It will be remembered that on Friday, the 10th of April, seven teachers
and two patrons of the Orange Park School, at Orange Park, Fla., were
arrested for violation of an enactment legalized a year ago by the State
Legislature under the instigation of William H. Sheats, the State
superintendent of education.
The enactment, which we protest is in no just sense a law, forbids not
only white and colored persons to be instructed within the same building
at the same time, but it also forbids a white principal or matron or
guardians of the school rooming or living within the same building where
their pupils are.
This enactment against the personal rights of education in a private
Christian school not supported or aided by the State, if sustained, would
destroy nearly all of the institutions carried on by Northern benevolence
in all of our Southern States. It would take the guardianship of manners
and morals out of the hands of those who have planted and sustained the
institutions until now, and who, in view of the millions yet uneducated
and untrained, are now needed as much as ever. It is not surprising,
therefore, that the National Council of Congregational Churches at
Syracuse in October requested the Association to take this question to the
highest courts, nor that the General Conference of the Methodist Church in
Cleveland has just passed a resolution denouncing this iniquitous
enactment, or that we are receiving constantly from our State and local
associations assurances of sympathy and support in our contest against
this reversion to barbarism. We quote a few of the opinions which have
come under our observation.
From the _Congregationalist_:
"The ethics of Christ, Pilgrim traditions, and the U. S.
Constitution seemed paramount to the opinions of Florida
legislators, and the highest officials of the American Missionary
Association decided to defy and test the law. That the
denomination stands back of them may be reasonably inferred from
the resolution passed by the last Triennial National Council. Let
the American Missionary Association have the sinews of war with
which to employ the ablest counsel."
From the _Outlook_:
"The State of Florida not long ago took action which is a disgrace
to itself and a blot on the fair fame of our republic. Let our
people squarely face this issue. While we are protesting against
the treatment of missionaries in Turkey and calling upon the
Government to use all its power in their protection, Christian
teachers widely known and honored in one of the great States of
this republic are arrested simply because they presumed to
instruct a few white children under the same roof with colored
children. It is hard to speak of such conduct in mild words. The
question as to whether this is in reality a free republic is once
more at issue. The action of the State of Florida is as barbaric
as the persecutions of the Middle Ages."
From the _Independent_:
"Let the reader observe that this is not a law applying merely to
the public schools of the State. Such a law we condemn, but we
could not be surprised at it. This law is directed at this
particular institution, which is not a public school but a private
academy supported by the American Missionary Association. We have
been amazed that in this nineteenth century Christians could be
massacred by the thousands for not accepting the Moslem faith and
no hand raised to defend them. But that was in Turkey. Here in the
United States more than thirty years after the Proclamation of
Emancipation in one of the sovereign States of the Union, half a
dozen men and women are arrested for the crime of treating black
children and white children alike, for not drawing a caste line in
their own private grounds in a school they conduct at no expense
to the State. It is a curious humiliating occurrence for this
Jubilee year of the American Missionary Association."
From the _Advance_:
"Florida’s disgraceful Sheats law, specially designed for the
teachers and supporters of Orange Park Academy, has at last been
put in force. The teachers of the Academy, the pastor of the
church, and the parents of the white pupils have been arrested for
violation of this law, which forbids any one to maintain or
patronize a school in which white persons and Negroes shall be
taught or boarded within the same building.
And this is the State of Senator Call, who is declaiming so
eloquently in behalf of the Cuban insurgents, more than half of
whom are of Negro blood."
From the _Boston Standard_:
"A year ago the unconstitutional and vile Sheats law was passed by
the legislature of Florida. It was understood that this law was
particularly aimed at the Orange Park School, of the American
Missionary Association, whose fiftieth anniversary is to be
celebrated in this city next fall. This villainous statute was
enforced in the case of the Orange Park School on the entire body
of teachers, white men and women of spotless character and
self-sacrificing devotion to the mission, because of educating
teachers for the elevation of American citizenship. The normal
school is one of the best and most useful of the educational
agencies at work in the South, but had dared to ignore the
outrageous statute which makes it a crime for any school, public
or private, to teach black and white scholars in the same building
or have any white teachers to eat and sleep in the same house with
their Negro pupils. If these discretionary rights are not
guaranteed by our national Constitution to American citizens, then
the professed abolition of slavery and of the color line in
citizenship is a wretched farce. Nobody can question the intent of
the proclamation of emancipation of the constitutional amendment
that places the Negro on the same legal plane with the white
citizen of this country. We do not doubt the supreme and binding
authority of this legislature. We mistake the temper of the
American people if a blaze of indignation is not kindled by this
outrage from the Atlantic to the Pacific."
From _Frank Leslie’s Weekly_:
"Under these provisions no citizen of Florida, it will be noted,
can under certain conditions educate his child. He is excluded
absolutely from the best educational institutions in the State if
these admit pupils of both white and colored parentage. The
defiance of the law was in obedience to a definite determination
on the part of the American Missionary Association to make a
distinct test of the statute."
From the _Boston Daily Advertiser_:
"The Sheats law in Florida was passed through the influence of
malice, prejudice, and partisan venom. Efforts have been made in
other Southern States to perpetrate similar outrages, but for the
most part without avail. The better public sentiment all over the
South is strongly against such meanness. This better sentiment has
asserted itself successfully elsewhere, and we do not doubt that
it will do so very soon in Florida."
From the _Boston Journal_:
"The American Missionary Association will be sustained by an
enlightened public sentiment in fighting to the last resort the
outrageous Florida law which makes it a crime to teach colored and
white pupils in the same school."
These comments are but samples of the sentiment which comes to the
Association respecting this attempt to challenge the constitutional
amendment which came with the emancipation of the colored people from
slavery. But now there is