Morris Street School962Ashley Street School211Saint Phillip Street School850Normal School511King Street School (boys)148Meeting Street School211Saint Michael's School221Total3,114
There were employed eighty-three teachers, seventy-five of whom, white and colored, were natives of Charleston. The salaries of these teachers were paid by the New York and New England societies and cooperating with Redpath in organizing these schools were agents of these societies, one of whom served as a principal of one school. Within a month or two another school was added to this list, and during the same time there sprang up five night schools for adults. The students were made up of both white and Negro children and were taught in separate rooms. The whites, however, represented a very small proportion of the total number.[45]
In the fall of the year, with the reopening of the schools, the general organization underwent considerable changes due to the restoration of the regular civil government in charge of the ex-Confederates. Most of the schools mentioned above were now conducted for white children and taught by the native whites as of old. The Morris Street School, however, was kept for Negro children and taught by the native whites. The Normal School in time became the Avery Institute. The New England Society, which in the Spring had supported the Morris Street School, moved to the Military Hall and subsequently built the Shaw Memorial School. This school was named in the honor of Colonel Robert G. Shaw, who was killed during the war in the assault on Fort Wagner (Morris Island) while leading his Negro troops. The funds for the erection of the schoolwere contributed by the family of Colonel Shaw and they retained a permanent interest in it. In 1874, when the New England Society dissolved, the school was bought by the public school authorities and used for Negro children.[46]During the course of four or five years other schools were established here or in the vicinity of Charleston by the several church organizations.
Charleston thus made a commendable start in education partly for the reason that the city had a school system before the war and for a while during the conflict. The free Negroes of this city likewise had been instructed under certain restrictions during slavery time.[47]The schools which were controlled or supported by the northern agencies were by 1868 offering an elementary grade of instruction corresponding to about the fourth or fifth grade with classes in geography, English composition and arithmetic. Just here, however, it must be said that the personnel of the student body was constantly changing or at least during 1865 and 1866. Charleston was merely a sort of way station for the blacks, who, returning from the up-country where they had fled or had been led during the war, were on their way to the sea islands to take up land as offered by Sherman's order.[48]During April, 1865, Redpath reported that at least five hundred pupils "passed through" the schools, remaining only long enough to be taught a few patriotic songs, to keep quiet and to be decently clad. Others in turn came and in turn were "shipped off."[49]
Columbia, though behind Charleston in point of time, made an equally good beginning in spite of annoying handicaps. There was a fertile field here for teaching, since the blacks were crowding in from all the surrounding territory. Sherman having destroyed about all the suitable buildings, T. G. Wright, representative of the New York Society, in company with three northern ladies, started a school on November 6, 1865, in the basement of a Negro church with243 scholars. Soon thereafter, on November 7th, another was begun in the small room of a confiscated building "very unsuitable for a school room." On the same day two other schools were begun at similar places, one of them at General Ely's headquarters and taught by his daughters. On the ninth another school started on Arsenal Hill in an old building rented for a church by the freedmen and on the thirteenth still another was opened in one of the government buildings. These schools were numerically designated as "No. 1," "No. 2," etc., being nine in all. In addition to these there were two night schools begun about the same time, one of them enrolling fifty adult males and the other 121.[50]The Columbia schools were taught wholly under the control of the New York Society by northern ladies with the assistance of a few Negro instructors who were competent to assist them. They had a large attendance and consequently there were many changes made in the location of schools in the course even of the first few months.
Fortunately these temporary congested quarters gave way in the fall of 1867 when the Howard School was completed. This school was erected by the New York Society and the Freedmen's Bureau at a cost of about $10,000. It contained ten large class rooms. At the close of the school year (1868) it had an attendance of 600. The closing exercises of the year seemed to have attracted considerable attention inasmuch as the officers of the city, Tomlinson, and newspaper men all attended. The examinations at the close embraced reading, spelling, arithmetic, geography, history and astronomy.The Columbia Phoenix(a local paper) said of the exercises: "We were pleased with the neat appearance and becoming bearing of the scholars ... and the proficiency exhibited in the elementary branches was respectable."[51]
The New York Society did its best work in Columbia. At Beaufort this same organization had schools which occupiedthe large buildings formerly used by the whites. The New England Society was best represented at Charleston and Camden. The Philadelphia Society was best represented at St. Helena. Some notion of the exact location of the schools fostered by these societies (May, 1866) may be gained from the following table:[52]
TownNumber ofteachersSupportAshdale1New York BranchCombahee1New York BranchColumbia10New York BranchEdgerly1New York BranchGreenville6New York BranchGadsden2New York BranchHopkins1New York BranchJames Island5New York BranchMitchellville2New York BranchLexington2New York BranchPineville1New York BranchPerryclear1New York BranchPleasant Retreat2New York BranchRed House1New York BranchRhett Place2New York BranchRiver View1New York BranchWoodlawn2Michigan BranchCamden[53]2New England BranchDarlington2New England BranchEdisto Island2New England BranchHilton Head6New England BranchJehosse's Island2New England BranchJohns Island1New England BranchMarion2New England BranchOrangeburg3New England BranchSummerville3New England BranchPort Royal Island2Pennsylvania BranchRockville2Pennsylvania BranchSt. Helena5Pennsylvania BranchBeaufort9New York Branch 7New England Branch 2Charleston36New York Branch 13New England Branch 23Georgetown4New York Branch 1New England Branch 3
With some exceptions the schools enumerated here and elsewhere unfortunately had only a short existence for the reason that the societies which supported them gradually became short of funds. The New York Society, for example, in 1868, found itself hardly able to bring its teachers home. The efficiency of other societies likewise began to wane. By January 1, 1870, or within a few months afterwards, the Freedmen's Bureau passed out of existence. Alvord and his whole staff thereby were discharged from duty. The non-sectarian societies ceased to exist because the aid societies of the several northern churches claimed the allegiance of their members. A stronger reason, as given by them, was that the freedmen were now (1868) in a position to help themselves politically through the provision of Negro Suffrage for the new State government, under the Congressional plan of reconstruction. The Freedmen's Bureau was discontinued for similar reasons.
A few of the schools so well begun either passed into the hands of the State under regular State or municipal control of schools, as, for example, the Shaw Memorial at Charleston, or they became private institutions with other means of northern support. Before expiration, however, during 1869, the Freedmen's Bureau used its remaining funds to establish new schools and repair buildings throughout the State. A graphic picture of the Bureau's activity during the latter part of 1869 is thus shown:[54]
School Houses Erected
LocationCostSizeMaterialValue of lotOwnership of lotBennettsville$1,00030 x 40Wood$100FreedmenGadsden80025 x 40"50"Laurens1,00030 x 40"100"Newberry2,5002 stories}26 x 50 }"300"Walterboro1,00030 x 40"100"Manning50025 x 40"50"Lancaster50025 x 30"50"Graniteville70025 x 40"100"Blackville50025 x 30"50"$8,500
School Houses Repaired and Rented
LocalityOwnershipAmount expendedConkemFreedmen$500BeaufortFreedmen1,000ColumbiaBureau100Charleston (Orphan Asylum)Protestant Episcopal2,400Charleston (Shaw School)Bureau100Charleston (Meeting St. Post Office)Rented40CharlestonProtestant Episcopal8,000ChesterRented30DarlingtonBureau100Eustis PlaceBureau800FlorenceFreedmen35.75MarionBureau150Mt. PleasantBureau40SumterFreedmen500ShilohFreedmen100WinnsboroBureau50OrangeburgMethodist Episcopal Church2,500Total$16,445.75
After all, the real significance of this educational movement was the policy adopted by the denominational bodies that they should establish permanent institutions—colleges and normal schools to train teachers for the common schools and also in time that the Negroes themselves should run these institutions.[55]South Carolina under the Negro-Carpet-Bag rule in 1868, then, for the first time ventured to establish a school system supported by public taxation. For this object there were practically no competent teachers to serve the Negroes. The only sources of supply were the persons trained in the schools herein described and a few of the northern teachers who remained behind.[56]Very small and crude it was in the beginning, but the policy adopted here at least furnishes the idea upon which ever since the public schools of the State have been mainly justified. By 1870 the Perm School at St. Helena was sending out teachers in response to calls from the State.[57]In thesame year the principal of the Avery Institute reported that he was asked by the State to furnish fifty teachers.[58]This school was perhaps the best fitted to perform this function.
The American Missionary Association supported, at Port Royal and other points in the State, schools which, along with many others, had only a temporary existence. The lasting and best contribution of this association to this movement was the Avery Institute, its second best was the Brewer Normal. Avery was established at Charleston on October 1, 1865, in the State Normal School building, which was offered by General Saxton. The school commenced with twenty teachers and one thousand scholars with every available space taken, one hundred being crowded in the dome. The next year, having been turned out of this building, the school was held for two years in the Military Hall in Wentworth Street. On May 1, 1869, the school entered its present new large building on Bull Street when it dropped the name of the Saxton School for Avery in honor of the philanthropist from a portion of whose bequest $10,000 was spent by the American Missionary Association for the grounds and a mission home. The building proper was erected by the Freedmen's Bureau at a cost of $17,000.[59]
Avery very soon dropped its primary department and concentrated its efforts on the normal or secondary department where it had from the beginning a comfortable number of students. These students came largely from the free Negro class. Under the guidance of their well-trained Negro principal the boys and girls here were reading Milton's "L'Allegro," translating Caesar, and solving quadratic equations.[60]From the standpoint of grade of instruction, Avery was the banner school of the State. With a less pretentious beginning Brewer was established by the American Missionary Association at Greenwood in 1872 on school property valued at $4,000.
The Baptist Home Mission Society, following in the wake of the American Missionary Association, made a beginning at Port Royal with the labor of Rev. Solomon Peck, at Beaufort. This society in 1871 established Benedict at Columbia. The school property consisted of eighty acres of land with one main building—"a spacious frame residence," two stories, 65 x 65. This property cost $16,000 with the funds given by Mrs. Benedict, a Baptist lady of New England. During the first year the school had sixty-one students, most of whom were preparing for the ministry.[61]In 1868, Mrs. Rachel C. Mather established the Industrial School at Beaufort which now bears her name. This school came under the auspices of the Women's American Baptist Home Mission Society.
The Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church conducted primary schools at Charleston, Darlington, Sumter, John's Island, Camden, St. Stephens, Gourdins' Station, Midway and Anderson; but, like the Baptists, its substantial contribution was Claflin University. This institution was established in 1869 in the building formerly used by the Orangeburg Female Academy. The property was purchased through the personal efforts of its first president, Dr. A. Webster. The University was granted a charter by the State and named in honor of Hon. Lee Claflin of Massachusetts, by whose liberality it came into existence. The attendance the first year was 309 and by 1872 the institution had a college department, a normal department, a theological department, and a preparatory department.[62]The Women's Home Missionary Society of this same church had the excellent policy of establishing homes for girls where, in addition to purely classroom work, they would be taught the principles of home making and Christian womanhood. In pursuance of this object in 1864 Mrs. Mather of Boston established a school at Camden which in later years became known as the Browning Industrial Home.
The Presbyterian Church, through its Committee of Missions for Freedmen, in 1865 established the Wallingford Academy in Charleston at a cost of $13,500, the Freedmen's Bureau paying about one-half of this amount. In 1870 the number of pupils was 335. In later years this school, like others planted by the churches, was doing creditable secondary work and training teachers for the city and different parts of the State.[63]At Chester in 1868 this Committee established the Brainerd Institute and in the same year the Goodwill Parochial School at Mayesville.
The Protestant Episcopal Freedmen's Commission in cooperation with its South Carolina Board of Missions to Negroes established a school at Charleston (1866) in the Marine Hospital through the effort of Rev. A. Toomer Porter, a native white man of Charleston. Two years later this institution had a corps of thirteen teachers and about six hundred pupils.[64]Smaller efforts were likewise made by this commission at Winnsboro and other parts of the State.
The Friends (Pennsylvania Quakers) made a most valuable contribution to this general educational movement in 1868 through the efforts of Martha Schofield in establishing at Aiken the Schofield Normal and Industrial School. This institution in time became one of the most influential, not only in South Carolina but in the entire South. The Friends' Association of Philadelphia for the Aid and Elevation of the Freedmen, established, in 1865, at Mt. Pleasant (Charleston) the school which later became known as the Laing Normal and Industrial School.[65]Miss Abbey D. Munro, in 1869, became its principal.
As a result of these efforts an observer said: "In South Carolina where, thirty years ago, the first portentiousrumblings of the coming earthquake were heard and where more recently the volcanic fires of rebellion burst forth ... our missionaries and teachers have entered to spread their peaceful and healing influence.... The Sea Islands have been taken possession of in the name of God and humanity.... King Cotton has been dethroned and is now made humbly to serve for the enriching and elevating of the late children of oppression."[66]Another said: "New England can furnish teachers enough to make a New England out of the whole South, and, God helping, we will not pause in our work until the free school system ... has been established from Maryland to Florida and all along the shores of the Gulf."[67]They came to the South with the firm belief in the capacity of the Negro for mental development and on a scale comparable to the white man. The letters written by teachers to northern friends abound in reports to this effect. Such was the spirit in which the northern societies entered the South.
The northern societies, however, failed "to make a New England out of the South"; but due credit must be given them for their earnestness and enthusiasm. They entered the State while the war was in progress and thus imperiled their lives. The planters at Port Royal who had abandoned their property certainly looked forward to the restoration of the same and to this end they struggled by force of arms. The freedmen themselves, as well as their northern benefactors under these conditions, lived in fear lest the restored planters should successfully reestablish the old regime. One teacher at Mitchelville on Hilton Head reported one week's work as "eventful." A battle only twelve miles away at Byrd's Point was raging while her school was in session. The cannonading could be heard and the smoke of the burning fields was visible.[68]
There were other difficulties. In view of the fact that the missionaries associated with the freedmen in a way totallyunknown to southern tradition, they were met with social ostracism. It was impossible to obtain boarding accommodations in a native white family and in line with the same attitude the lady teachers were frequently greeted with sneers and insults and a general disregard for the courtesies of polite society. One teacher said: "Gentlemen sometimes lift their hats to us, but the ladies always lift their noses."[69]
Social contact with the Negroes, however, was a necessity.[70]The letter of instruction to teachers from the Pennsylvania Branch contained this rule: "All teachers, in addition to their regular work, are encouraged to interest themselves in the moral, religious and social improvement of the families of their pupils; to visit them in their homes; to instruct the women and girls in sewing and domestic economy; to encourage and take part in religious meetings and Sunday schools."[71]Thus it was that a very large part of the activities of the teachers were what we call "extracurricular." They were not confined to the school room but went from house to house.[72]
The spirit of informality which seemed to pervade the whole work, along with that of the Freedmen's Bureau, moreover, serves to explain in part their misfortune resulting from poor business methods. The reports which Howard and Alvord have left us reveal unusually important facts. Their funds were limited and what monies they did raise were not always judiciously expended. The salaries of the teachers usually ranged from $25 to $50 a month. One society paid $35 a month without board and $20 with board. These salaries, the personal danger, the social ostracism and unhealthy climate, all lead one to feel, however, that the motive behind these pioneering efforts was strictly missionary. Some of the teachers worked without a salary and a few even contributed of their means to further the work.
The campaign of education for the elevation of the freedmen was a product of war time and as such was conducted in the spirit engendered by war conditions. In addition to the purely school exercises of the three R's was the political tenor of the instruction. As staunch Republicans no little allusion was made to "Old Jeff Davis" and the "Rebels." Besides the native songs with which the scholars were so gifted there was frequent singing ofJohn BrownandMarching through Georgia. The Fourth of July and the first of January were carefully observed as holidays. Several of the teachers in the schools and officers of the Freedmen's Bureau—Tomlinson, Cardoza, Jillson, Mansfield, French, and Scott—became office holders in the Negro-carpetbagger government of 1868.
There was another handicap. The Civil War left South Carolina "Shermanized." The story of this invader's wreck of the State is a familiar one. Barnwell, Buford's Bridge, Blackville, Graham's Station (Sato), Midway, Bamberg, and Orangeburg were all more or less destroyed. Three-fifths of the capital was committed to the flames and Charleston, although this city escaped the invader, had been partially burned already in 1861.[73]With millions of dollars in slave property lost, added to the above, the native whites were in no frame of mind to approve this philanthropic effort of the northern teachers. Furthermore, on the question of education the State had no substantial background by which it could encourage any efforts at this time. Free schools had been established prior to the war, but owing to the eleemosynary stigma attached to them and the permissive character of the legislative acts very little had been accomplished for the whites even, in the sense that we understand public education today.[74]
There ran very high the feeling that the Yankees were fostering social equality and that if they were allowed to educate the freedmen the next thing would be to let them vote.[75]Some reasoned that since the North had liberatedthe slaves, it was now its business to care for them. It is safe to say that without the protection of the United States military forces during the first year at least the efforts to enlighten the ex-slaves would have been impossible. The native white attitude, however, appears to have undergone a change from year to year and from locality to locality.
At Orangeburg, the superintendent of education reported that a night school was fired into on one or two occasions, and the attempt to discover the perpetrators of this outrage was without success.[76]A. M. Bigelow, a teacher of a colored school at Aiken, was compelled by curses and threats to leave the town in order to save his life.[77]In the town of Walhalla a school conducted by the Methodist church was taught by a lady from Vermont. A number of white men tried to break it up by hiring a drunken vagabond Negro to attend its sessions and accompany the young lady through the village street. The attempted outrage was frustrated only by the intercession of a northern gentleman. At Newberry, about the same time, a man who was building a school for the freedmen was driven by armed men from the hotel where he was staying and his life threatened. These occurrences the superintendent reported as "specimen" cases.[78]
In other sections of the State where the planters sustained amicable relations to all the functions of the Freedmen's Bureau, there was little opposition to the elevation of the freedmen. In the districts of Darlington, Marion, and Williamsburg there was a fair spirit of cordiality. At Darlington the Yankee editor ofThe New Erain its first edition probably thus expressed the feeling of the community: "Let the excellent work be sustained wherever it shall be introduced and the happiest results will be witnessed."[79]
Charleston and Columbia, despite the wreck of these cities, as already shown, proved to be an open field foreducational endeavor. In the former city where it was no new thing to see the blacks striving for education, the opposition expressed itself in the occupation of the buildings formerly used for the whites.[80]A correspondent ofThe New York Timesreported that in Columbia "the whites extend every possible facility and encouragement in this matter of education."[81]There is one instance of actual initiative in the education of the freedmen in the case of Rev. A. Toomer Porter of the Episcopal Church in Charleston as already mentioned. This gentleman went North to solicit the necessary funds and while there visited Howard and President Johnson. For his purpose the president himself contributed one thousand dollars.[82]For this deedThe Charleston Courierremarked that it was "a much more substantial and lasting token of friendship to the colored race than all the violent harangues of mad fanatics." Finally in enumerating here and there cases of a favorable attitude, Governor Orr's remarks cannot be overlooked. To the colored people at Charleston he said: "I am prepared to stand by the colored man who is able to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. I am prepared to give the colored man the privilege of going to the ballot-box and vote."[83]
The length of service for most of the teachers was one year. In the original Port Royal party of March 3, 1862, several of the party returned home before summer. The American Missionary Association which sent thirty-five teachers to Port Royal reported "eight for a short time only." From these facts it is to be inferred, despite the glowing reports of success, that the teachers met with discouragement and disappointment. Some of them were unfit for their duties and some no doubt committed acts of indiscretion with reference to the relationship of the races.
The difficulties and complications of this movement were a part of the war itself. Calmer moments of reflection which it is ours now to enjoy, however, reveal the great value of the educational efforts of the northern missionaries. Unfortunately, the efforts to uplift were directed to only one race, but in a larger sense the work done has been for the welfare of all. South Carolinians to-day will all pay tribute to the work of Abbey D. Munro, Martha Schofield and Laura M. Towne. These women, with others, gave their lives for the elevation of the Negro race and what they did is merely a representation of that common battle against ignorance and race prejudice. "She (Miss Towne) came to a land of doubt and trouble and led the children to fresh horizons and a clearer sky. The school she built is but the symbol of a great influence; there it stands, making the desert blossom and bidding coming generations look up and welcome ever-widening opportunities. Through it she brought hope to a people and gave them the one gift that is beyond all price to men."[84]
Were the Negroes there in such numbers and condition as to help themselves? South Carolina in 1860 had a white population of 291,300, a slave population of 402,406 and a free colored population of 9,914.[85]Having this large number of slaves, the dominant race in its efforts to maintain control passed its police laws by which the evils of slavery existed there in their worst form. One of these laws was that of 1834 which made it a punishable offense to teach any slave to read and write.[86]This law, however, was often violated and free Negroes and even slaves attended school long enough to develop unusual power.
After generations of oppression the dawn of freedom brought with it a social upheaval. The freedmen now proceeded to taste the forbidden fruit and the people who brought learning to them they received with open arms.[87]The Yankee school master was not only to the freedmen a teacher but his deliverer from bondage. Happily in the enthusiasm of the "late children of oppression" for learning they proved themselves to be not objects of charity but actual supporters and promoters of the educational movement.
It was a principle of some of the societies to open no new school unless a fair proportion of its expenses could be met by the parents of the pupils.[88]There were made various arrangements by which the freedmen could help sustain the schools. In some instances they boarded the teachers and met the incidental expenses of the school while the societies paid the salaries and traveling expenses. In this way nearly one-half of the cost was sustained by them and in some instances nearly two-thirds of it.[89]As the foregoing tables have helped to show in part, in some cases the freedmen met the entire expenses, bought the lot, erected the school house, and paid the salary of the teacher.
During 1866, Tomlinson reported five houses had been built by them and others were under the course of erection. These were located at the following places:
Kingstreesize 20 x 37 ft.Darlingtonsize 30 x 72 ft.Florencesize 35 x 45 ft.Timmonsvillesize 14 x 24 ft.Marionsize 20 x 50 ft.
During 1867 twenty-three school houses were reported to have been built by the freedmen aided by the Freedmen's Bureau and northern societies. For the support of school teachers this year they contributed $12,200. This with $5,000 for school houses made an aggregate of $17,200.[90]The school houses were placed in the hands of trustees selected from among themselves and were to be held permanently for school purposes.[91]
The means by which the freedmen offered their support was not always in cash but in kind. During the early years following the war there was a scarcity of money in circulation. The employers of the blacks, the planters, were themselves unable always to pay in cash, and as a substitute a system of barter grew up.[92]Directing attention to this situation and the general question of self-help, Governor Andrews of Massachusetts, president of the New England Society, sent out the following circular to the freedmen of the South: "The North must furnish money and teachers—the noblest of her sons and daughters to teach your sons and daughters. We ask you to provide for them, wherever possible, school houses and subsistence. Every dollar you thus save us will help to send you another teacher ... you can supply the teachers' homes with corn, eggs, chickens, milk and many other necessary articles.... Work an extra hour to sustain and promote your schools."[93]The value of such labor averaged only about eight dollars a month, but Governor Andrews' recommendation was carried out in so many cases that much good was thereby accomplished.
The campaign of education for the freedmen was temporary in character and was so regarded by the Freedmen's Bureau and the societies. It was merely an effort to place the ex-slaves on their own feet and afterwards it was their task. In line with this policy the Freedmen's Bureau and the military authorities seized every opportunity of instituting self-government among them, especially where they were congregated in large numbers. Such a case was Mitchelville.
Sherman's field order 15 called for the laying aside ofa vast stretch of territory exclusively for the freedmen. In the same manner in 1864 the military officers at Hilton Head laid out a village for them near the officers' camps and introduced measures of self-government. The village was called Mitchelville in honor of General Ormsby Mitchell who had been like a father to the multitude of fifteen hundred or more occupying the village. The place was regularly organized with a Mayor and Common Council, Marshal, Recorder and Treasurer, all black, and all elected by Negroes, except the Mayor and Treasurer. Among the powers of the Common Council, which concern us here, was the compulsory provision that "every child between the ages of six and fifteen years ... shall attend school daily, while they are in session, excepting only in cases of sickness ... and the parents and guardians will be held responsible that said children so attend school, under the penalty of being punished at the discretion of the Council of Administration."[94]We may or may not call this South Carolina's first compulsory school law.
With a view to training teachers from among themselves the northern teachers seized every opportunity to pick out a bright student who would ultimately assume full responsibility. Accordingly, the schools were taught by persons of both races. In addition those Negroes who already had some learning were pressed into service. This arrangement had its obvious disadvantages as well as advantages. The Negro teacher understood the environment and the character and nature of the pupils to a far greater extent than the northern coworker; but, as could be expected, the native teacher was lacking in preparation. As one of the northern journals expressed the situation, the "men and women from the North carry much more than their education. They carry their race, moral training, their faculty, their character, influence of civilization, their ideas, sentiments and principles that characterize northern society."[95]Occasionally native white teachers were employed, but notalways to the satisfaction of either the Yankee teachers or their pupils.
Besides the regular organized schools that came under the control of the Freedmen's Bureau and the societies, the freedmen in their eagerness to learn opened what Alvord styles "native schools" where some man or woman who had just learned to read and write a very little set about for the smallest pittance to teach his neighbors' children. Such teaching, though possibly arising from a commendable spirit, was a travesty on education. The white teachers characterized these native schools "so far as any intelligent result goes" as "worse than useless." They would rather receive "their pupils totally ignorant than with the bad habits of reading, pronunciation and spelling of these schools."[96]However, there were among the Negro teachers a few who deserve special mention as showing signs of an endeavor to help the movement and at the same time may serve as a test of the value of the missionary movement by their northern friends.
Some of the Negro teachers were from the North, as in the case of Charlotte S. Forten already mentioned. There was also Mrs. C. M. Hicks who was sent South by the New York Society and supported by an auxiliary association in Albany. Her school was located at Anderson and contained nearly two hundred pupils. After mentioning the good order and decorum of the school,The Anderson Intelligencer, a local white paper, says: "We were gratified with the proficiency and success attained and trust that they will persevere in their efforts to make better citizens and become more worthy of the high privileges now granted to the race. This school is presided over by a colored female (Mrs. Hicks) ... she is intelligent and capable and devotes all her energies to the school."[97]
At Greenville there was Charles Hopkins who taught a school for the support of which his white neighbors contributed$230. He bought at his own risk the building from the State arsenal and moved it two miles on a piece of ground which he had leased for one year. The school opened with about two hundred scholars among whom were "boys and girls with rosy cheeks, blue eyes and flaxen hair, though lately slaves, mingled with the black and brown faces."[98]A visitor characterized the school as having "good order, rapid progress in learning and a great deal more." After supporting the school as long as possible Hopkins was relieved by the Freedmen's Bureau which assumed the responsibility he had incurred, and he was further aided by the accession of three additional teachers. His salary was contributed by the New York Branch. Frank Carter at Camden was making similar efforts during this period.
Down on Hilton Head at Mitchelville in connection with the Port Royal experiment there was Lymus Anders, a full-blooded African, who, prior to the coming of the northern teachers, was unable to read and write. Although fifty years old and having a family, he managed to learn to read by having one of the teachers give him lessons at night and at odd intervals. He was enterprising and after only a year or two had managed to save four or five hundred dollars. He bought land at the tax sales; and, in the efforts of his people at Mitchelville to have churches and schools, he succeeded in erecting a church and a school house with help from the whites and Negroes. The building cost nearly $350 and in time there was added a teachers' home. The school was taught by ladies from Northampton, Massachusetts, who always had the cooperation and assistance of Anders. They characterized him as a "black Yankee," not very moral or scrupulous, but a man who led all the others of his race in enterprise and ambition.[99]
Ned Lloyd White, who had picked up clandestinely a knowledge of reading while still a slave, was an assistant to two ladies at St. Helena, who had a school of ninety-twopupils made up largely of refugees from a neighboring island. Likewise engaged was "Uncle Cyrus," a man of seventy, who, in company with one Ned, assembled one hundred and fifty children in two schools and taught them the best they could until teachers were provided by the relief societies.[100]
The brightest light among the Negro teachers was F. L. Cardoza. He was a native of Charleston and received his primary and common school education there under the instruction of the free Negroes of that city. Being unable at his own expense to pursue his studies at home as far as he desired, he attended the University of Glasgow. He returned to Charleston and became a leader in the educational affairs of the city immediately at the close of the war. He was employed by the American Missionary Association and became principal of the Saxton School, later known as Avery Institute. In conformity with his classical training, he offered his advanced pupils languages and in time they were ready for Howard University in Washington. There were some four thousand children in the city of school age. Seeing the need of a permanent graded school system supported by public taxation, he used his influence to bring about this result. With regard to this project Governor Orr said: "I heartily approve of the scheme of Mr. Cardoza to educate thoroughly the colored children of Charleston.... I am satisfied he will devote himself to the work earnestly and faithfully, and merits, and should receive the confidence of the public in his laudable undertaking." Other public officials spoke in the same vein. One of the northern teachers said of him: "He is the right man in the right place and I am very thankful that it has fallen my lot to be placed under him."[101]
Most of the work of the Bureau and the societies as already shown was temporary in character and perhapsrightly so. In Howard's own words, "it was but a beginning—a nucleus—an object lesson." Not more than one-sixth of the total black population of school age was reached. The movement only inaugurated a system of educational pioneering in the benighted South. Scientific data as to exactly what was accomplished unfortunately cannot be obtained owing to the inaccuracy of the Freedmen's Bureau reports. For example, in the report of July 1, 1868, the superintendent gives a total of sixty-two schools in operation with an additional "estimated" number of 451. Again, the amount of work done by the separate individual societies does not always tally with the reports of the Freedmen's Bureau.
Notwithstanding the fact that the efforts put forth failed to reach our modern ideal of the education of all the people, yet the movement did accomplish at least these three things: (1) By penetrating almost every county or district in the State, the schools served to awaken the Negroes to the need of education and to demonstrate to all persons that it was practicable to educate them; (2) it led up to the establishment of the public schools and left for this system material equipment in the form of school buildings and furniture; and (3), greatest of all, the combined efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau and the societies left the State with institutions of higher grade—the principal source of teachers for the common schools.
Luther P. Jackson