EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS.
Of the military gentlemen stationed at the post of Hilton Head, the
major writes thus: “In addition to these high-toned military gentlemen,
already named as aiding me, and making easy as well as pleasant the
duties of my office in the bureau, I with pleasure acknowledge my
indebtedness to Lieutenant Colonel Thompson, Assistant Provost Marshal
General, Lieutenant Colonel Bennett, 21st United States Colored Troops,
and Lieutenant Colonel O. Moore, who expelled John Morgan from Ohio,
Colonel Douglass Frazer, of the 104th United States Colored Troops,
and Brevet Brigadier General Nye, of the 29th Maine Volunteers, all
commanding at the post. Captain Henry Sharpe, of the 21st United
States Colored Troops, Lieutenant Hermon, Lieutenant Tracy, 29th
Maine Volunteers, and Provost Major H. E. Whitfield, 128th United
States Colored Troops, Assistant Provost Judges, and Lieutenant C. F.
Richards, 21st United States Colored Troops, Assistant Adjutant General
Lieutenant Jones, and Lieutenant Blanchard, 21st United States Colored
Troops, and that excellent gentleman, now President of Florida Land and
Lumber Company, Dr. J. M. Hawkes, Surgeon 21st United States Colored
Troops. It is due, as a military courtesy, that I should make this
record of the names of gentlemen who came forward at a time when most
required, and aided in measures so important to the new life upon which
a large portion of the political and social element of the nation was
just entering.”
As bearing a close relation to his official duties, we give in this
connection the subjoined correspondence, being a letter of thanks from
that distinguished philanthropist, the Rev. George Whipple, formerly
professor of mathematics in Oberlin College, in behalf of the American
Missionary Association. This, coming from such an Association, is
deemed of sufficient importance to show the general character of the
major in whatever position he is placed,--ever untiring in his efforts
to aid the cause of humanity, and unselfish in his aim.
NEW YORK, July 5, 1867.
Major M. R. DELANY, _Bureau of R. F. & A. L., Hilton Head,
South Carolina_.
Dear Major: Several of our teachers have reported your
attention to their interests, and many acts of kindness in
ministering to their comfort.
In their behalf and at their request, and in the behalf and at
the request of my associates in these rooms, I beg of you to
accept our and their thanks for your oft-repeated kindnesses
to them, and your continued interest in our great work. As you
have given them more--“a cup of cold water” in the name of a
disciple, may you receive a disciple’s reward.
Permit me to add the assurance that I take great pleasure in
being the agent of our friends in this matter. My cordial
thanks accompany theirs.
Yours in behalf of the poor and needy,
GEORGE WHIPPLE,
_Corresponding Secretary_.
The graceful reply to the letter of the Association is worthy of
admiration, replete with loyalty and gratitude to the noble band, who
for long years have labored without faltering for the well being of his
race.
HEADQUARTERS PROV. DIST., HILTON HEAD,
PORT ROYAL, S. C., July 18, 1867.
Professor GEORGE WHIPPLE, _Cor. Sec. A. M. A., 53 John St., New
York_.
My dear Sir: Your very kind letter in behalf of the teachers
and your Christian associates in the rooms of your great
institution was received by the last mail here.
Permit me to state that I have done nothing more, in my
attentions to the excellent self-sacrificing and intelligent
ladies and gentlemen continually sent to this district,
to labor for the moral elevation of my once oppressed and
degraded, but now, thank God, disinthralled brethren, in
the new social relations which this wonderful dispensation
of divine Providence has brought about in fulfilment of his
promise, and the promotion of his own glory, than my simple
duty. If I have done that, I shall feel satisfied and thankful.
If my acts have been worthy of their and your acceptance, I
feel that I may have done something feebly in return towards
repaying the long years of untiring labor, anxiety, hazard,
and pecuniary loss of the Phillipses, Garrisons, Whipples,
Browns, Motts, McKims, Burleighs, Wrights, Pillsburys,
Fosters, Leavitts, Wilsons, Sumners, Stevenses, Hales, Wades,
Giddingses, Whittiers, Parkers, Lovejoys, the Chases, Pinneys,
Collinses, Cheevers, Bellows, Beechers, Stowes, Elders Mahans,
Phinneys and Tappans, Rankins, Joselyns, Smiths, Goodells,
and Adamses, and others of your race, for the outraged and
down-trodden of mine. For this I deserve no thanks. But in my
heart of hearts I not only thank you for tender, Christian-like
expressions in conveying to me their sentiments, but in
return for the patient endurance of yourself and such as
those named, for your incessant labors for the overthrow of
American slavery, the superstition and heathen regeneration and
civilization of foreign lands, all of which are peopled by the
colored races, your continued efforts in their behalf, and the
elevation of man.
Please convey to the teachers and your Association my heartfelt
gratitude for their expressions of kindness towards me, and
accept for yourself, dear Professor, my highest personal
regards and esteem,
M. R. DELANY.
In his report to the Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau concerning
the school system, the reform which he advocated was not without
deliberation, as demonstrated by a circumstance in his own experience.
After his failures in authorship, the Central American expedition
project, and railroad improvement, in consequence of all being
attempted at the same time, as if to redeem that unsuccessful period of
his singularly active life of its appearance of uselessness, a position
entirely new in his rôle presented itself.
The principalship of a colored school was offered to him by a committee
of the seventh ward. At first he declined, as he contemplated resuming
the practice of medicine, his legitimate and choice profession. But the
board insisting, as the school by law was compelled to open within a
week, and no teacher had been secured, he accepted on conditions that
he should be relieved in one month, or so soon as a teacher could be
obtained.
He took charge at once, and organized what was then one of the most
unmanageable schools, a great portion of the pupils being large boys
and girls. The rules laid down by the board allowed _whipping_, while
they forbade suspension or dismissal of the pupils from school. To flog
a pupil, he alleged, was an evidence of the incapacity for governing
on the part of the teacher, and that when it was evident a pupil could
not be restrained without resorting to such measures, he was unfit to
be among the others.
He notified the directors of his objections to their rule. He
regarded it as barbarous, rendering the school-house repulsive and
objectionable, instead of being associated with pleasant and profitable
memories. Therefore, if they desired him to take the school, he would
conduct it in his own way.
They yielded to him in the manner of government. This resulted in
binding the pupils to him by ties of sincere devotion, and he remained
for thirteen months instead of the one month agreed upon at first.
When he resigned, it was a source of regret among both pupils and
directors. Teaching, though he loved it as a continual medium of
imparting knowledge to the young, yet it was confining him to a sphere
too limited for the grasp of his desires. In this capacity he will
be remembered by some of the now adult inhabitants of Pittsburg, and
his excellent assistant, now the wife of one of the professors of the
College of Liberia.
We here insert a portion of his report bearing upon his observation
of the schools of his district, and an extract from his last annual
report, made to headquarters of the assistant commissioner, for the
year 1867, ending the last of August, the close of the planting season.
The report is replete with suggestions, and equal to the demands of the
time. If the suggestions made be carried out, there would accrue a vast
amount of good, rendering the laborer less dependent on others, and
more frugal, whereas, in pursuing his former line of labor, he was kept
at disadvantage on account of the expenses to be kept up before the
sale of cotton, the staple, in the cultivation of which the freedmen
use all their time, money, and labor.
Even to make this an effective and self-sustaining measure,
the local habits of the occupants must be essentially changed.
Instead of the former old plantation people remaining on the
places as a local preference, which generally allows but an
average of five (5) acres to the family, the lands must be let
in portions of not less than twenty (20) acres to each family
before they can be made available to their support. This would
necessitate a general scattering, or greater division of the
people, causing at first quite a change of places with many. To
do justice to the people as an available, sociable, or domestic
element, no one hundred acres of farming land should be
occupied by more than five (5) families, thus allowing twenty
(20) acres to the family, which, in the light of domestic or
political economy, is little enough. Less than this is to place
them in a position of hazardous uncertainty and anxiety, and
encourage idleness and improvidence, by inducing the thriftless
to settle under circumstances which must make them burdensome
to the thrifty and provident. By this course the aged and
otherwise needy and deserving helpless could be easily aided by
their neighbors, without, as now, being over-burdensome.
It is very evident that the entire system of cultivation will
have to be changed, both in the method of doing it, and more
especially the produce raised, to suit and meet the change
in the social system and the demands and status of these
new possessors and permanent residents of small farms or
gardens. Every month in the year but one (December) may be
made productive of some vegetable for provision, or family
use, whereby the people may be independent in subsistence. It
is a settled matter that in this country cotton can only be
profitably produced by extensive cultivation and large capital,
under favorable circumstances; consequently it is a loss of
time and labor for the freedmen to plant cotton with their
limited means of land and materials, as the ground to them can
be put to a much more useful and profitable purpose.
I am preparing the people in this sub-district to this end, and
believe that against the approaching leasing year they will
be quite willing and ready to enter into the new system of
habitation and occupancy.
During the current year there have been no rations issued in
this sub-district, except two hundred (200) bushels of corn
from the Southern Relief Association, and five hundred (500)
bushels of corn, and one thousand (1000) pounds of bacon,
of the Congressional appropriation; assigned through the
Commissary of Subsistence Bureau, Charleston.
The example and precepts of the teachers have been such as to
merit my most hearty approval. But there is one custom as yet
common to schools, and almost regarded as an essential part of
training, and which I most heartily desire should be done away
with. I refer to _whipping_ children as a correction in school.
It is simply a relic of ignorance, and should not be tolerated
by intelligence. And while this is tolerated, teachers will
resort to it as the easiest and to them least troublesome mode
of correction.
A teacher either is, or is not, adapted to teaching. If
properly adapted, she could and should teach without whipping.
If she cannot correct and control her pupils without whipping,
then it only proves that she is not adapted to teaching, and
all such should seek other employment. This is not a reflection
on any particular teacher or teachers, but a condemnation of
the general customs of schools. A school-house should be made a
place of the most pleasurable resort and agreeable associations
to children, but certain it is that in no wise can this be
the case where the great hickory, thong, leather strap, or
bridle-rein meets, as it enters the school-house, the child’s
eye as it does the eye of the visitor, reminding one, as it
must the other, of entering the presence of the old plantation
overseer in waiting for his victim.