RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS
School System before Reconstruction
The public school system of the state of Alabama was organized in 1854,
and was an expansion of the Mobile system, which was partly native and
partly modelled on the New York-New England systems.[1707] By 1856 it was
in good working order. The school fund for 1855 was $237,515.00; for 1856,
$267,694.41, and the number of children in attendance was 100,279, which
was about one-fourth of the white population. For 1857 the fund amounted
to $281,874.41; for 1858, $564,210.46, with an attendance of 98,274
children.[1708] The schools were not wholly free, since those parents who
were able to do so paid part of the tuition.[1709] In 1860 there were also
206 academies, with an enrolment of 10,778 pupils, and in the state
colleges there were 2120 students.
In spite of the war the system managed to exist until 1864, and some
schools were still open in 1865, at the time of surrender. Few of the
private schools and colleges survived until that time, and the majority of
the school buildings of all kinds were either destroyed during the war, or
after its close were placed in the hands of the Freedmen's Bureau or of
the army. The State Medical College was used for a negro primary school
for three years, and was not given up until the reconstructionists came
into power. An attempt in 1865 was made to reopen the University, although
the buildings had been burned by the Federals in 1865. The trustees met,
elected a president and two professors, but on the day appointed for the
opening (in October) only one student appeared.[1710]
During the summer and fall of 1865 and during the next year the various
religious denominations of the state and mass-meetings of citizens
declared that the changed civil relations of the races made negro
education a necessity. The Freedmen's Bureau was established and
anticipated much of the work planned by the churches and by southern
leaders, but the methods employed by the alien teachers caused many whites
to become prejudiced against negro education.[1711]
The provisional government adopted the ante-bellum public school system
and put it into operation. The schools were open to both races, from six
to twenty years of age, separate schools being provided for the blacks.
The greater part of the expenditure of the provisional government was for
schools. Relatively few negroes attended the state schools proper, as
every influence was brought to bear to make them attend the Bureau and
missionary schools, and the state negro schools soon fell into the hands
of the Bureau educators, who drew the state appropriation.
The colleges at Marion, Greensboro, Auburn, Florence, and other places
were reopened in 1866-1867. The legislature loaned $70,000 to the
University, besides paying the interest on the University fund. For three
years the University was being rebuilt, and so well were its finances
managed that in 1868, when the carpet-baggers came into power, the
buildings were completed and the institution out of debt, although it had
used only half of the loan from the state.[1712]
The Reconstruction convention of 1867 was much more interested in politics
than in education. The negro members demanded free schools and special
advantages for the negro, and a few carpet-baggers had much to say about
the malign influence of the old régime in keeping so many thousands in the
darkness of ignorance. The scalawags demanded separate schools for the
races, but pressure was brought to bear and most of them gave way. Sixteen
of the native whites refused to sign the constitution and united in a
protest against the action of the convention in refusing to provide
separate schools.[1713]
The School System of Reconstruction
The new constitution placed all public instruction under the control of a
Board of Education consisting of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
and two members from each congressional district,[1714] the latter to
serve for four years, half of them being elected by the people every two
years. Full legislative powers in regard to education were given to the
Board. Its acts were to have the force of law, and the governor's veto
could be overridden by a two-thirds vote. The legislature might repeal a
school law, but otherwise it had no authority over the Board.[1715] This
body also acted as a board of regents for the State University. One
school, at least, was to be established in every township in the state,
though some townships did not have half a dozen children in them. The
school income was fixed by the constitution at one-fifth of all state
revenue, in addition to the income from school lands, poll tax, and taxes
on railroads, navigation, banks, and insurance.[1716] The legislature
added another source of income by chartering several lotteries and
exempted them from taxation provided they paid a certain amount to the
school fund. On October 10, 1868, the Mutual Aid Association was chartered
"to distribute books, paintings, works of art, scientific instruments and
apparatus, lands, etc., stock and currency, awards, and prizes." For this
privilege it was to give $2000 a year to the school fund.[1717] Two months
later the Mobile Charitable Association was formed, which paid $1000 a
year to the school fund,[1718] and a number of other lotteries were
chartered soon after.
The school system, as a whole, did not differ greatly from the old, except
that it was top-heavy with officials, and in that all private assistance
was discouraged by a regulation forbidding the use of the public money to
supplement private payments. The first Board of Education probably
contained a collection of as worthless men as could be found in the
state.[1719] The elections had gone by default, and since only the most
incompetent men had offered themselves for educational offices, the work
suffered. Dr. N. B. Cloud, an incapable of ante-bellum days, was chosen
Superintendent of Public Instruction. He was a man without character,
without education, and entirely without administrative ability. Before the
war he was known as a cruel master to his few slaves. In August, 1868, he
proceeded to put the system into operation by appointing sixty-four county
superintendents, of Radical politics, each of whom in turn appointed three
trustees in each township. The stream rose no higher than its source, and
the school officials were a forlorn lot. One of them signed for his salary
by an X mark. Another, J. E. Summerford, the superintendent of Lee County,
was a man of bad morals, and so incompetent that, when attempting to
examine teachers for licenses, he in turn was contemptuously questioned by
them on elementary subjects. In revenge for this expression of contempt,
he revoked the license of every teacher in the county. One county
superintendent was a preacher who had been expelled from his church for
misappropriating charity funds. But Cloud paid no attention to charges
made against the integrity of his school officials.
Cloud proceeded with much haste to open the schools. A year later he made
a report which is an interesting document. There was little progress to be
noted, but much space was devoted to an appreciation of that "glorious
document," the constitution of 1867, the crowning glory of which--the
article on education--should "entitle the members to the rare merit of
statemen and sages." This provision for education, he said, was the first
blow struck in the South, and especially in Alabama, to clear out the
last vestige of ignorance with all its attendant evils; and now, in spite
of the burdens imposed by the unwise legislation of the past forty years,
the bosoms of the citizens expanded with a noble pride in the present
system of schools.
After this he proceeds to business. He reports that in every county and in
almost every township in the state his officials met with opposition, not,
he confesses, on account of opposition to schools, but on account of the
objectionable government and its agents. The reports from the white
counties, especially, indicate opposition to the establishment of negro
schools, while in the Black Belt this opposition was not so strong.
Everywhere, he states, the opposition died out, more or less, in
time.[1720]
Before the new system went into operation, a meeting of the Board was held
in Montgomery to clear away the remains of the old system. They voted to
themselves a secretary, sergeant-at-arms, pages, etc., like the House of
Representatives; all school offices were declared vacated and all school
contracts void; separate schools were provided for the races where the
parents were unwilling to send to mixed schools; eleven normal schools
were provided for, with no distinction of color; and a bill was introduced
by G. L. Putnam and passed into a law, the object of which was to merge
the Mobile schools into the state system and also to make an office for
Putnam. A sum of money had been appropriated by the previous legislatures
to pay the teachers in the state schools, and now the Board declared that
any association, society, or teacher in a school open to the public should
have a claim for part of this money.[1721] The country superintendents
were made elective after 1870; coöperation with the Freedmen's Bureau was
declared desirable, and the Bureau was asked to furnish or to rent houses,
or to assist in building, while the aid societies were asked to send
teachers who would be paid by the state, and who would be subject to the
same regulations as native teachers. The "Superintendent of Education" of
the Bureau was to have supervision over the Bureau schools, but he, in
turn, would be under the supervision of Cloud.[1722]
Reconstruction of the State University
The Board then tried to reconstruct the University. After the appearance
of the lone student in 1865, the efforts of the trustees had been directed
only towards completing the buildings. In 1868, after the constitution of
1867 had failed of adoption, the old trustees met, elected a president and
faculty, and ordered the University to be opened in October, 1868. A few
weeks later Congress imposed the constitution on the state, and the Board
of Education as regents took charge of the University. Their first act was
to declare null and void all acts of any pretended body of trustees since
the secession of the state. This was done in order to repudiate a debt
made by the University with a New York firm in 1861. No suitable candidate
for the presidency was presented, and the regents chose for that position
Mr. Wyman, the acting president.[1723] He declined, and the position was
then sought for and obtained by the Rev. A. S. Lakin, a Northern Methodist
preacher, who had been sent to Alabama in 1867 by Bishop Clark of Ohio, to
gather the negroes of the Southern Methodist Church into the northern
fold.[1724] Lakin, accompanied by Cloud, went to the University to take
charge. Wyman, who was then in charge, refused to surrender the keys, and
a Tuscaloosa mob, or Ku Klux Klan, serenaded Lakin and threatened to lynch
him if he remained in town. It is said that he was saved from the mob by
Wyman, who hid him under a bed. The next morning Lakin decided that he did
not like the place and left.[1725] He did not resign, however, and three
years later still had a claim pending for a full year's salary. On this he
collected $800 from the Board of Regents.[1726]
[Illustration:
[From the Independent Monitor, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, September 1, 1868.]
A PROSPECTIVE SCENE IN THE CITY OF OAKS, 4TH OF MARCH, 1869.
"Hang, curs, Hang! * * * * * Their complexion is perfect gallows.
Stand fast, good
fate, to _their_ hanging! * * * * * If they be not born to be
hanged, our case is miserable."
The above cut represents the fate in store for those great pests of
Southern society--the carpet-bagger and scalawag--if found in Dixie's land
after the break of day on the 4th of March next.
The _genus_ carpet-bagger is a man with a lank head of dry hair, a lank
stomach, and long legs, club knees, and splay feet, dried legs, and lank
jaws, with eyes like a fish and mouth like a shark. Add to this a habit of
sneaking and dodging about in unknown places, habiting with negroes in
dark dens and back streets, a look like a hound, and the smell of a
polecat.
Words are wanting to do full justice to the _genus_ scalawag. He is a cur
with a contracted head, downward look, slinking and uneasy gait; sleeps in
the woods, like old Crossland, at the bare idea of a Ku-Klux raid.
Our scalawag is the local leper of the community. Unlike the
carpet-bagger, he is native, which is so much the worse. Once he was
respected in his circle, his head was level, and he would look his
neighbor in the face. Now, possessed of the itch of office and the salt
rheum of radicalism, he is a mangy dog, slinking through the alleys,
hunting the governor's office, defiling with tobacco juice the steps of
the capitol, stretching his lazy carcass in the sun on the square or the
benches of the mayor's court.
He waiteth for the troubling of the political waters, to the end that he
may step in and be healed of the itch by the ointment of office. For
office he "bums," as a toper "bums" for the satisfying dram. For office,
yet in prospective, he hath bartered respectability; hath abandoned
business and ceased to labor with his hands, but employs his feet kicking
out boot-heels against lamp-post and corner-curb while discussing the
question of office.
It requires no seer to foretell the inevitable events that are to result
from the coming fall election throughout the Southern States.
The unprecedented reaction is moving onward with the swiftness of a
velocipede, with the violence of a tornado, and with the crash of an
avalanche, sweeping negroism from the face of the earth.
Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of Alabama who have recently become
squatter-]
It was in connection with Lakin's short visit that the _Independent
Monitor_ published the famous hanging picture of the carpet-bagger (Lakin)
and the scalawag (Cloud).[1727]
The next offer of the presidency was made to R. D. Harper, a Northern
Methodist Bureau minister, who at one time was the Bureau "Superintendent
of Education" for the state, and who organized the Bureau schools and the
Northern Methodist churches in north Alabama. He, after some
consideration, declined the position, which, to an alien, was one of more
danger than honor.[1728]
Difficulty was also experienced in securing a faculty. Some of the faculty
elected by the old board of trustees were reëlected. Geary of Ohio was
given the chair of mathematics, and Goodfellow of Chicago, who had
previously been a clerk of the lower house of the legislature, was elected
commandant and professor of military science. The latter said that he did
not know anything about his work, but that he guessed he could learn.
General John H. Forney, a Confederate and native, was also elected to a
chair, the Board, it is said, voting for him under a misapprehension. The
native contingent refused to serve under the regents, and the vacancies
had again to be filled.[1729] Loomis of Illinois was elected professor of
Ancient Languages; J. De F. Richards of Vermont, professor of Natural
Philosophy and Astronomy, etc. W. J. Collins, who was elected professor of
Oratory and Rhetoric, wrote, "I except the situation." The _Monitor_ said,
"We predict an uncomfortable time for the aggregation."[1730] That paper
chronicled all the weaknesses, peculiarities, and failings of the faculty.
If one of them drank a little too much and staggered on the street, the
_Monitor_ informed the public.[1731] Upon the arrival of an heir in the
Collins family, Randolph promptly demanded that he be named for
him,--Ryland Randolph Collins,--and the name stuck.
Finally, as it seemed impossible to secure a president, the regents
determined to open the University with Richards as acting president.[1732]
On April 1, 1869, the University opened with thirty students, twenty-eight
of whom were beneficiaries.[1733] The _Monitor_ said that the members of
the faculty were known as Shanghai, Cockeye, Tanglefoot, Old Dicks, etc.
Another woodcut appeared in the _Monitor_--of Richards, this time.[1734]
Thirty was the highest enrolment reached under the Reconstruction faculty.
The number gradually dwindled away until at the end of the session there
were only ten. The next session ended with only three. In October, 1870,
there were ten students, four of whom were sons of professors. William R.
Smith[1735] was elected president during this session, but he reported
that there was no prospect of success under the present conditions and
resigned. By the end of the session not one student remained. The
scientific apparatus was scattered and lost, as were also the museum
specimens and library books, and the $2000 object-glass of the telescope
had disappeared.[1736]
The people of Alabama did not favor the continuance of the University
under the reconstructed faculty, and were glad when the doors were closed.
The Ku Klux Klan took part in the work of breaking down the venture.
Notices were posted on the doors, directed to the students, advising them
to leave. One sent to the son of Governor Smith read as follows:--
DAVID SMITH: You have received one notice from us, and this shall be
our last. You nor no other d--d son of a d--d radical traitor shall
stay at our University. Leave here in less than ten days, for in that
time we will visit the place and it will not be well for you to be
found out there. The state is ours and so shall our University be.
WRITTEN BY THE SECRETARY BY ORDER OF THE KLAN.
Charles Muncel, son of Joel Muncel, the publisher, of Albany, New
York,[1737] received the following notice:--
CHARLES MUNCEL. You had better get back where you came from. We don't
want any d--d Yank at our colleges. In less than ten days we will come
to see if you obey our warning. If not, look out for hell, for d--n
you, we will show you that you shall not stay, you nor no one else, in
that college. This is your first notice; let it be your last.
THE KLAN BY THE SECRETARY.
The next warning was sent to a lone Democrat:--
HORTON: They say you are of good Democratic family. If you are, leave
the University and that quick. We don't intend that the concern shall
run any longer. This is the second notice you have received; you will
get no other. In less than ten days we intend to clear out the
concern. We will have good Southern men there or none.
BY ORDER OF THE K. K. K.[1738]
Before the summer of 1871 the reconstructed faculty had absolutely failed;
there never had been any chance for them to succeed. The regents were
unfitted to manage educational affairs, and they chose men to the faculty
who would have been objectionable anywhere.[1739] The professors and their
families were socially ostracized. Even southern men who accepted places
in the Radical faculty were made to feel that they were scorned; no one
would sit by them at public gatherings or in church. The men might have
survived this treatment, but not so the women. In 1871 the Superintendent
of Public Instruction and two members of the board of regents were
Democrats. The faculty was reorganized for the eighth time since 1865, and
a faculty of natives was elected. The effect upon the attendance was
marked. In April, 1871, there were three students and in June none, while
during the session of 1871-1872, 107 students were enrolled. In 1873 and
1874 the Radicals again had control, but they did not attempt to
reconstruct the University.[1740]
When the land grant college, provided for in the Morrill act of 1862, was
established in 1872, there was no attempt made to appoint a reconstructed
faculty or board of trustees. But there was sharp competition among the
towns of the state to secure the college. The legislature was to choose
the location, and many of the members let it be known that their votes
were to be had only in return for material considerations. It was finally
located at Auburn, in Lee County. One Auburn lobbyist went out on the
floor of one of the houses and there paid a negro solon $50 to talk no
more against Auburn. The next day the same negro was again speaking
against the location at Auburn. His purchaser went to him and
remonstrated. The negro acknowledged that he had accepted the $50 not to
speak against Auburn, but said, "Dat was yistiddy, boss." Another Auburn
man promised a cooking stove to a negro of more domestic inclinations, and
amidst the excitement forgot all about it; but after the vote the negro
came up and demanded his stove. He received it. Another was given a
sewing-machine.[1741]
There was no attempt to force the entrance of negroes into the State
University. Some reformers wanted the test made, but too many scalawags
were bitterly opposed to such a step, to say nothing of the Ku Klux Klan.
In December, 1869, the Board of Education asked the legislature to
provide a university for the negroes,[1742] and several colored normal
schools were established. In 1871, Peyton Finley, the negro member of the
Board of Education,[1743] introduced a series of resolutions declaring
that the negro had no desire to push any claim to enter the State
University, but that they wanted one of their own, and Congress was urged
to grant land for that purpose.[1744] But not until December, 1873, was
Lincoln school at Marion, Perry County, designated as the colored
university and normal school, where a liberal education was to be given
the negro.[1745]
Trouble in the Mobile Schools
For more than a year Cloud had trouble in the schools of Mobile. The
Mobile schools (always independent of the state system) were under the
control of a school board appointed by the military authorities in 1865.
When all offices and contracts were vacated, G. L. Putnam, a member of the
Board of Education, and also connected with the Emerson Institute, which
was conducted at Mobile by the American Missionary Association, had
secured the enactment, because he wanted the position, of a school law
providing for a superintendent of education for Mobile County. In August,
1868, Cloud gave him the office. The old school commissioners refused to
recognize the authority of Putnam, who was unable to displace them,
because he himself could not make bond. But, in order to give him some
kind of office, Cloud went to Mobile and proposed a compromise, which was
to appoint one of the old commissioners superintendent of education and
Putnam superintendent of negro schools under the supervision of the other
superintendent and the board of commissioners, which was still to exist.
This was an arrangement Cloud had no lawful authority to make.
As part of the compromise the principal and teachers of the American
Missionary Association were to be retained and paid by the state. The
Emerson Institute (or "Blue College," as the negroes called it) was to
remain in possession of the American Missionary Association, but the
school board and county superintendent were to have control over the
schools in it. Putnam, as superintendent of the "Blue College" school,
refused to allow the control of the board. He wanted them to pay his
teachers, but would have no supervision. The general field agent of the
American Missionary Association, Edward P. Smith, offered the "schools and
teachers" to the school commissioners to be paid but not controlled. "We
ought now in some way," he said, "to have our teachers recognized and paid
for, from the public fund, an amount equal to that paid for similar grades
to other teachers in Mobile." At the same time the state was paying $125
per month for the use of the building over which the Association and
Putnam would allow no supervision. The county superintendent and the
commissioners, unable to secure any control over the Putnam schools,
refused to recognize them as a part of the Mobile system. Cloud declared
all the offices vacant, but the commissioners refused to vacate. The case
was carried into court and the commissioners were put in jail. The supreme
court ordered them released. The Board of Education then met and abolished
the Mobile system and merged the special and independent schools of that
county into the general state system. This was done on November 13,
1869.[1746]
The judiciary committee of the legislature, consisting of three Radicals
and one Democrat, was directed to investigate the conduct of Cloud in the
Mobile troubles. It was reported (1) that Cloud had appointed two
superintendents in Mobile County, contrary to law; (2) that on January 29,
1869, G. L. Putnam, who was not an official of the state and who,
according to the compromise, should have been under the control of the
county superintendent, drew from the state treasury with the connivance of
Cloud between $5000 and $6000, with which he paid the teachers of "Blue
College," who were in the employ of the American Missionary Association
and not of the state of Alabama; (3) that in July, 1869, Cloud again
appointed Putnam superintendent of education for Mobile County, and sixty
days afterwards he made a bond which was declared worthless by the grand
jury, and after that Cloud gave Putnam a warrant for $9000, which he was
prevented from collecting only by an injunction; (4) that while the
injunction was in force as concerned both Putnam and Cloud, the latter
drew from the treasury $2000 or more of the Mobile school funds to pay
lawyers' fees; (5) that while the injunction was still in force Cloud drew
$3600 from the treasury for Putnam, the greater part or all of which was
illegally used; (6) that Cloud again drew a warrant for $3300, which the
auditor, discovering that Putnam was interested, refused to allow, and it
was destroyed; (7) the committee further stated that very large salaries
were paid to the teachers in "Blue College," or Emerson Institute,--that
one of them (Squires) received $4000 a year. The committee went beyond the
limit of the resolution and reported that county superintendents were paid
too much, and recommended the abolition of the Board of Education by
constitutional amendment, the reduction of the pay of all school officials
who acted as a sponge to absorb all the school funds, and, finally, that
no person should hold more than one school office at the same time.[1747]
Later investigation showed that Putnam had made out pay-rolls for the
teachers of the Emerson Institute for the last quarter of 1868 and
presented them to A. H. Ryland, the county superintendent of Mobile, for
his approval. This Ryland refused to give, as the compromise in regard to
the Institute dated only from January 22, 1869. Putnam then went to his
own American Missionary Association Negro Institute Board, had the
pay-rolls approved, and then, as "county superintendent of education,"
drew $5327.20, Cloud certifying to the correctness of his accounts.[1748]
Putnam padded the pay-rolls and, in order to draw principal's wages for
each teacher, divided the Institute into ten schools. As there were only
ten teachers besides the principal, there were now eleven
principals.[1749] Kelsey, the principal, stated that no matter how much
Putnam obtained for "Blue College," the teachers received none of it, but
were paid only their regular salaries by the Association. Kelsey himself
was paid only $250 a quarter. The teachers were under contract with the
Association to teach for $15 a month and board. Some of them testified
that they had received no more. However, a part of the appropriation was
turned into the treasury of the Association, and we may well ask what
became of the remainder of it.[1750]
Irregularities in School Administration
Superintendent Cloud was handicapped, not only by his own incapacity, but
also by the bad character of his subordinates, whom he appointed in great
haste from the unpromising material that supported the Reconstruction
régime. Many of the receipts for the salaries were signed by the teachers
with marks, some being unable to write their own names. From the school
officials he received inaccurate reports, and on these he based his
apportionments, which were defective, many of the teachers not receiving
their money. The county superintendents had absolute authority over the
school fund belonging to their counties, and could draw it from the
treasury and use it for private purposes nearly a year before the salaries
of the teachers were due.[1751] Complaint was made that the black counties
received more than their proper share of the school fund. In Pickens
County the superintendent neglected to draw anything but his own salary,
and a north Alabama superintendent ran away with the money for his county.
Other superintendents were accused of scaling down the pay of the teachers
from 20 to 50 per cent, and it was estimated that in some counties
two-thirds of the school money never reached the teachers. There was no
check on the county superintendent, who could expend money practically at
his own discretion.[1752] Three trustees were appointed in each township
by the county superintendent; these trustees, who were not paid, appointed
for themselves a clerk who was paid, and these clerks met in a county
convention and fixed the salary of the county superintendent.[1753]
The bookkeeping in the office of State Superintendent Cloud was irregular.
Some of the accounts were kept in pencil, and for a whole year the books
were not posted. Of $235,000 paid to the county superintendents only
$10,000 was accounted for by them. In 1871, $50,000 or more was still in
the hands of the ex-superintendents, and the state and the teachers were
taking legal proceedings against some of them.[1754] Both sons of Cloud
embezzled school money and fled from the state.[1755] Cloud receipted for
one sum of $314 in payment for sixteenth-section lands. This he forgot to
pay to the treasurer. He issued patents for 4000 acres of school land and
turned into the treasury only $323. A township in Marengo County rented
its sixteenth-section land; nevertheless, Cloud paid to this county its
sixteenth-section funds. In 1871 an investigation of Cloud's accounts
showed that a large number of his vouchers were fraudulent, hundreds being
in the same handwriting. He signed the name of J. H. Fitts & Company,
financial agents of the University, to a receipt by which he drew from the
treasury several hundred dollars to advance to a needy professor. He said,
when questioned about it, that he thought he could "draw on" Messrs. Fitts
& Company. It afterwards developed that he did not know the difference
between a receipt and a draft. His accounts were so confused that he often
paid the same bill twice. In 1871, when he went out of office, the sum
unaccounted for by vouchers amounted to $260,556.37. After two years he
succeeded in getting vouchers for all but $129,595.71.[1756]
In the black counties the school finances became confused, especially as
the negro and carpet-bag officials tolled the funds that passed through
their hands. At the end of 1870 the school funds of Selma were $40,000
short. It was found practically impossible to collect a poll tax from the
negroes, the Radical collectors being afraid to insist on the negroes'
paying taxes. In Dallas County the collector refused to allow the planters
to pay taxes for their negro hands on the ground that it would be a relic
of slavery. If the negroes refused to pay, nothing more was said about
it.[1757] In 1869 there were 200,000 polls and only $66,000 poll tax was
collected, which meant that only 44,000 men had paid the tax.[1758] In
1870 Somers states that the insurance tax was $13,327, and the number of
polls was 162,819. Yet from both sources less than $100,000 was
obtained.[1759]
The Board of Education, according to the constitution, was to classify by
lot before the election of 1870. But in 1869, when the matter was brought
up, they refused to classify. Several vacancies occurred, and these were
filled by special election. Consequently the Democrats in 1870 did not get
a fair representation on the board.[1760]
Objections to the Reconstruction Education
The Board of Education had the power to adopt a uniform series of
text-books for the public schools; Superintendent Cloud, however, assumed
this authority and chose texts which were objectionable to the majority of
the whites. This was especially the case with the history books, which the
whites complained were insulting in their accounts of southern leaders and
southern questions. Cloud was not the man to allow the southern view of
controversial questions to be taught in schools under his control. About
1869 he secured a donation of several thousand copies of history books
which gave the northern views of American history, and these he
distributed among the teachers and the schools. But most of the literature
that the whites considered objectionable did not come from Cloud's
department, but from the Bureau and aid society teachers, and was used in
the schools for blacks. There were several series of "Freedmen's Readers"
and "Freedmen's Histories" prepared for use in negro schools. But the fact
remains that for ten or fifteen years northern histories were taught in
white schools and had a decided influence on the readers. It resulted in
the combination often seen in the late southern writer, of northern views
of history with southern prejudices; the fable of the "luxury of the
aristocrats" and the numbers and wretchedness of the "mean whites" was now
accepted by numerous young southerners; on such questions as slavery the
northern view of the institution was accepted, but on the other hand the
_tu quoque_ answer was made to the North. Consequently, the task of the
historian was not to explain the southern civilization, but to accept it
as rather bad and to prove that the North was partly responsible and
equally guilty--a fruitless work.[1761]
Cloud, in his first report, admitted that the opposition to schools was
rather on account of the officials than because the people disliked free
schools. He further stated that the opposition had ceased to a great
extent. There were many whites in the Black Belt who disliked the idea of
free or "pauper" schools, and to this day some of them have not overcome
this feeling. They believed in education, but not in education that was
given away,--at least not for the whites. Each person must make an effort
to get an education. However, they, and especially the old slaveholders,
were not opposed to the education of the negro, believing it to be
necessary for the good of society. In the white counties of north and
southeast Alabama there was less opposition to the public schools for
whites. But in the same sections schools for the negroes were bitterly
opposed by the uneducated whites who were in close competition with them,
for they knew that the whites paid for the negro schools, and also that,
having a different standard of living, it would be easier for the negroes
to send their children to school than for them to send theirs. In the
Black Belt there were a few of these people, who disliked to see three or
four negro schools to one white school, for here the number of the negroes
naturally secured for them better advantages. The whites were so few in
numbers that not half of them were within easy reach of a school. Whenever
the numbers of one or both races were small, it was (and has been ever
since) a burden on a community to build two schoolhouses and to support
two separate schools, especially where the funds provided are barely
sufficient for one.[1762]
The Question of Negro Education
Before the negro question in all its phases was brought directly into
politics, and before the Radicals, carpet-baggers, and scalawags had
caused irritation between the races, there was a determination on the
part of the best whites in public and private life, as a measure of
self-defence as well as a duty and as justice, to do all that lay in their
power to fit the negro for citizenship. Most of the newspapers were in
favor of education to fit the negro for his changed condition. Now that he
had to stand alone, education was necessary to keep him from stealing,
from idleness, and from a return to barbarism; in some parts of the Black
Belt there was a tendency to return to African customs. It was necessary
to substitute the discipline of education for the discipline of
slavery.[1763] The Democratic party leaders were in favor of negro
education, and General Clanton, who for years was the chairman of the
executive committee, repeatedly made speeches in favor of it, and attended
the sessions and examinations at the negro schools, often examining the
classes himself. He and General John B. Gordon spoke in Montgomery at a
public meeting and declared that it was the duty of the whites to educate
the negro, whose good behavior during the war entitled him to it. Their
remarks were cheered by the whites.[1764] Colonel Jefferson Falkner, at a
Baptist Association in Pike County, advised that the negro be educated by
southern men and women. Pike was a white county, and while no objection
was raised to Falkner's speech, several persons told him that if he
thought southern women ought to teach negroes, he had better have his own
daughters do it. Falkner replied that he was willing when their services
were needed.[1765] White people made destitute by the war or crippled
soldiers were ready to engage in the instruction of negroes; and the
_Montgomery Advertiser_ and other papers took the ground that they should
be employed, especially the disabled soldiers.[1766] General Clanton
stated that many Confederate soldiers and the widows of Confederate
soldiers were teaching negro schools, that he had assisted them in
securing positions. Such work, he said, was indorsed by most of the
prominent people.[1767]
The blacks in Selma signed an appeal to the city council for their own
white people to teach them, and the churches made preparations to give
instruction to the freedmen.[1768] The Monroe County Agricultural
Association declared it to be the duty of the whites to teach the negro,
and a committee was appointed to formulate a plan for negro schools.[1769]
Conecuh and Wilcox counties followed with similar declarations. A public
meeting in Perry County, of such men as ex-Governor A. B. Moore and J. L.
M. Curry, declared that sound policy and moral obligation required that
prompt efforts be made to fit the negro for his changed political
condition. His education must be encouraged. The teachers, white and
black, were to be chosen with a careful regard to fitness. A committee was
appointed to coöperate with the negroes in building schoolhouses and in
procuring teachers, whom they assured of support.[1770]
Besides the purely unselfish reasons, there were other reasons why the
leading whites wanted the negro educated by southern teachers. It would be
a step towards securing control over the negro race by the best native
whites, who have always believed and will always believe that the negro
should be controlled by them. The northern school-teachers did not have an
influence for good upon the relations between the races, and thus caused
the southern whites to be opposed to any education of the negro by
strangers, as it was felt that to allow the negro to be educated by these
people and their successors would have a permanent influence for
evil.[1771]
The whites generally aided the negroes in their community to build
schoolhouses or schoolhouses and churches combined. Schoolhouses were in
the majority of cases built by the patrons of the schools; if rented, the
rent was deducted from the school money; the state made no appropriation
for building. In Dallas County forty negro schoolhouses were built with
the assistance of the whites. This was usually done in the Black Belt, but
was less general in the white counties. In Montgomery the prominent
citizens gave money to help build a negro "college"; some paid the tuition
of negro children at schools where charges were made. White men were often
members of the board of colored schools. All this was before the negro was
seen to be hopelessly in the clutches of the northerners.[1772]
[Illustration: JABEZ LAMAR MONROE CURRY.]
In spite of the fact that for several years there were southern whites
who taught negroes, the schools were judged by the results of the teaching
of the northerners. The Freedmen's Bureau brought discredit on negro
education.[1773] The work of the various aid societies was little better.
The personnel of both, to a great extent, passed to the new system, Bureau
and Association teachers becoming state teachers; and in the transfer the
teachers tried to secure a better standing for themselves than the native
teachers had. Many of the northern teachers were undoubtedly good people,
but all were touched with fanaticism and considered the white people
hopelessly bad and by nature and training brutal and unjust to negroes.
The negro teachers who were trained by them, both in the North and in the
South, and who occupied most of the subordinate positions in the schools,
had caught the spirit of the teaching. The native negro teacher, however,
never quite equalled his white instructor in wrong-headedness. He
persisted in seeing the actual state of affairs quite often. But the
results of some of the educational work done during Reconstruction for the
negro was to make many white people, especially the less friendly and the
careless observers, believe that education in itself was a bad thing for
the negroes. It became a proverb that "schooling ruins a negro," and among
the ignorant and more prejudiced whites this opinion is still firmly held.
Not all of the northern teachers were of good character, and the others
suffered for the sins of these. Almost from the first the doors of the
southern whites were closed against the northern teacher, not only on
account of the character of some and the objectionable teachings of many,
but because they generally insisted on being personally unpleasant; and,
had all of them been above reproach in character and training, their
opinions in regard to social questions, which they expressed on every
occasion, would have resulted in total exclusion from white society. They
really cared little, perhaps, but they had a great deal to say on the
subject, and made much trouble on account of it.[1774]
At first, when they wished it, some northern teachers were able to secure
board with white families. After a few weeks such was not the case, and,
except in the cities where the teachers could live together, they were
obliged to live with the negroes. This could produce only bad results. It
at once caused them to be excluded from all white society, and gained for
them the contempt of their white neighbors, at the same time losing them
the support and even the respect of the negroes. For the negro always
insists that a white person to be respected must live up to a certain
standard; otherwise, he may like, or fear, or despise, but never respect.
Again, some of the doubtful characters caused scandal by their manner of
life among the negroes, and in several instances male teachers were
visited by the Ku Klux Klan because of their irregular conduct with negro
women. One in Calhoun County was killed. Negro men who lived with white
women teachers were killed, and in some cases the women were thrashed.
Others were driven away.[1775] But on the whole there was little violence,
the forces of social proscription at length sufficing to drive out the
obnoxious teachers.[1776]
Much was said during Reconstruction days about the burning of negro
schoolhouses by the whites. There were several such cases, but not as many
as is supposed. In the records only one instance can be found of a school
building being burned simply from opposition to negro schools. As a rule
the schoolhouses (and churches also) were burned because they were the
headquarters of the Union League and the general meeting places for
Radical politicians, or because of the character of the teacher and the
results of his or her teachings. Regular instruction of the negro had been
going on for two years or more before the Ku Klux Klan began burning
schoolhouses. When one was burned, the Radical leaders used the fact with
much effect among the negroes; and in several instances it was practically
certain that the Radical leaders, when the negroes were wavering, fired a
church or a schoolhouse in order to incense them against the whites, who
were charged with the deed. When a schoolhouse was burned, the negroes
were invariably assisted to rebuild by the respectable whites. The
burnings were condemned by all respectable persons, and also by the party
leaders on account of the bad effect on political questions.[1777]
Some teachers of negro schools fleeced their black pupils and their
parents unmercifully. Teachers of private schools collected tuition in
advance and then left. In Montgomery, a teacher in the Swayne school
notified his pupils that they must bring him fifty cents each by a certain
day, and that he, in return, would give to each a photograph of
himself.[1778] In Eutaw, Greene County, the Rev. J. B. F. Hill, a Northern
Methodist preacher who had been expelled from the Southern Methodist
Church, taught a negro school and taxed his forty little scholars
twenty-five cents each to purchase a forty-cent water bucket.[1779]
In the cities where there were several negro schools, it was found
difficult at first to keep the small negro in attendance in the same
school. A little negro would attend a school until he discovered that he
did not like the teacher or the school, and then he would go to another. A
rule was made against such impromptu transfers, and then the small boy
changed his name when he decided to try another school. Finally, the
teacher was required to ask the other children the newcomer's name before
he was admitted.[1780]
The negro children were poorly supplied with books, and what few they did
have they promptly lost or tore up to get the pictures. The attendance
was very irregular. For a few days there would be a great many scholars
and perhaps after that almost none, for the parents were willing to send
their children when there was no work for them to do, but as soon as
cotton needed chopping or picking they would stop them and put them to
work.[1781] If the negroes suspected that the trustees, who were (later)
Democrats, had appointed a Democratic teacher, they would not send their
children to school to him, and in this they were upheld by their new
leaders.[1782]
When the public funds were exhausted, the majority of the white schools
continued as pay schools, but the negro schools closed at once, for after
1868 the interest of the negro in education was no longer strong enough to
induce him to pay for it. The education given the negro during this period
was little suited to prepare him for the practical duties of life. The New
England system was transplanted to the South, and the young negroes were
forced even more than the white children. As soon as a little progress was
made, the pupils were promoted into the culture studies of the whites.
Those who learned anything at all had, in turn, to teach what they had
learned; their education would help them very little in everyday
life.[1783] Negro education did not result in better relations between the
races. The northern teacher believed in the utter sinfulness of slavery
and in all the stories told of the cruelties then practised. The
_Advertiser_ gave as one reason why the southern whites should teach negro
schools, that northern teachers caused trouble by using books and tracts
with illustrations of slavery and stories about the persecution and
cruelties of the whites against the blacks.[1784] General Clanton stated
that in the school in which he had often attended the exercises and
examined the classes, and where he had paid the tuition of negro children,
the teachers ceased to ask him to make visits; that the school-books had
"Radical pictures" of the persecuted slaves and the freedman; that Radical
speeches were made by the scholars, reciting the wrongs done the negro
race; finally, that the school was a political nursery of race prejudice,
and that where the negroes were greatly in excess of the whites, it was a
serious matter.[1785] He also said that the teachers from the North were
responsible for the prejudice of the whites against negro schools. The
native whites soon refused to teach, and if they had wished to do so, they
probably could have gotten no pupils. The primary education of the negro
was left to the northern teachers and to incompetent negroes; higher
education was altogether under the control of the alien. It was most
unfortunate in every way, he added, that the southern white had had no
part in the education of the negro.[1786] The higher education of the
negroes in the state continued to be directed by northerners. Washington
and Councill have done much toward changing the nature of the education
given the negro; they have also educated many whites from opposition to
friendliness to negro schools.
The Failure of the Educational System
In 1870 Cloud was a candidate for reëlection, but was defeated by Colonel
Joseph Hodgson, the Democratic candidate.[1787] When Hodgson appeared as
president of the Board, Cloud refused to yield on the ground that Hodgson
was not eligible to the office, having once challenged a man to a duel.
The Board, however, refused to recognize Cloud, and he was obliged to
retire.[1788]
The first year of the reform administration was a successful one in spite
of the fact that the state was bankrupt and the treasury ceased to make
cash payments to county superintendents early in 1872.[1789] The second
year was a fair one, although the treasury could not pay the teachers, for
the Radical senate refused to make the appropriations for which their own
constitution provided. However, the attendance of both whites and blacks
increased, notwithstanding the fact that the United States Commissioner of
Education reported that Alabama had retrograded in educational
matters.[1790] The school officials elected in 1870 were much superior to
their predecessors in every way. A state teachers' association was
organized, and institutes were frequently held. Four normal schools were
established for black teachers and four for whites. Private assistance for
public schools was now sought and obtained, and hundreds of the schools
continued after the public money was exhausted.[1791]
Hodgson did valuable service to his party and to the state in exposing the
corrupt and irregular practices of the preceding administration. His own
administration was much more economical than that of his predecessor, as
the following figures will show:--
=================================================================
| 1870 | 1871 | DECREASE
------------------------|-----------|-----------|----------------
Salaries of county | | |
superintendents |$57,776.50 |$34,259.50 |$23,517.00
Expenses of county | | |
superintendents | 21,202.86 | 4,752.00 | 16,450.86
Expenses of disbursement| 78,979.36 | 39,009.50 | 39,969.86
Clerical expenses | | |
(at Montgomery) | 3,544.46 | 1,978.71 | 1,565.75
Cost of administration | 86,123.82 | 44,588.21 | 41,535.61[1792]
=================================================================
In the fall of 1872, owing to the operation of the Enforcement Acts, the
elections went against the Democrats. The Radicals filled all the offices,
and Joseph H. Speed was elected Superintendent of Public
Instruction.[1793] Speed was not wholly unfitted for the position, and did
the best he could under the circumstances. But nowhere in the Radical
administration did he find any sympathy with his department, not even a
disposition to comply with the direct provisions of the constitution in
regard to school funds. So low had the credit of the state fallen that the
administration could no longer sell the state bonds to raise money. The
taxes were the only resources, and the office-holding adventurers, feeling
that never again could they have an opportunity at the spoils, could spare
none of the money for schools. Practically all of the negro schools and
many of the white ones were forced to close, and the teachers, when paid
at all by the state, were paid in depreciated state obligations.
The constitution required that one-fifth of all state revenue in addition
to certain other funds be appropriated for the use of schools. Yet year by
year an increasing amount was diverted to other uses. The poll tax and the
insurance tax were used for other purposes. At the end of 1869,
$187,872.49, which should have been appropriated for schools, had been
diverted. In 1872, $330,036.93 was lost to the schools by failure to
appropriate, and in 1873, $456,138.47 was lost in the same way. By the end
of 1873 the shortage was $1,260,511.92, and a year later it was nearly two
million dollars. During 1873 and 1874 schools were taught only where there
were local funds to support them. The carpet-bag system had failed
completely.[1794]
The new constitution made by the Democrats in 1875 abolished the Board of
Education, and returned to the ante-bellum system. Separate schools were
ordered; the administrative expenses could not amount to more than 4 per
cent of the school fund;[1795] no money was to be paid to any
denominational or private school;[1796] the constitutional provision of
one-fifth of the state revenue for school use was abolished;[1797] and the
legislature was ordered to appropriate to schools at least $100,000 a year
besides the poll taxes, license taxes, and the income from trust funds.
The schools began to improve at once, and the net income was never again
as small as under the carpet-bag régime.
Neither of the Reconstruction superintendents, Cloud or Speed, furnished
full statistics of the schools. It appears that the average enrolment of
students under Cloud was, in 1870, 35,963 whites and 16,097 blacks; under
his Democratic successor the average enrolment, in spite of lack of
appropriations, was 66,358 whites and 41,308 blacks in 1871, and 61,942
whites and 41,673 blacks in 1872. Speed evidently kept no records of
attendance. In 1875, after the Democrats came into power, the attendance
was 91,202 whites and 54,595 blacks. The average number of days taught in
a year under Cloud was 49 days in white schools and the same in black;
under Hodgson the average length of term was 68.5 days and 64.33 days
respectively. Theoretically the salaries of teachers under Cloud should
have been about $75 per month, but they received increasingly less each
year as the legislature refused to appropriate the school money. The
following table will show what the school funds should have been, as
provided for by the constitution; the sums actually received were smaller
each successive year. In no case was the appropriation as great as in the
year 1858, nor was the attendance of black and white together much larger
in any year than the attendance of whites alone in 1858 or 1859.
SCHOOL FUND, 1868-1875
1868
1869 $524,621.68[1798]
1870 500,409.18[1799]
1871 581,389.29[1800]
1872 604,978.50[1801]
1873 524,452.40[1802]
1874 474,346.52[1803]
1875 565.042.94[1804]