men into the Freshman class,
but particular about letting them out." It was not uncommon for half of a
first year class to be found deficient and turned back at the end of the
year, or dismissed as hopeless. Obviously this was a wasteful method of
determining competency.
Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, founded in 1873 by the
gifts of "Commodore" Vanderbilt, was the first Southern institution with
anything approaching an adequate endowment and was the first to insist
upon thorough preparation for entrance, though it was compelled to
organize a sub-freshman class in the beginning. Its policy had
considerable influence both upon college standards and upon the growth
of private preparatory schools. The development of public schools, for a
time, had made the work of colleges in general more difficult, because
they supplanted scores of private academies which had done passably well
the work of college preparation and yet were not themselves able to
prepare students for college in the first years of their existence. For
years it was difficult in many localities for a young man to secure
proper preparation, and the total of poorly prepared students applying
for admission to the colleges increased. The number of towns and cities
which have established high schools or high school departments has since
increased rapidly, and today a larger and larger proportion of college
students comes from public schools.
Since 1900, the resources of the colleges have greatly increased. States
which appropriated a few thousand dollars for higher education in the
early nineties now appropriate ten or even twenty times as much to their
universities, agricultural colleges, and normal and technical schools
for women, and have appropriated millions for new buildings. Many of the
denominational colleges have obtained substantial endowments. The
General Education Board up to 1914 had subscribed over $3,000,000 to
Southern colleges and universities on condition that the institutions
raise at least three times as much more. Southern men who have
accumulated wealth are realizing their social responsibility. Several
recent gifts of a million dollars or more are not included in the sum
mentioned above, and many smaller gifts or bequests likewise.
Standards of work have been raised with increasing income. As elsewhere
the effect of the reports of the Carnegie Foundation has been patent.
The stronger institutions have brought up their requirements to the
minimum, on paper at least, and to a great extent in fact. Some of the
weaker institutions have dropped the pretense of doing college
work; others have accepted the position of junior colleges doing two
years of college work and giving no degrees. The States exercise little
or no supervision over the quality of work done for college degrees, and
some institutions continue to grant diplomas for what is really
secondary work, but the fact that they are not up to the standard is
known and the management is generally apologetic.
No other phase of Southern life is more hopeful and more encouraging
than the educational revival. True, judged by the standards of the
richer States, the terms of the rural schools are short and the pay of
the teachers is small; but both are being increased, and no schools are
exercising more wholesome influence. The high schools are neither so
numerous nor so well equipped as in some other States, but nowhere else
is such evident progress being made. There are no universities in the
South which count their income in millions, but the number of
institutions adequately equipped to do efficient work is already large
and increasing. The spirit of faculty and students is admirable, and the
contact of the institutions and the people of the Southern States is
increasingly close and full of promise.