Chapter 8 No.8

Educational Progress

Apologists for Reconstruction have repeatedly asserted that the Reconstruction governments gave to the South a system of public schools unknown up to that time, with the implication that this boon more than compensated for the errors of those years. The statement has been so often made, and by some who should have known better, that it has generally been accepted at its face value. The status of public education in the South in 1860, it is true, was not satisfactory, and the percentage of illiteracy was high. Any attempt to distract attention from these facts by pointing out the great proportion of the Southern white population in colleges and academies is as much to be deprecated as the denial of the existence of public schools at all. 1

1 Some States had done little for public schools before 1860, but others had made more than a respectable beginning. Delaware established a "literary fund" in 1796, Tennessee in 1806, Virginia in 1810, Maryland in 1813, and Georgia in 1817. Kentucky and Mississippi soon followed their example; North Carolina began to create such a fund in 1825; Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina appropriated a part or the whole of their shares of the "surplus" distributed by the Federal Government under the Act of 1836 to increase these funds or establish new ones for the support of schools; and some States levied considerable taxes for the support of educational institutions.

In general the public schools of the South began as charity schools, but this was also the case in several of the older States in other parts of the country. These schools were generally poorly taught in the early years, and it has been questioned whether the training which the pupils received compensated them for the humiliating acknowledgment of poverty which their attendance implied. The amount of money available was small, and the teacher was generally inefficient or worse, but these "old field schools" did help some men on their way. Several States went beyond the idea of charity in education, and some of the towns and cities established excellent schools for all the people.

The literary fund in North Carolina, for example, amounted to nearly $2,250,000 in 1840. The rapid increase of this fund had led to the establishment of public schools in 1839. To every district which raised $20 by local taxation, twice that amount was given from the income of the literary fund. With the election of Calvin H. Wiley as state superintendent of education in 1852, substantial progress began. In 1860 there were over 3000 schools, and the total expenditure was $279,000. The number of illiterates had fallen proportionately and actually, and ten years more of uninterrupted work would have done much to remove the stigma of illiteracy. The school fund was left intact during the Civil War, and most of the counties continued to levy school taxes. A part of the fund was lost, however, through the failure of the banks in which it was invested, and the remainder was squandered by the Reconstruction government. In spite of all discouragements, Superintendent Wiley held on until deposed by the provisional governor in 1865. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the schools of this State were better in 1860 than they were in 1880.

During the Reconstruction period a system of schools was established in every one of the seceding States. On paper these schemes were often admirable. Usually they were modeled after the system in the State from which some influential carpetbagger came, and under normal conditions, if honestly and judiciously administered, they would have answered their ostensible purposes and would have done much to raise the intellectual level of the population. Conditions, however, were not normal. The production of wealth was hindered, and taxes had been increased to the point of confiscation. In States which had been ravaged by war, and of which the whole economic and social systems had been dislocated, an undue proportion of the total social income was demanded for the schools. Under existing conditions the communities could not support the schemes of education which had been projected. This fact is enough to account for their failure, for when an individual or a community is unable to pay the price demanded, it matters little how desirable or laudable the object may be.

As if to make failure doubly certain, the schools were neither honestly nor judiciously administered. Much money was deliberately stolen, and much more was wasted. Extravagant salaries were paid to favorites, and unnecessary equipment was bought at exorbitant prices. The authorities in several States seemed more interested in the idea of educating negro children with white children than in the real process of education. Though in but four States-South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas-were mixed schools the only schools, such an arrangement was understood to be the ultimate goal in several other States. Several of the state superintendents were negroes, and others were carpetbaggers dependent upon negro votes. Before the end of Reconstruction, several of these were forced to flee to avoid arrest for malfeasance in office. In those States where mixed schools alone were provided, white children did not attend and were thus cut off from educational opportunities at public expense. Where separate schools were provided, the teachers were often carpetbaggers who strove "to make treason odious." It is hardly surprising that some parents objected to having their children forced to sing John Brown's Body and to yield assent to the proposition that all Southerners were barbarians and traitors who deserved hanging.

Just after the close of the Civil War, thousands of white women went South to teach in schools which were established for negroes by Northern churches or benevolent associations. Every one who reads the reports of such organizations now, fifty years after, must be touched by the lofty faith and the burning zeal which impelled many of these educational missionaries; but he must also be astonished by their ignorance of the negro and their blindness to actual conditions. They went with an ideal negro in their minds, and at first, they treated the negro as though he were their ideal of what a negro ought to be. The phases through which the majority of these teachers went were enthusiasm, doubt, disillusionment, and despair. Some left the South and their charges, holding that conditions were to blame rather than their methods; but others were clearsighted enough to realize that they had set about solving the problem in the wrong way.

Beginning with the assumption that the negro was equal or superior to the white in natural endowment and burning with resentment against his "oppressors," they attempted to bridge the gap of centuries in a generation. They were anxious to bring the negro into contact with the culture of the white race and thereby they strengthened the conclusion to which the negro had already jumped that educational and manual labor were an impossible combination. Then, too, in order to prove the sincerity of their belief in the brotherhood of mankind, they entered into the most intimate association with their pupils and their families. Some of them, we know, were compelled to struggle hard to overcome their instinctive repugnance to such intimacy. All of them taught by implication, and some by precept as well, that the Southern whites who held themselves apart were enemies to the blacks. That these teachers did some good is undoubted, but whether in the end a true balance would show more good than harm is not so certain.

When the native whites resumed control after the days of Reconstruction, their first thought was to reduce the expenses of the State. Tax levies were cut to the bone, school taxes among them. The school funds did not always suffer proportionately, however. In 1870, when the whites secured control in North Carolina, the expenditure for public schools in that State was $152,000. In 1874, the school revenue was over $412,000, and the number of white pupils was almost the same as in 1860; in addition 55,000 negroes were receiving instruction, but the school term was only ten weeks. The negro seems to have received in the first years of the new régime a fair share of the school money, but that share was not large. The reaction from Reconstruction extravagance was long-continued, and perhaps has not disappeared today.

Though the South was unable properly to support one efficient system, it now attempted to maintain two, one for whites and the other for blacks. Necessarily both systems were inadequate. The usual country school was only a rude frame or log building, sometimes without glass windows, in which one untrained teacher, without apparatus or the simplest conveniences, attempted to give instruction in at least half a dozen subjects to a group of children of all ages during a period of ten to fifteen weeks a year. Often even this meager period was divided into a summer and winter term, on the plea that the older children could not be spared from the farms for the whole time or that bad roads and stormy weather prevented the youngest from attending during the winter.

Though it seems almost incredible under such conditions, something was nevertheless accomplished. Many children, it is true, learned little or nothing and gave up the pretense of attending school. Others, however, found something to feed their hungry minds and, when they had exhausted what their neighborhood school had to offer, they attended the academies which had been re?stablished or had sprung up in the villages nearby or at the countyseat. Between 1875 and 1890, it was not at all uncommon to find in such academies grown men and women studying the regular high school subjects. Some had previously taught rural schools and now sought further instruction; and others had worked on the farms or had been in business. Men of twenty-five or thirty sat in classes with town children of fifteen or sixteen, but made such a large proportion of the total attendance that they did not feel embarrassed by the contrast in ages.

In the eighties there were scores of these academies, institutes, and seminaries in the towns of the South. They were not well graded; the teachers may never have heard of pedagogy. Their libraries were small or altogether lacking, and their apparatus was scanty; but in spite of these drawbacks an unusually large proportion of the students were desirous to learn. Many teachers loved mathematics or Latin, and some of the students gained a thorough if narrow preparation for college. An examination of college registers of the period shows a considerable proportion of students of twenty-five or thirty years of age. There is even a case where a college student remained out a term in order to attend a session of the Legislature to which he had been elected. The college students of the late seventies and early eighties were serious minded and thought of questions as men and not as boys. Though the clapper of the college bell was sometimes thrown into the well or the president's wagon was transferred to the chapel roof, these things were often done from a sort of sense of duty: college students were expected to be mischievous. Yet the whole tone of college life was serious. There were no organized college athletics, no musical or dramatic clubs, no other outside activities such as those to which the student of today devotes so much of his attention, except, of course, the "literary societies" for practice in declamation and debating.

Though many towns established graded schools before 1890 by means of special taxes, the condition of rural education at this time was disheartening. The percentage of negro illiteracy was falling, because it could not easily be raised, but the reduction of white illiteracy was slow. The school terms were still short, and many of the school buildings were unfit for human occupation. On the other hand, the quality of the teachers was improving. The short term of the schools was being lengthened by private subscription in some districts, and new and adequate buildings appeared in others. Progress was evidently being made, even if it was not obtrusive, and in that progress one of the leading factors was the Peabody Fund.

In 1867 George Peabody, a native of Massachusetts but then a banker of London, who had laid the foundation of his fortune in Baltimore, placed in the hands of trustees $2,100,000 in securities to be used for the encouragement of education in the Southern States. The Fund was increased to $3,500,000 in 1869, though a considerable part consisted of bonds of Mississippi and Florida which those States refused to recognize as valid obligations. The chairman of the trustees for many years was Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, and the other members of the board were distinguished men, both Northern and Southern. The first general agent, as the active administrator was called, was Barnas Sears, who at the time of his election was president of Brown University.

Dr. Sears was an unusual man, who comprehended conditions in the South and was disposed to improve them in every feasible way by using the resources at his command. He had no inflexible program and was willing to modify his plans to fit changing conditions. The income of the Fund appears small in this day of munificent foundations, but it seemed large then; and its effects were far-reaching. Sears was not an educational reformer in the modern sense. He seems to have had no new philosophy of education but took the best schools of the nation as a standard and strove to bring the schools of the South up to that standard. Through the aid of the Fund model schools were established in every State. The University of North Carolina opened its doors to the teachers of the State for professional training during the summer and was apparently the first of the summer schools now so numerous and popular. Direct appropriations in aid of schools were made out of the Fund, provided the community by taxation or subscription raised much larger sums. The Peabody Normal College at Nashville, Tennessee, was founded, and no effort was spared to develop a general interest in public education. Advice to legislatures, trustees, or communities was given when asked but so tactfully that neither resentment nor suspicion was aroused.

Before his death, Dr. Sears had chosen Dr. J. L. M. Curry as his successor, and the choice was promptly ratified by the trustees. Dr. Curry was a thorough Southerner, a veteran of both the Mexican and the Civil War. He had first practiced law and had sat in the House of Representatives of the United States and of the Confederate States. At the time of his election to the management of the Peabody Fund he was a professor in Richmond College, Virginia, and a minister of the Baptist Church. He had a magnetic personality, an unyielding belief in the value of education for both white and black, and the temperament and gifts of the orator. As a Southerner, he could speak more freely and more effectively to the people than his predecessor, who had done the pioneer work. During the years of his service, Curry therefore gave himself chiefly to the development of public sentiment, making speeches at every opportunity before societies, conventions, and other gatherings. As he himself said, he addressed legislatures "from the Potomac to the Rio Grande."

While the influence of the Peabody Fund and its agents was large, it was not the only influence upon the educational development of the South. There were throughout that section men who saw clearly that the main hope centered in education for black and white. They talked in season and out, though sometimes with little apparent result, for the opposing forces were strong. Among these forces poverty was perhaps the strongest. It is difficult to convince a people who must struggle for the bare necessities of life that taxation for any purpose is a positive good; and a large proportion of the families of the rural South handled little money. This was true even for years after the towns began to feel the thrill of growing industrialism. It has sometimes seemed that the poorer a man and the larger the number of his children, the greater his dread of taxes for education.

Then, too, the Southern people had followed the tradition of Jefferson that the best government is that which assumes the fewest functions and interferes least with the individual. Many honest men who meant to be good citizens felt that education belonged to the family or the church and could not see why the State should pay for teaching any more than for preaching, or for food, or clothing, or shelter. There were, of course, those claiming to hold this theory whose underlying motives were selfish. They had property which they had inherited or accumulated, and they objected to paying taxes for educating other people's children. It must be said, however, that as a class, the larger taxpayers have been more ready to vote higher taxes for schools than the poor and illiterate, whose morbid dread of taxation has been fostered by the politician.

There were others who were cold to the extension of public education on account of the schools already existing. In many towns and villages there were struggling academies, often nominally under church auspices. Towns which could have supported one school were trying to support two or three. In few cases was any direct financial aid given by the religious organization, but the school was known as the Methodist or the Presbyterian school, because the teaching force and the majority of the patrons belonged to that denomination. The denominational influence behind these schools was often lukewarm toward the extension of public education, and the ministers themselves had been known to make slighting references to "godless schools." There was still another class of people who really opposed public schools because they did not believe that the masses should be educated. This class was, however, small and is perhaps more numerous in other sections of the Union than in the South.

Last, but by no means the least, of the obstacles to general public education was the question of its influence upon the negro. The apparent effects of negro education were not likely to make the average white man feel that the experiment had been successful. The phrase that "an educated negro was a good plough-hand spoiled" seemed to meet with general acceptance. The smattering of an education which the negroes had received-it would be difficult to call it more-seemed to have improved neither their efficiency nor their morals. As a result there were many white people so shortsighted that they would starve their own children rather than feed the negro.

To all of these obstacles in human nature were added the defects of the tax system. Almost invariably the tax was levied by the Legislature upon the State as a whole or upon the county, and the constitutions or the laws in some cases forbade the progressive smaller division to levy special taxes for any purpose. Graded schools began, however, to appear in the incorporated towns which were not subject to the same tax limitations as the rural districts, and in time it became easier to levy supplementary local taxes by legislative act, judicial interpretation, or constitutional changes.

Gradually public sentiment in favor of schools grew stronger. The legislatures raised the rate of taxation for school purposes, normal schools were established, log schoolhouses began to be replaced by frame or brick structures, uniform textbooks became the rule and not the exception, teachers' salaries were raised, and the percentage of attendance climbed upward, though there was still a remnant of the population which did not attend at all. The school term was not proportionately extended, since a positive mania for small districts developed-a school at every man's door. In the olden days large districts were common, and many of the children walked four or five miles to school in the morning and back home in the afternoon. No one then dreamed of transporting the children at public expense. The school authorities were often unable to resist the pressure to make new districts, and necessarily a contracted term followed. In 1900 the average school term in North Carolina was not longer than in 1860, though much more money was spent, and the salaries were little higher. It must be remembered, of course, that no appropriations were made for negro education before the Civil War.

Both during and after the War many schools were opened for negroes by Freedmen's Aid Societies, various philanthropic associations, and denominational boards or committees. As public schools were established for negroes, some of these organizations curtailed their work and others withdrew altogether. Others persisted, however, and new schools have been founded by these and similar organizations, by private philanthropy, and also by negro churches. As a result there are independent schools, state schools, and Federal schools. The recent monumental report of the Bureau of Education reports 653 schools for negroes other than regular public schools. 1 Of these 28 are under public control, 507 are denominational schools (of which 354 are under white boards and 153 under negro boards), and 118 are classed as independent. This last group includes not only the great national schools, such as Tuskegee and Hampton, but small private enterprises supported chiefly by irregular donations. These private and independent schools owned property valued at $28,496,946 and had an income of over $3,000,000. State and Federal appropriations at the date of the report reached about $963,000.

1 Negro Education, Bureau of Education Bulletins 38 and 39 (1916). This work supersedes all previous collections of facts upon negro education.

During the first years after the downfall of the Reconstruction governments the negro received a fair proportion of the pittance devoted to public schools. Governor Vance of North Carolina, in recommending in 1877 an appropriation to the University for a "professorship for the purpose of instructing in the theory and art of teaching" went on to state that "a school of similar character should be established for the education of colored teachers, the want of which is more deeply felt by the black race even than the white.... Their desire for education is a very creditable one, and should be gratified so far as our means will permit." Instead of establishing the chair of pedagogy recommended by Governor Vance, the Legislature appropriated the money to conduct the summer school for teachers at the University. An appropriation of equal amount was made for negroes and similar allowances have been continued to the present. Proportionately larger appropriations have been made for the whites in recent years. Other States have established normal schools for negroes, but in none of them is the supply of trained negro teachers equal to the demand.

The negro public schools were organized along the same lines as the white, so far as circumstances permitted, but the work was difficult and remains so to this day. The negro teachers were ignorant, and many of them were indolent and immoral. In only a few places in the South do whites teach negroes in public schools. The enthusiasm for education displayed just after emancipation gradually wore off, and many parents showed little interest in the education of their children. Education had not proved the "open sesame" to affluence, and many parents were unwilling or unable to compel their children to attend school. As a contributory cause of this reluctance the poverty of the negro must be considered. It was difficult for the negro to send to school a child who might be of financial aid to the family. To many negro parents it seemed a matter of little moment to keep a child away from school one or two days a week to assist at home. It must also be remembered that the negro tenant farmer is migratory in his habits and that he often moved in the middle of the short term. Consequently the whole value of the term might easily be lost by the transfer. It is not surprising that the final product of such unstable educational conditions was not impressive.

The idea of the first educational missionaries to the negroes of the South was to turn them into white men as soon as possible by bringing them into contact with the traditional culture of the whites through the study of Latin, Greek, mathematics, and sometimes Hebrew, especially in the case of students for the ministry. The attempt was made to take the negro, fresh from slavery and with no cultural background, through the course generally pursued by whites. Numerous "universities" and "colleges" were founded with this end in view. Hampton Institute with its insistence upon fitting education to the needs of the race was unique for a time, though later it received the powerful support of Tuskegee Institute and its noted principal and founder, Booker T. Washington. The influence of this educational prophet was great in the North, whence came most of the donations for private schools. In imitation many mushroom schools have recently added "rural" or "industrial" to their names, but few of them are doing work of great value. Where the school appeals chiefly to the negro for support, liberal use is made of such high-sounding names as "college" and "university." The negro still thinks that the purpose of education is to free him from manual labor, and he looks with little favor upon a school which requires actual industrial training. For the same reason he is quick to protest when the attempt is made to introduce manual training into the public schools.

Partly because of this opposition on the part of the negroes themselves, partly because industrial training is more expensive than purely academic training, and partly because such training has only recently been recognized as part of education, the South has made little provision for the industrial education of the negro at public expense. According to the Report on Negro Education, few of the agricultural and mechanical schools maintained partly by the Federal land grants and partly by the States are really efficient. A few state or city schools also give manual training. About one-third of the private schools for negroes offer industrial courses, but much of this work is ineffective-either so slight as to be negligible or straight labor done in return for board and tuition and without regard to educational value. Hampton and Tuskegee are known to do excellent work, and a few of the smaller schools are to be classed as efficient; but in the great majority of negro schools the old curriculum is still followed, and the students gladly submit to its exactness. Why study something so plebeian as carpentry when one may study such scholarly subjects as Latin or Greek?

Most institutions for negroes desire to do work of college grade. Some with not a single pupil above the elementary grades nevertheless proudly call themselves colleges. Other so-called colleges have secondary pupils but none in college classes. Thirty-three institutions do have a total of 1643 students in college classes and 994 students in professional courses, but these same schools enroll more than 10,000 pupils in elementary and secondary grades. Some of them are attempting to maintain college classes for less than 5 per cent of their enrollment, and the teaching force gives a disproportionate share of time to such students. Two of these thirty-three institutions have nearly all the professional students, and two have nearly half the total number of college students. Only three can properly be called colleges-Howard University at Washington, Fisk University, and Meharry Medical College at Nashville, Tennessee.

While several of the Southern States have greatly increased their expenditures for schools since 1910, in some cases more than doubling them, the proportion devoted to negro schools has not been greatly increased, if indeed it has been increased at all. For example, in North Carolina, which assigns for negro education much more than the average of the States containing any considerable proportion of negroes, the total paid to negro teachers in 1910-11 was $340,856, as against $1,715,994 paid to white teachers. Five years later, negro teachers received $536,272, but white teachers received $3,258,352. In other words, in the former year all the negro teachers received one-fifth as much as all the whites, while five years later they received about one-sixth; that is, something less than one-third the total number of children received about one-seventh of the money expended for instruction. A part of this wide difference in expenditure may be explained or even defended. The districts or townships which have voted additional local taxes are usually those in which there are comparatively few negroes. The average salary paid to negro teachers, although low, is as large as can be earned in most of the occupations open to them, and any sudden or large increase would neither immediately raise the standard of competency nor insure a much larger proportion of the ability of the race. The percentage of school attendance of negro children is lower than in the case of white children. Very few negro children, whether because of economic pressure, lack of ability, or lack of desire for knowledge, complete even the fifth grade. Among negroes there is little real demand for high school instruction, which is more expensive than elementary instruction. Therefore, the proportion of the total funds spent for negro education might properly be less than their numbers would indicate. If the proportionate amount spent today for the instruction of certain racial groups of the foreign population could be separated from the total, it would be found that less than the average is spent upon them for the same reasons. However, when all allowances have been made, it is obvious that the negro is receiving less than a fair share of the appropriations made by the Southern States for education.

The inadequate public schools for negroes have been excused or justified upon the ground that private and church schools are supplying the need. This is true in some localities, for the great majority of negro private schools, no matter by what name they are called, are really doing only elementary or secondary work. These schools, however, only touch the beginnings of the problem and have served in some degree to lessen the sense of responsibility for negro education on the part of the Southern whites. Where there is one of these schools supported by outside philanthropy, the public school is likely to be less adequately equipped and supported than in the towns where no such school exists. But at best, these schools can reach only a small proportion of the children.

The difficulty lies in public sentiment. As a rule the tax rate is fixed by the State but collected by the county, and the county board divides the amount plus any local taxes levied, among the schools. Districts of the same number of pupils may receive widely varying amounts, according to the grade of instruction demanded. Generally, a part of the fund is apportioned per capita, and the remainder is divided according to the supposed special need of the districts. A white district which demands high grade teachers is given the necessary money, if possible. Few colored schools have advanced pupils, and only sufficient funds for a cheaper teacher or teachers may be provided. Colored districts are often made too large. The white districts ask so much that little more than the per capita appropriation is left for the colored schools. The negroes are politically powerless and public sentiment does not demand that money be taken from white children to be given to negroes.

Mention should be made of several funds which have been established by philanthropists for the education of the negro. The John F. Slater Fund, founded by a gift of $1,000,000 in 1882, has now reached $1,750,000. The greater part of the income is devoted to the encouragement of training schools. No schools are established by the Fund itself, but it co?perates with the local authorities and the General Education Board. The Jeanes Fund of $1,000,000 established by a Quaker lady, Miss Anna T. Jeanes of Philadelphia, expends the greater part of its income in helping to pay the salaries of county supervisors for rural schools. These are usually young colored women, who work under the direction of the county superintendents and visit the rural schools. They give simple talks upon hygiene and sanitation, encourage better care of schoolhouses and grounds, stimulate interest in gardening and simple home industries, and encourage self help. Their work has been exceedingly valuable. The Phelps Stokes Fund of $900,000, founded by Miss Caroline Phelps Stokes, is not wholly devoted to the negroes of the South. It has been expended chiefly in the study of the negro problem, in founding fellowships, and in making possible the valuable report on negro education already mentioned. In 1914, Mr. Julius Rosenwald of Chicago offered to every negro rural community wishing to erect a comfortable and adequate school building a sum not to exceed $300, provided that the community would obtain from private or public funds at least as much more.

The interest of the General Education Board is not limited either to negro or even to Southern education, but it has done much for both. This great foundation has paid salaries of state supervisors of negro schools in several States and has co?perated with the Jeanes Fund in maintaining county supervisors of negro schools. It has appropriated over half a million dollars to industrial schools and about one-fourth as much to negro colleges. Farm demonstration work, of which more is said elsewhere, is also of aid to the negroes. The Board has realized, however, that the development of negro schools is dependent upon the economic and educational progress of the whites, and has contributed most to white schools or to objects of a nature intended to benefit the whole population.

All testimony points to the conclusion that there is now real enthusiasm for education among the Southern whites. The school terms are being extended, often by means of local taxes levied in addition to the minimum fixed by the State; the quality of the teaching is improving; and popular interest is growing. In many sections, the school is developing into a real community center. Good buildings are replacing the shacks formerly so common. North Carolina is proud of the fact that for more than fourteen years an average of more than one new school a day has been built from plans approved by the educational department. More and more attention is being paid to the surroundings of the buildings. School gardens are common, and some schools even cultivate an acre or two of ground, the proceeds of which go to furnish apparatus or supplies. Many of the Southern towns and cities have schools which need not fear comparison with those in other sections.

The crying need is more money which can come only in two ways, by reforming the system of taxation, and by increasing the amount of taxable property. All through the South the chief reliance is a general property tax with local assessors who are either incompetent or else desirous of keeping down assessments. The proportion of assessment to value varies widely, but on the average it can hardly be more than fifty per cent; and, as invariably happens, the assessment of the more valuable properties is proportionately less than that of the small farm or the mechanic's home. The South is growing richer, but the conflict with the North set the section back thirty or forty years, while the remainder of the country was increasing in wealth. Even today the South must build two school systems without the aid of government land grants, which have had so much to do with the successful development of the schools of the Western States, and without the commercial prosperity which has come to the East. The rate of taxation levied for schools in many Southern communities is now among the highest in the United States.

During the past ten years, hundreds of public high schools have been established, more than half of which are rural. Some still follow the old curriculum, but a new institution known as the "farm life school" is now being developed. Many other schools have such a department attached and usually give instruction in household economics as well. The General Education Board estimates that $20,000,000 has been spent for improved buildings since the appointment of professors of secondary education in Southern universities. This, by the way, is one of the most useful contributions of the Board. These men, chosen by the institutions themselves as regular members of the faculty but with their salaries paid by an appropriation from the Board, may give a course or two in the university, but their chief duties are to co?rdinate the work of the high schools and to serve as educational missionaries. They go up and down the States, exhorting, advising, and stimulating the people, and the fruits of their work are present on every hand.

The South has a superabundance of colleges. Some of them have honorable records; others represent faith and hope or denominational zeal rather than accomplishment. Some of the older institutions were kept open during War and Reconstruction but others were forced to close. With the return of white supremacy old institutions have been revived and new ones have been founded. The number of students has increased, but the financial difficulties of the institutions have hardly diminished. Few had any endowment worth considering, and the so-called state institutions received very small appropriations or none at all. Good preparatory schools were few and, since the colleges were dependent upon tuition fees, many students with inadequate preparation were leniently admitted. Preparatory departments were established for those students who could not possibly be admitted to college classes. Necessarily the quality of work was low, though many institutions struggled for the maintenance of respectable standards. One college president frankly said: "We are liberal about letting young men into the Freshman class, but particular about letting them out." It was not uncommon for half of a first year class to be found deficient and turned back at the end of the year, or dismissed as hopeless. Obviously this was a wasteful method of determining competency.

Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, founded in 1873 by the gifts of "Commodore" Vanderbilt, was the first Southern institution with anything approaching an adequate endowment and was the first to insist upon thorough preparation for entrance, though it was compelled to organize a sub-freshman class in the beginning. Its policy had considerable influence both upon college standards and upon the growth of private preparatory schools. The development of public schools, for a time, had made the work of colleges in general more difficult, because they supplanted scores of private academies which had done passably well the work of college preparation and yet were not themselves able to prepare students for college in the first years of their existence. For years it was difficult in many localities for a young man to secure proper preparation, and the total of poorly prepared students applying for admission to the colleges increased. The number of towns and cities which have established high schools or high school departments has since increased rapidly, and today a larger and larger proportion of college students comes from public schools.

Since 1900, the resources of the colleges have greatly increased. States which appropriated a few thousand dollars for higher education in the early nineties now appropriate ten or even twenty times as much to their universities, agricultural colleges, and normal and technical schools for women, and have appropriated millions for new buildings. Many of the denominational colleges have obtained substantial endowments. The General Education Board up to 1914 had subscribed over $3,000,000 to Southern colleges and universities on condition that the institutions raise at least three times as much more. Southern men who have accumulated wealth are realizing their social responsibility. Several recent gifts of a million dollars or more are not included in the sum mentioned above, and many smaller gifts or bequests likewise.

Standards of work have been raised with increasing income. As elsewhere the effect of the reports of the Carnegie Foundation has been patent. The stronger institutions have brought up their requirements to the minimum, on paper at least, and to a great extent in fact. Some of the weaker institutions have dropped the pretense of doing college work; others have accepted the position of junior colleges doing two years of college work and giving no degrees. The States exercise little or no supervision over the quality of work done for college degrees, and some institutions continue to grant diplomas for what is really secondary work, but the fact that they are not up to the standard is known and the management is generally apologetic.

No other phase of Southern life is more hopeful and more encouraging than the educational revival. True, judged by the standards of the richer States, the terms of the rural schools are short and the pay of the teachers is small; but both are being increased, and no schools are exercising more wholesome influence. The high schools are neither so numerous nor so well equipped as in some other States, but nowhere else is such evident progress being made. There are no universities in the South which count their income in millions, but the number of institutions adequately equipped to do efficient work is already large and increasing. The spirit of faculty and students is admirable, and the contact of the institutions and the people of the Southern States is increasingly close and full of promise.