Education of the Negroes Since 1860

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Title: Education of the Negroes Since 1860
Author: Curry, J. L. M. (Jabez Lamar Monroe)
Language: English
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by the Library of Congress)

THE TRUSTEES OF THE JOHN F. SLATER FUND

OCCASIONAL PAPERS, NO. 3

EDUCATION OF THE NEGROES

SINCE 1860

J. L. M. CURRY, LL. D.
_Secretary of the Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund_

BALTIMORE
PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES
1894

ANNOUNCEMENT.

The Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund propose to publish from time to
time papers that relate to the education of the colored race. These
papers are designed to furnish information to those who are concerned in
the administration of schools, and also to those who by their official
stations are called upon to act or to advise in respect to the care of
such institutions.

The Trustees believe that the experimental period in the education of
the blacks is drawing to a close. Certain principles that were doubted
thirty years ago now appear to be generally recognized as sound. In the
next thirty years better systems will undoubtedly prevail, and the aid
of the separate States is likely to be more and more freely bestowed.
There will also be abundant room for continued generosity on the part of
individuals and associations. It is to encourage and assist the workers
and the thinkers that these papers will be published.

Each paper, excepting the first number (made up chiefly of official
documents), will be the utterance of the writer whose name is attached
to it, the Trustees disclaiming in advance all responsibility for the
statement of facts and opinions.

EDUCATION OF THE NEGROES SINCE 1860.

INTRODUCTION.

The purpose of this paper is to put into permanent form a narrative of
what has been done at the South for the education of the negro since
1860. The historical and statistical details may seem dry and
uninteresting, but we can understand the significance of this
unprecedented educational movement only by a study of its beginnings and
of the difficulties which had to be overcome. The present generation,
near as it is to the genesis of the work, cannot appreciate its
magnitude, nor the greatness of the victory which has been achieved,
without a knowledge of the facts which this recital gives in connected
order. The knowledge is needful, also, for a comprehension of the future
possible scope and kind of education to be given to the Afro-American
race. In the field of education we shall be unwise not to reckon with
such forces as custom, physical constitution, heredity, racial
characteristics and possibilities, and not to remember that these and
other causes may determine the limitations under which we must act. The
education of this people has a far-reaching and complicated connection
with their destiny, with our institutions, and possibly with the Dark
Continent, which may assume an importance akin, if not superior, to what
it had centuries ago. The partition of its territory, the international
questions which are springing up, and the effect of contact with and
government by a superior race, must necessarily give an enhanced
importance to Africa as a factor in commerce, in relations of
governments, and in civilization. England will soon have an unbroken
line of territorial possessions from Egypt to the Cape of Good Hope.
Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, possibly Russia, will soon have
such footholds in Africa as, whatever else may occur, will tend to the
development of century-paralyzed resources.

What other superior races have done, and are doing, for the government
and uplifting of the inferior races, which, from treaty or conquest,
have been placed under their responsible jurisdiction, may help in the
solution of our problem. Italy had a grand question in its unification;
Prussia a graver one in the nationalization of Germany, taxing the
statesmanship of Stein, Bismarck, and their co-laborers; Great Britain,
in the administration of her large and widely remote colonial
dependencies with their different races; but our problem has peculiar
difficulties which have not confronted other governments, and therefore
demands the best powers of philanthropist, sociologist, and statesman.

The emergence of a nation from barbarism to a general diffusion of
intelligence and property, to health in the social and civil relations;
the development of an inferior race into a high degree of enlightenment;
the overthrow of customs and institutions which, however indefensible,
have their seat in tradition and a course of long observance; the
working out satisfactorily of political, sociological, and ethical
problems—are all necessarily slow, requiring patient and intelligent
study of the teachings of history and the careful application of
something more than mere empirical methods. Civilization, freedom, a
pure religion, are not the speedy outcome of revolutions and cataclysms
any more than has been the structure of the earth. They are the slow
evolution of orderly and creative causes, the result of law and
preordained principles.

The educational work described in this paper has been most valuable, but
it has been so far necessarily tentative and local. It has lacked broad
and definite generalization, and, in all its phases, comprehensive,
philosophical consideration. As auxiliary to a thorough study and
ultimate better plans, the Slater Fund, from time to time, will have
prepared and published papers bearing on different phases of the negro
question.

I. The history of the negro on this continent is full of pathetic and
tragic romance, and of startling, unparalleled incident. The seizure in
Africa, the forcible abduction and cruel exportation, the coercive
enslavement, the subjection to environments which emasculate a race of
all noble aspirations and doom inevitably to hopeless ignorance and
inferiority, living in the midst of enlightenments and noblest
civilization and yet forbidden to enjoy the benefits of which others
were partakers, for four years amid battle and yet, for the most part,
having no personal share in the conflict, by statute and organic law and
law of nations held in fetters and inequality, and then, in the
twinkling of an eye, lifted from bondage to freedom, from slavery to
citizenship, from dependence on others and guardianship to suffrage and
eligibility to office—can be predicated of no other race. Other peoples,
after long and weary years of discipline and struggle, against heaviest
odds, have won liberty and free government. This race, almost without
lifting a hand, unappreciative of the boon except in the lowest aspects
of it, and unprepared for privileges and responsibilities, has been
lifted to a plane of citizenship and freedom, such as is enjoyed, in an
equal degree, by no people in the world outside of the United States.

Common schools in all governments have been a slow growth, reluctantly
conceded, grudgingly supported, and perfected after many experiments and
failures and with heavy pecuniary cost. Within a few years after
emancipation, free and universal education has been provided for the
negro, without cost to himself, and chiefly by the self-imposed taxes of
those who, a few years before, claimed his labor and time without direct
wage or pecuniary compensation.

II. Slavery, recognized by the then international law and the connivance
and patronage of European sovereigns, existed in all the colonies prior
to the Declaration of Independence, and was reinforced by importation of
negroes from Africa in foreign and New England and New York vessels. In
course of time it was confined to the Southern States, and the negroes
increased in numbers at a more rapid rate than did the whites, even
after the slave trade was abolished and declared piracy.

For a long time there was no general exclusion by law of the slaves from
the privileges of education. The first prohibitory and punitive laws
were directed against unlawful assemblages of negroes, and subsequently
of free negroes and mulattoes, as their influence in exciting discontent
or insurrection was deprecated and guarded against. Afterwards,
legislation became more general in the South, prohibiting meetings for
teaching reading and writing. The Nat Turner insurrection in Southampton
County, Virginia, in 1831, awakened the Southern States to a
consciousness of the perils, which might environ or destroy them, from
combinations of excited, inflamed, and ill-advised negroes.

As documents and newspapers tending to inflame discontent and
insurrection were supposed to have been the immediate provocation to
this conspiracy for murder of whites and for freedom of the blacks, laws
were passed against publishing and circulating such documents among the
colored population, and strengthening the prohibitions and penalties
against education.

Severe and general as were these laws, they rarely applied, and were
seldom, if ever, enforced, against teaching of individuals or of groups
on plantations, or at the homes of the owners. It was often true that
the mistress of a household, or her children, would teach the house
servants, and on Sundays include a larger number. There were also Sunday
Schools in which black children were taught to read, notably the school
in which Stonewall Jackson was a leader. It is pleasant to find recorded
in the memoir of Dr. Boyce, a Trustee of this Fund from its origin until
his death, that, as an editor, a preacher, and a citizen, he was deeply
interested in the moral and religious instruction of the negroes.

After a most liberal estimate for the efforts made to teach the negroes,
still the fact exists that, as a people, they were wholly uneducated in
schools. Slavery doomed the millions to ignorance, and in this condition
they were when the war began.

III. Almost synchronously with the earliest occupation of any portion of
the seceding States by the Union Army, efforts were begun to give the
negroes some schooling. In September, 1861, under the guns of Fortress
Monroe, a school was opened for the “contrabands of war.” In 1862,
schools were extended to Washington, Portsmouth, Norfolk, and Newport
News, and afterwards to the Port Royal islands on the coast of South
Carolina, to Newbern and Roanoke Island in North Carolina. The
proclamation of emancipation, January 1, 1863, gave freedom to all
slaves reached by the armies, increased the refugees, and awakened a
fervor of religious and philanthropic enthusiasm for meeting the
physical, moral, and intellectual wants of those suddenly thrown upon
charity. In October, 1863, General Banks, then commanding the Department
of the Gulf, created commissioners of enrollment, who established the
first public schools for Louisiana. Seven were soon in operation, with
twenty-three teachers and an average attendance of 1422 scholars. On
March 22, 1864, he issued General Order, No. 38, which constituted a
Board of Education “for the rudimental instruction of the freedmen” in
the Department, so as to “place within their reach the elements of
knowledge.”

The Board was ordered to establish common schools, to employ teachers,
to acquire school sites, to erect school buildings where no proper or
available ones for school purposes existed, to purchase and provide
necessary books, stationery, apparatus, and a well selected library, to
regulate the course of studies, and “to have the authority and perform
the same duties that assessors, supervisors, and trustees had in the
Northern States in the matter of establishing and conducting common
schools.” For the performance of the duties enjoined, the Board was
empowered to “assess and levy a school tax upon real and personal
property, including crops of plantations.” These taxes were to be
sufficient to defray expense and cost of establishing, furnishing, and
conducting the schools for the period of one year. When the tax list and
schedules should be placed in the hands of the Parish Provost Marshal,
he was to collect and pay over within thirty days to the School Board.
Schools previously established were transferred to this Board; others
were opened, and in December, 1864, they reported under their
supervision 95 schools, 162 teachers, and 9,571 scholars. This system
continued until December, 1865, when the power to levy the tax was
suspended. An official report of later date says: “In this sad juncture
the freedmen expressed a willingness to endure and even petitioned for
increased taxation in order that means for supporting their schools
might be obtained.”

On December 17, 1862, Col. John Eaton was ordered by General Grant to
assume a general supervision of freedmen in the Department of Tennessee
and Arkansas. In the early autumn of that year schools had been
established, and they were multiplied during 1863 and 1864. In the
absence of responsibility and supervision there grew up abuses and
complaints. By some “parties engaged in the work” of education,
“exorbitant charges were made for tuition,” and agents and teachers,
“instead of making common cause for the good of those they came to
benefit, set about detracting, perplexing, and vexing each other.”
“Parties and conflicts had arisen.” “Frauds had appeared in not a few
instances—evil minded, irresponsible, or incompetent persons imposing
upon those not prepared to defeat or check them.” “Bad faith to fair
promises had deprived the colored people of their just dues.”[1]

Footnote 1:

See report of Chaplain Warren, 1864, relating to colored schools.

On September 26, 1864, the Secretary of War, through Adjutant General
Thomas, issued Order No. 28, in which he said: “To prevent confusion and
embarrassment, the General Superintendent of Freedmen will designate
officers, subject to his orders, as Superintendents of colored schools,
through whom he will arrange the location of all schools, teachers,
occupation of houses, and other details pertaining to the education of
the freedmen.” In accordance with this order, Col. Eaton removed his
headquarters from Vicksburg to Memphis. On October 20, 1864, he issued
sixteen rules and regulations for the guidance of superintendents and
teachers of colored schools in his supervision. These instructions to
subordinates were wise and provided for the opening of a sufficient
number of schools, for the payment of tuition fees from 25 cents to
$1.25 per month for each scholar, according to the ability of the
parents; for the admission free of those who could not pay and the
furnishing of clothing by the aid of industrial schools, for the
government of teachers in connection with the societies needing them,
&c. The “industrial schools” were schools in which sewing was taught,
and in which a large quantity of the clothing and material sent from the
North was made over or made up for freedmen’s use, and were highly
“useful in promoting industrious habits and in teaching useful arts of
housewifery.” The supervision under such a competent head caused great
improvement in the work, but department efforts were hindered by some
representatives of the benevolent societies who did not heartily welcome
the more orderly military supervision. An Assistant Superintendent,
March 31, 1865, reports, in and around Vicksburg and Natchez, 30
schools, 60 teachers, and 4,393 pupils enrolled; in Memphis, 1,590
pupils, and in the entire supervision, 7,360 in attendance.

General Eaton submitted a report of his laborious work which is full of
valuable information. Naturally, some abatement must be made from
conclusions which were based on the wild statements of excited freedmen,
or the false statements of interested persons. “Instinct of unlettered
reason” caused a hegira of the blacks to camps of the Union Army, or
within protected territory. The “negro population floated or was kicked
about at will.” Strict supervision became urgent to secure “contraband
information” and service, and protect the ignorant, deluded people from
unscrupulous harpies. “Mental and moral enlightenment” was to be striven
for, even in those troublous times, and it was fortunate that so capable
and faithful an officer as General Eaton was in authority.

All the operations of the supervisors of schools did not give
satisfaction, for the Inspector of Schools in South Carolina and
Georgia, on October 13, 1865, says: “The Bureau does not receive that
aid from the Government and Government officials it had a right to
expect, and really from the course of the military officials in this
Department, you might think that the only enemies to the Government are
the agents of the Bureau.”

IV. By act of Congress of March 3, 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau was
created. The scope of its jurisdiction and work extended far beyond
education. It embraced abandoned lands and the supply of the negroes
with food and clothing, and during 1865 as many as 148,000 were reported
as receiving rations. The Quartermaster and Commissary Departments were
placed at the service of the agents of the Bureau, and, in addition to
freedom, largesses were lavishly given to “reach the great and
imperative necessities of the situation.” Large and comprehensive powers
and resources were placed in the hands of the Bureau, and limitations of
the authority of the Government were disregarded in order to meet the
gravest problem of the century. Millions of recently enslaved negroes,
homeless, penniless, ignorant, were to be saved from destitution or
perishing, to be prepared for the sudden boon of political equality, to
be made self-supporting citizens and to prevent their freedom from
becoming a curse to themselves and their liberators. The Commissioner
was authorized “to seize, hold, use, lease, or sell all buildings and
tenements and any lands appertaining to the same, or otherwise formally
held, under color of title by the late Confederate States, and buildings
or lands held in trust for the same, and to use the same, or appropriate
the proceeds derived therefrom, to the education of the freed people.”
He was empowered also to “coöperate with private benevolent associations
in aid of the freedmen.” The Bureau was attached to the War Department
and was at first limited in duration to one year, but was afterwards
prolonged. General O. O. Howard was appointed Commissioner, with
assistants. He says he was invested with “almost unlimited authority”
and that the act and orders gave “great scope and liberty of action.”
“Legislative, judicial, and executive powers were combined, reaching all
the interests of the freedmen.” On June 2, 1865, the President ordered
all officers of the United States to turn over to the Bureau “all
property, funds, lands, and records in any way connected with freedmen
and refugees.” This bestowment of despotic power was not considered
unwise because of the peculiar exigencies of the times and the condition
of the freedmen, who, being suddenly emancipated by a dynamic process,
were without schools, or teachers, or means to procure them. To organize
the work, a Superintendent of Schools was appointed for each State.
Besides the regular appropriation by Congress, the Military authorities
aided the Bureau. Transportation was furnished to teachers, books, and
school furniture, and material aid was given to all engaged in
education.

General Howard used his large powers to get into his custody the funds
scattered in the hands of many officers, which could be made available
for the freedmen. Funds bearing different names were contributed to the
work of “colored education.”[2] During the war some of the States sent
money, to officers serving in the South, to buy substitutes from among
the colored people to fill up their quota under the draft. A portion of
the bounty money thus sent, by an order of Gen. B. F. Butler, August 4,
1864, was retained in the hands of officers who had been superintendents
of negro affairs, and by the President’s order of June 2, 1865 was
turned over to the disbursing officers of the Bureau of Freedmen. After
the organization of the Bureau, Gen. Howard instructed agents to turn
money, held by them, over to the chief disbursing officer of the Bureau.
This was in no sense public money, but belonged to individuals, enlisted
as contraband recruits to fill the State quotas. What was unclaimed of
what was held in trust under Gen. Butler’s order was used for
educational purposes.

Footnote 2:

See Spec. Ed. Rep., District of Columbia, p. 259.

In the early part of 1867, the accounting officers of the Treasury
Department ascertained that numerous frauds were being perpetrated on
colored claimants for bounties under acts of Congress. Advising with
General Howard, the Treasury officials drew a bill, which Congress
enacted into a law, devolving upon the Commissioner the payment of
bounties to colored soldiers and sailors. This enlarged responsibility
gave much labor to General Howard, in his already multifarious and
difficult duties, and made more honorable the acquittal which he secured
when an official investigation was subsequently ordered upon his
administration of the affairs of the Bureau.

The Act of Congress of July 16, 1866, gave a local fund, which was
expended in the district in which it accrued, and besides there were
general appropriations for the support of the Bureau, which were, in
part, available for schools.

Mr. Ingle, writing of school affairs in the District in 1867 and 1868,
says:

“Great aid was given at this period by the Freedmen’s Bureau, which, not
limiting its assistance to schools for primary instruction, did much
toward establishing Howard University, in which no distinction was made
on account of race, color, or sex, though it had originally been
intended for the education of negro men alone.”

The monograph of Edward Ingle on “The Negro in the District of
Columbia”—one of the valuable Johns Hopkins University Studies—gives
such a full and easily accessible account of the education of the
negroes in the District, that it is needless to enlarge the pages of
this paper by a repetition of what he has so satisfactorily done.

The Bureau found many schools in localities which had been within the
lines of the Union armies, and these, with the others established by its
agency, were placed under more systematic supervision. In some States,
schools were carried on entirely by aid of the funds of the Bureau, but
it had the coöperation and assistance of various religious and
benevolent societies. On July 1, 1866, Mr. Alvord, Inspector of Schools
and Finances, reported 975 schools in fifteen States and the District,
1,405 teachers, and 90,778 scholars. He mentioned as worthy of note a
change of sentiment among better classes in regard to freedmen’s
schools, and that the schools were steadily gaining in numbers,
attainments, and general influence. On January 17, 1867, General Howard
reports to the Secretary of War $115,261.56 as used for schools, and the
Quartermaster’s Department as still rendering valuable help. Education
“was carried on vigorously during the year,” a better feeling
prevailing, and 150,000 freedmen and children “occupied earnestly in the
study of books.” The taxes, which had been levied for schools in
Louisiana, under the administration of T. W. Conway, had been
discontinued, but $500,000 were asked for schools and asylums. In 1867,
the Government appointed Generals Steedman and Fullerton as Inspectors,
and from General Howard’s vehement reply to their report—which the War
Department declines to permit an inspection of—it appears that their
criticisms were decidedly unfavorable. Civilians in the Bureau were now
displaced by army officers. In July, 1869, Mr. Alvord mentions decided
progress in educational returns, increasing thirst for knowledge,
greater public favor, and the establishment of 39 training schools for
teachers, with 3,377 pupils. Four months later, General Howard says
“hostility to schools and teachers has in great measure ceased.” He
reported the cost of the Bureau at $13,029,816, and earnestly
recommended “the national legislature” to establish a general system of
free schools, “furnishing to all children of a suitable age such
instruction in the rudiments of learning as would fit them to discharge
intelligently the duties of free American citizens.” Solicitor Whiting
had previously recommended that the head of the Freedmen’s Bureau should
be a cabinet officer, but this was not granted, and the Bureau was
finally discontinued—its affairs being transferred to the War Department
by Act of Congress, June 10, 1872. It is apparent from the reports of
Sprague, Assistant Commissioner in Florida, and of Alvord in 1867 and
1870, that the agents of the Bureau sometimes used their official
position and influence for organizing the freedmen for party politics
and to control elections. A full history of the Freedmen’s Bureau would
furnish an interesting chapter in negro education, but a report from
Inspector Shriver on October 3, 1873, says the Department has “no means
of verifying the amount of retained bounty fund;” and on December 4,
1873, the Department complains of “the incomplete and disordered
condition of the records of the late Bureau.” (See Ex. Doc. No. 10, 43d
Con., 1st Ses., and Ho. Mis. Doc. No. 87, 42d Con., 3d Ses.)

That no injustice may be done to any one, the answer of the “Record and
Pension Office, War Department,” May 21, 1894, to my application for
statistics drawn from the records, is embodied in this paper. So far as
the writer has been able to investigate, no equally full and official
account has heretofore been given.

* * * * *

“The following consolidated statement, prepared from records of
Superintendents of Education of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands, shows the number of schools, teachers, and pupils in
each State, under control of said Bureau, and the amount expended for
Schools, Asylums, construction and rental of school buildings,
transportation of teachers, purchase of books, etc.:—

1865–1866.

Number of Schools 1,264
Number of Teachers 1,793
Number of Pupils 111,193

Amount Expended by Bureau $ 225,722 94
Received from Freedmen 18,500 00
Received from Benevolent Associations 83,200 00

1867.

Number of Schools 1,673
Number of Teachers 2,032
Number of Pupils 109,245

Amount Expended $ 415,330 00
From Freedmen 17,200 00
From Benevolent Associations 65,087 00

1868.

Number of Schools 1,739
Number of Teachers 2,104
Number of Pupils 102,562

Amount Expended $ 909,210 20
From Freedmen 42,130 00
From Benevolent Associations 154,736 50

1869.

Number of Schools 1,942
Number of Teachers 2,472
Number of Pupils 108,485

Amount Expended $ 591,267 56
From Freedmen 85,726 00
From Benevolent Associations 27,200 00

1870.

Number of Schools 1,900
Number of Teachers 2,376
Number of Pupils 108,135

Amount Expended $ 480,737 82
From Freedmen 17,187 00
From Benevolent Associations 4,240 00

“This statement or statistical table is made up from the reports of the
Superintendents of Education of the several States under the control of
the Bureau from 1865 to 1870, when government aid to the freedmen’s
schools was withdrawn. It embraces the number of schools established or
maintained, the number of teachers employed, the number of pupils, and
the amount expended for school purposes in each State and the District
of Columbia. The expenditures also include the amounts contributed by
the Bureau for the construction and maintenance of asylums for the
freedmen, which cannot be separated from the totals given.

“The table is based upon the reports of the School Superintendents, and
has been prepared with great care. The results thus obtained, however,
differ in some material respects from the figures given by the
Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau in his annual reports. These
discrepancies, which this Department is unable to reconcile or explain,
will be seen by a comparison of the table with the following statement
made from the reports of the Commissioner:

1866.

Number of Schools 975
Number of Teachers 1,405
Number of Pupils 90,778