Forty years of the public schools in Mississippi

Preface

In the babel of many voices arising in the South, it is difficult at times to determine just what is the attitude of the southern white people toward the education of the Negro. It is frequently asked: Do southern people believe that the Negro can and should be educated? What facilities have been provided for this purpose? Is the trend of public sentiment toward providing more adequate means for his education? Is the Negro child being discriminated against in the distribution of school funds? Does the progress of the race in the past fifty years justify the efforts that have been put forth to educate the Negro? r^: ;

In an effort to answer these questions(the author has undertaken to trace the history of public education in the typically southern state of Mississippi, taking pains at every stage in the progress of the narrative to inquire what southern white people have thought and done about the education of the Negro. L-have studied closely the social and economic conditions of the state during the forty years between 1870 and 1910, and have sought the bearing of these conditions upon the education of both white and colored races,' In this study, since practically nothing has been done along this line in Mississippi, I have been forced to draw my conclusions largely from data contained in the state records, in the government reports, and in a limited number of local newspapers.

This study was begun during the summer of 1915 in a course in the History of Education in the United States, conducted by Dr. Paul Monroe in Teachers College, Columbia University. I am under special obligation to Dr. Monroe for his wise and helpful suggestions as to the plan and purpose of the study.

I wish to acknowledge the valuable assistance of the Faculty committee which examined it. Dr. William H. Kilpatrick and Dr. David Snedden. I am also under obligations to Dr. Dunbar Rowland, director of the Department of Archives and History of Mississippi; to Dr. J. C. Fant, of the University of Mississippi; to iv Preface

Professor E. C. Branson, of the University of North Carolina; to Mr. Jackson Davis, field agent of the General Education Board; and to my colleagues, Dr. A. A. Kern and Dr. J. M. Burton, of Millsaps College, for reading the manuscript and offering suggestions for its improvement.

s. G. N.

Table Of Contents

The Social and Economic Setting, 1 870-1 871 i

The Attitude of the Several Social Elements toward

Negro Education 6

Chapter I The Social And Economic Setting, 1870-1871

Introductory. In its legal status the public school system of Mississippi is not, nor has it ever been, a dual system. There is a single school system which provides educational advantages for the children of both races. If there were a legal provision which specifically prohibited the children of one race from enjoying the school privileges extended to the other, such a provision would be rendered null and void by the Federal Constitution, as a discrimination based upon "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The history of the public schools is therefore not the history of the schools which the state has provided for the instruction of the white youth, but the history of schools provided for the instruction of both races. Despite, however, the equal status before the law of white and colored schools, educational facilities for the colored race have not run parallel with those provided for the whites. Recognizing this difference the author, although he is particularly interested in tracing the development of education for Negroes, is forced to give a comprehensive treatment of the public school system with respect to the education of both races, in order to give a faithful account of the Negro schools.

Economic and social conditions that have tended to promote the growth and efftciency of the public school system have in large measure affected the trend of Negro education. In like manner, efficiency, or lack of efficiency, in the administration of education has been felt in both white and colored schools. At the beginning of this study, therefore, it would be well to give an account not only of the organization of the public school system, but to take into consideration the social and economic conditions which attended its birth.

Density of Population. Density of population is an important factor in determining the growth and efficiency of school systems. To what extent this factor was influential at this period in Mississippi, we may learn from a study of the census reports of 1870.

There were then, according to the census returns, 382,896 whites and 444,201 Negroes, distributed over an area of 46,810 square miles, or 17.9 persons to the square mile. An idea of the relative density of the state may be had if we consider that the density of Ohio ^ at this time was 65.4; of Pennsylvania, 78.3; of New York, 92.0; and of Massachusetts, 181. 3. There were only two ^ counties in the state with a population over 30,000, and there were seven counties ^ with less than 5,000. There were only four towns in the state with a population over 2,000, and Vicksburg, the largest of these, had only 12,443.

The importance of density of population with respect to education may be seen in the following statements. In fifteen counties, comprising an area of 9,292 square miles, the Negroes out-numbered the whites nearly three to one.* In this 'black belt' there were 179.237 Negroes and 60,004 whites, or 298 Negroes to every 100 whites. This situation was equalled in only one other southern state, Alabama, which had a somewhat more extensive black belt with 315 Negroes to every 100 whites. The black belt counties of Mississippi were among the most populous of the state, and yet there were but 19.3 Negroes and 5.1 whites to the square mile. This means that even the most populous areas of the state were but sparsely settled. It means, further, if we allow three children to the family, that there were many townships in this section in which thirty-six white families^ would have to support schools for approximately 100 white children and 400 Negro children. But educational conditions were more favorable, under a system of local taxation, in the black belt than in many of the more sparsely settled white counties, since the black counties were not only the most populous but the richest. In respect to the poor white counties Superintendent Pease reported^ in 1872 that there were many in which the

1 1 refer to these states in particular because many of tlie nortliern men wlio had in hand the organization of the new school system, were most familiar with schools in these states, and hoped to plant their old ideas in new soil. They failed to consider the difference pointed out above.

2 Hinds and Lowndes.

3 The 'white counties': Greene, Hancock, Jackson, Jones, Marion, Wayne, Perry.

^ Kelley Miller: Education of the Negro, United States Commissioner's Report, 1900-

1901, p. 731- ^ The white families were the tax- payers; the Negroes had not yet acquired property

to any extent. * United States Commissioner's Report, 1873, p. 213.

Social and Economic Setting, 1870-1871 3

maximum tax levy (ten mills for schoolhouses and five for teachers) would not raise revenue sufficient to educate one-fourth of the scholastic population. It is clear, therefore, that the factor of sparse distribution of the population was to play an important part in determining the number, size, and grade of schools to be established, as well as in determining their future support.

Illiteracy. The problem of illiteracy in 1870 was not complicated to an undue extent by the question of race. It was mainly a colored problem. Advance sheets of the census ^ this year showed that out of a total population of 382,896 whites, there were 23,103 adult illiterates; and that out of a total of 444,896 Negroes, there were 168,031 adult illiterates. It is evident that very few adult Negroes were able to read and write. These figures are sufficient to indicate that the educational problem in 1870 was largely the problem of providing schools for Negroes for whom no schools had heretofore existed.

Economic Situation. The economic situation has much to do in shaping the sentiment of people toward education. A brief summary therefore will not be out of place just here. The following figures represent the assessed value of real and personal property for the years indicated:^

1865 134,131,128

1870 177,288,892

It is impossible to estimate the market value of this property, but considering the unsettled times, the figures for 1865 and 1870 are certainly not underestimated. It may be added that during the decade between i860 and 1870 the value of farm property ^ alone declined from $241,478,571 to $92,890,758, or 61.5 per cent. During the same period the cotton crop declined from 1,202,507 bales to 565,559. The demoralization of war and the inability to make a proper adjustment to the new economic situation are written large in these figures.

An element worthy of consideration in this connection is the fact that the cotton crops for 1866, 1867, and 1870 were failures.

^United States Commissioner's Report, 1871, p. 68.

* United States Congress, Report of Committee on Affairs in Late Insurrectionary

States, p. 179. 'Abstract of United States Census, 1910, Mississippi Supplement, p. 612.

In addition to this, levees (embankments) which had protected the fertile Yazoo Valley, and which had been cut during the war, were not repaired until 1870. This threw open to the floods 4,000,000 acres of the most fertile land in the state. ^^

Still another factor which contributed to the general demoralization was the fact that the state had suffered the loss of nearly $8,000,000 worth of cotton by confiscation, and the loss by conflagration during the war of countless numbers of courthouses and public buildings. The Federal government also had levied a two-and-one-half-mill tax upon every pound of cotton for the years 1866 and 1867, and a three-mill tax for 1868.^^

To complete the story of demoralization we may add the difficulty of controlling labor in this unsettled period of readjustment, and the inability of both races readily to adapt themselves to the new situation.

Such was the economic situation in 1870 when it was proposed to establish a system of public schools, costing $1,000,000 for equipment, and $400,000 annually for maintenance.^^ The initial cost was particularly heavy because of the necessity of establishing separate schools for whites and blacks. The white tax-payers, already driven to the verge of bankruptcy by the excessive burdens of war and taxation, were called upon to support this new burden.

The Political Situation, 186^-1870. A brief review of the political situation is in order just here that we may understand the circumstances under which the public school system was organized. Immediately after the close of the Civil War, Governor Clark was arrested by the federal authorities and placed in prison, and Judge William L. Sharkey was appointed by President Johnson as provisional governor. Judge Sharkey, an esteemed citizen of the state, shortly after assuming the duties of governor, called a convention for the purpose of revising the constitution, with a view to making it conform to the federal requirements. The convention met in 1865, but the changes which were made in the constitution failed to satisfy the United States government. The members of the convention were representative Southerners and naturally their views on Negro suffrage and the new status of the freedman

'" Garner: Reconstruction in Mississippi, Chap. IV. » Ibid.

'2 The estimate of Governor Alcorn here given is doubtless conservative. See Message on Education, 1870, House Journal, Appendix, p. 12.

Social and Economic Setting, iSyo-iSyi 5

did not coincide with northern views. The instrument, however, was accepted by the state, an election was held by the southern white citizens, and the legislature was called to adapt the old code to the new social situation. General B. G. Humphreys, a prominent Mississippian, was elected governor.

Meanwhile, a federal military governor exercised police control in the state, his authority at times conflicting with that of the civil authorities. As soon as the constitution of 1865 was rejected by the federal government the military governor began organizing the new electorate for the purpose of selecting delegates to a second Constitutional Convention. In 1868 the military governor saw fit to exercise his legal prerogative of removing the civil governor. General Humphreys, and to appoint in his place General Adelbert Ames, of the federal army.

Under the leadership of military authorities, Freedmen's Bureau officials, and carpet-baggers, the Negroes were organized into the Republican party, and when the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention took place, the Republicans returned a substantial majority. Of the hundred delegates, seventeen were Negroes, some twenty or more were carpet-baggers, and twenty-nine were 'scalawags'. Altogether it was a motley gathering that constituted what became known as the 'Black and Tan Convention'.

The constitution drafted by this body proved acceptable alike to the federal gove|nment and to the new proletariat of Mississippi. It was ratified in 1869; state officers were elected under its provisions in the fall of the same year. The Republicans found themselves masters of the situation, with a good majority in the legislature. General A. L. Alcorn, a Southerner who believed in pursuing a policy of conciliation with the new proletariat, was elected governor. Captain H. R. Pease, then at the head of the Freedmen's Bureau schools in the state, became superintendent of education. ^^

1' The historical information included in this section has been derived mainly from Garner's Reconstruction in Mississippi and from McNeily's Provisional Government of Mississippi.

Chapter II The Attitude Of The Several Social Elements Toward Negro Education

The Attitude of Southern Whites before i8yo. The best element of southern citizenry were quick to reahze in the passing of the Negro from slavery into freedom, that the necessity of educating him to fit into the new social fabric stared them in the face. Although many seriously doubted his ability to profit from schooling beyond certain limits, there seems to have been a very general disposition among southern white people to provide schools for his instruction. We find evidences of this attitude as early as 1865.

In the inaugural address of Governor Humphreys, October 16,

1865, we find this statement t^ "The highest degree of elevation in the scale of civilization to which they are capable, morally and intellectually, must be secured to them by their education and religious training." The governor expressed his faith by works when, in 1867, he established a Freedmen's Bureau school upon his own plantation.2

General Thomas J. Wood, assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, in the fall of 1866 attempted to enlist the cooperation of the white citizens of the state in the establishment of a system of Negro schools. His proposition was endorsed by clergymen and bishops of the various denominations, and seems to have been quite generally approved throughout the state.^ Dr. C. K. Marshall, a prominent clergyman of the day, was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the plan. In an address published in December,

1866, he strongly expressed this opinion: "The education of the freedmen's children in the common branches taught in our schools, is unquestionably a duty we owe alike to ourselves and to them." Early in 1867, J. M. Langston made a tour of the state in the inter-

1 Governor Humphreys was elected by the southern whites in 1865. He was a typical

representative of the Old South. See McNeily: Provisional Government of Mississippi, Publications, Mississippi Historical Society, 1916, p. 16.

2 Freedmen's Bureau Report, January i, 1867, p. 17. 'McNeily: Provisional Governtneftl of Mississippi, p. 237.

est of the Freedmen's Bureau, and reported as follows: "I talked with no leading influential white man in Mississippi, whatever may have been his views with regard to the late rebellion and the abolition of slavery, who did not express the opinion, apparently with full earnestness, that the freedmen ought to be educated."

On January 17, 1867, at the organization meeting of the State Teachers' Association,^ the representative southern white teachers went on record as favoring a state system of public schools for white and colored children alike. The resolution which embodies their opinion reads:

Resolved, i. That the enactment of a public school system that shall meet the wants and necessities of the entire population is a desideratum of the utmost importance.

2. That it is the duty as well as the interest of the state, through its legislature, to establish and maintain normal schools in diflferent parts of the state for the purpose of educating colored teachers, so that they may be qualified to labor as teachers among the colored population of the state.

3. That it would be for the interest of the people and the promotion of education to have a uniform system.

A year later, the platform of the Democratic State Convention contained the following resolution:^

Resolved . . . that we will in good faith and willingly aid in securing to the colored race the security of person and property, and full guarantees against oppression and injustice as freedmen; cherishing against them no feeling of hostility, and desiring that they may elevate themselves in the scale of humanity by mental culture to any extent of which they may be capable.

While there seems to have been little objection to the education of the Negro, there was objection to the means by which it was being undertaken. Numerous citations may be noted which indicate hostility to northern teachers and to northern doctrines. The Jackson Standard voices objection in these words :^

We are glad to see an awakening disposition on the part of the southern people to take charge of schools for little Negroes, and have them taught by southern teachers instead of Yankees. It is patent to all thinking men that

* Mayes: History of Education in Mississippi, p. 282; also "Progress of Education in

Mississippi," Mississippi Teacher, September, 1889.

* Natchez Democrat, February 25, 1868.

* McNeily: Provisional Government of Mississippi, p. 103. Excerpt quoted.

the policy of the South in the new relation with the Negro, is to have him educated to the extent of his capacity and condition. And this should be done by southern people, who will abstain from instilling into the minds of Negroes hatred and distrust of the Southerners. We should be better friends to the Negro than to quietly turn him over to the grasping cupidity of the New Englanders.

The Brandon Republican ^ expresses the same opinion and urges southern white teachers to take up the work of instructing Negroes. The Canton Mail, in defending a disabled Confederate veteran who was teaching a Negro school at Canton, says:

Who can blame him? He saw, as all sensible men must, that these Negro schools must be established throughout our land, and knew too, that it would be much better for southern men to train the minds of young Africa, than to have some red-mouth Radical fill the position.

McNeily quotes the Meridian Messenger and the Oxford Falcon to almost the same effect.^ If allowed to go about it in their own way, southern leaders seem to have been perfectly willing to have the Negro educated. Despite the frequent objection to northern teachers, before 1868 the Freedmen's Bureau had numerous applications from planters asking teachers for the freedmen on their plantations, and agreeing to provide suitable schoolhouses on condition that teachers were sent to them.^ It must be admitted, however, that many of these applications for teachers were prompted by economic rather than by philanthropic motives. Schools were to be .established in order to attract labor and to keep the laborers contented.

We must not conclude that there was no opposition to the education of the Negro at any time before 1870, or that there was not a certain element in continuous opposition. The opposition to the Freedmen's Bureau schools was at first more strenuous than it was in any other state.^° Efiforts were made to keep the Bureau agents from finding places to teach; teachers were abused and intimidated. But, by the fall of 1866, if we may accept the word of the Bureau inspector, despite a few 'rabid fire-eaters', a favorable change had taken place in the minds of the people.^'^ The excerpts from the

^ Provisional Government of Mississippi, p. 104. Excerpt quoted.

8 Ibid.

' Freedmen's Bureau Report, January i, 1868, p. 33.

^'^ Ibid., January i, 1866.

"Freedmen's Bureau Report, January i, 1867, p. 17.

press previously quoted in this chapter seem to point toward the 'favorable change' referred to by the inspector.

The entry of the Negro into politics in 1868, however, seems to have brought about a reversion of feeling on the part of the Southerners. McNeily claims that General Wood's plan for a system of Negro schools, which had met with such enthusiastic endorsement a year earlier, was never tested out.^^ He adds, "There can be no judgment of its merits, as it was too soon swept away by the surging waves of race distrust and antipathy raised by the ensuing radical policy." The Southerners, later, doubtless not without good reason, viewed with suspicion and alarm the attempt of the Republicans to establish by public taxation a system of free public schools — suspicion and alarm intensified because they were denied the power to say how much they should be taxed to support this system.

In the spring of 1868 the 'Black and Tan Convention', made up largely of carpet-baggers and Negroes, met to draft a constitution. The carpet-baggers were in many cases well-meaning men, able and earnest, but they had slight comprehension of the complex social situation which faced them. That there were many men of doubtful character among them can scarcely be denied. The radical element of the convention soon secured control and proceeded to write into the constitution elaborate provisions for a public school system.

On the floor of the convention the storm center on the question of education hovered about Section 5, ^^ which was unanimously reported by the Committee on Public Education, February 3, 1868. This section provided that a school should be maintained in each school district at least four months in the year, and that no district should receive a share of the school fund if such were not the case. Mr. Stovall, a Republican representative from Carroll County, moved to amend this section by adding:

Provided, That separate schools for the white and colored children be maintained in each district. And provided further, That should there not be a sufficient number of either race to maintain a separate school, the minority race shall have the privilege of sending to school in an adjoining district, and be entitled to their pro rata of the school fund the same as if the school was taught in their own district.^^

** McNeily: Provisional Government of Mississippi, p. 241. "Journal of Constitutional Convention, 1867-1868, p. 148. " Ibid., p. 316.

The amendment was tabled, as was also a similar provision by Mr, Compton, and a third amendment proposing to subsidize the private schools in sparsely settled districts for the benefit of the minority race.^^ The section on the raising of funds for the establishment and maintenance of the system seems to have passed without much controversy.

There can hardly be any doubt that it was the purpose of the convention to establish a system of 'mixed schools', that is, schools to be attended by the children of both races. This action, ^^ combined with the proposition to raise funds for the support of the schools by a property tax, created pronounced opposition on the part of the Southerners to the whole scheme. The Daily Clarion, the chief organ of the Democrats in the state, shortly after the tabling of Stovall's amendment, has this to say of the article on education : ^"^

As the measure now stands, a fund will be raised by taxing the property of the people to build up a gigantic system of 'Public Education', under the control of imported amalgamationists. The white people, who, it is designated, shall pay this tax, will be admitted to the enjoyment of its benefits only on condition that they will send their children to these mixed schools. This they can never do, without violating all the instincts of their nature, and degrading themselves and polluting their posterity. The scheme practically will amount to their exclusion.

An editorial of a later date indicates the depth of feeling which the suggestion had raised : ^^

No intelligent and true friend of the Negro, much less of the white race, can look upon the measure with any other feeling but of loathing and disgust. In the intent of the authors to set the indestructible laws of God at defiance, and to subvert the usages of the white race in both sections of the Union, they have sown the seeds of ineradicable enmity and discord between the races.

The Clarion, however, wished it to be distinctly understood that it did not oppose Negro education, when it denounced in such strenuous language the mixed school proposition.^^

"^ Journal of Constitutional Convention, 1 867-1 868, p. 360. 1^ Garner: Reconstruction in Mississippi, p. 363. 1' Daily Clarion, February, 1868. '* Ibid., February 21, i868.

" Ibid., April 8. 1868.

Attitude Toward Negro Education ii

In concluding this section on the attitude of the southern whites prior to 1870, we may say that it seems clear that the leaders favored the education of the Negro, although many doubted his ability to advance very far. They were ready to cooperate in providing schools for the elevation of the race, asking only a voice in deciding the means for establishing these schools, and in determining the kind of teachers that were to be employed. They were opposed to northern teachers, and endeavored to persuade southern people to become teachers in Negro schools. They felt that northern immigrants did not sympathize with their inbred aversion to social equality with the Negro, and feared that amalgamation of the races would be brought about through mixed schools. Finally, they strenuously objected to being taxed without representation for the support of schools, and more especially did they object at this time because of their sore economic straits. If they had been able to provide the means for the education of the Negro, and had had the assurance that no pernicious doctrines would be instilled into him, it is altogether likely that they would have cooperated heartily in the enterprise.

Attitude of Southern Whites after 1870. The southern white people watched with anxious and suspecting eyes the activities of the carpet-bag government in organizing the new school system. The carpet-bag and Negro elements ratified their constitution in December, 1869. The legislature was forthwith called to draft laws in accordance with its provisions. In the discussion of the Public School Bill, introduced shortly after the session convened, the same questions which had created so much excitement in 1868, namely, the question of mixed schools, and the question of providing the means for maintenance, came to the forefront.

The Public School Bill ^o placed the administration of the schools under a county superintendent, appointed by the state board of education, and under a county board of directors, vested with large powers for the location of schools, for defining the limits of sub-districts, and electing teachers. One section of the bill which caused the Southerners great annoyance read as follows : ^^

Be it enacted. That all children of the state between the ages of five and twenty-one shall have, in all respects, equal advantages in the public schools,

-" House Journal, 1870, H. B. 352. *' Laws of 1870, Chap. I, Sect. 49.

And it shall be the duty of the school directors of any district to establish an additional school in any sub-district thereof, whenever the parents or guardians of twenty-five children of legal school age, and who reside within the limits of the sub-districts, shall make written application to said board for the establishment of the same.

The bill originated in the House, and it was here that the first fight was made upon this objectionable section. Its enemies interpreted this to mean that the school directors might, or might not, establish mixed schools, as they saw fit. Thomas S. Maxey, of Rankin, submitted a minority report ^^ of the Educational Committee which had reported favorably upon the bill, declaring that the law should make the establishment of separate schools mandatory, "and thereby give the children of the tax-payers of the state, the benefit of an institution which they are compelled to maintain." In this, Maxey was voicing the opinion of a large majority of the southern white people, not only Democrats but also Republicans. Governor Alcorn, a Republican in politics but a Southerner in sympathy, had previously advised, in a special message,^^ that the legislature "bring to the subject that earnest spirit of justice to both races which demands that the schools be kept absolutely separate."

When the bill reached the Senate the fight was renewed upon the mixed-school feature. On June 28, Lieutenant-Governor R. C. Powers found it necessary to take the floor personally in its defense.^^ His treatment of the subject indicated, at least so far as he was concerned, that the carpet-baggers now had no intention to force white and colored children into the same schools, unless the people so desired it. His point of view may be seen in the following excerpt from his speech :

The provisions of this bill are wise in this respect, for while it recognizes no class distinctions (which of itself should render any law odious in a republican government), it nevertheless consults the convenience and meets all the reasonable demands of the people, by providing for the establishment of an additional school or schools, in any sub-district where the parents or guardians of twenty-five or more children desire it.

This leaves the details of the law where they rightly belong — and where they can be readily arranged, and all conflicting interests harmonized — with