Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II, Part 74

Author: Dunbar Rowland
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant
Number of Pages: 1020

USA > Mississippi > Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II > Part 74

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According to Governor Alcorn (App. Senate Journal, 1870, 15) to put Mississippi in the average educational condition of the States, at that time, would require the employment of 6,000 teachers, and about 4,000 school houses, at a cost for buildings and sites of $3,000,000. The annual cost would be $1,700,000 paid by local taxes, and $405,000 by State taxes, in all, over $2,000,000 an- nually.

The first legislature under the constitution of 1869 adopted the school law of July 7, 1870, an elaborate statute framed to carry out in detail the educational plan of the constitution. Each county in the State, and each city of over 5,000, was made a school dis- trict, in which free public schools were to be maintained for at least four months in the year, under the supervision of a board of school directors.

A protest against this bill, because it would prove so burden- some as to excite the prejudice of the people, alienate their sym- pathies, and prevent the cooperation of all good citizens necessary to success, was spread on the records by Senators H. M. Paine, Stephen Johnson, H. L. Duncan, T. J. Hardy, W. T. Stricklin and T. W. Castle.

At the beginning of his administration (1870) Gov. Alcorn said in a special message, that the creation of schools of a higher grade, authorized by the constitution, should be interpreted as authority for the immediate establishment of one normal school for the edu- cation of the higher class of teachers. "One normal school we cannot dispense with, even at the very outset of one educational system," and he believed the most urgent need was by the colored teachers. During the administrations of Governors Alcorn, Powers and Ames, one State normal school for whites was maintained at Holly Springs, and one for negroes at Tougaloo. (q. v.) Holly Springs normal was established in 1870; the Tougaloo normal was organized in October, 1871. Governor Alcorn took a deep interest in the framing of the law, and particularly urged that county su- perintendents should be elected by the people of the counties. Instead, the State board of education was given the power of ap- pointment, greatly to the detriment of the school system, for in some cases strangers were sent to take these offices, exciting grave prejudice. Governor Powers, in 1872, remonstrated against the diversion of school funds to "costly school-houses, elegantly fur- nished and supplied with libraries and apparatus," and declared that many of the teachers employed were "totally unfit," some "disqualified on account of immoral habits."

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The first distribution of the common school fund (q. v.) in 1872, of $82,000, was mainly the poll tax of 1870. It was reported in 1874 that the common school fund principal amounted to $1,950,- 000. The interest on this was available annually. The total revenue accruing to the fund was $616,000 and the revenue from capitation and special county taxes was $602,000. There was, however, no such fund in actual existence.

The amount expended for schools, including normals, and ex- penditures of all kinds, was estimated at $492,500. To every school law the objection was made that it was too expensive. In this case the law was made by recent white immigrants or perhaps transient residents, on the model of what had grown up through many years of adjustment in thickly settled and wealthy States. The preju- dice against it was necessarily great. The people were very poor, as the result of war; the simplest system for the education of white children alone would have been burdensome, but under the new regime the negro children also were to be educated at public ex- pense. There was even prejudice excited by the efforts to replace the old log schoolhouses with frame houses. In education as in other matters the unnatural forcing of progress created trouble. One of the effects was to greatly increase the salaries of teachers, because, for freedmen's schools especially, only Northerners could be persuaded to undertake the work. It was put in evidence before the Congressional committee that in Lowndes county, 26 school houses were furnished free, 14 were rented by the county, and six were built or purchased. The expenditure for white school houses was $8,000, for colored, $1,250. No furniture was bought except for white schools, total less than $3,000. On the petitions of citi- zens the board also purchased three buildings of high order for school houses, payment to be made in 1871 of $6,600. Total teachers, white, 47, colored, 9; in black schools 25, in white 31; aggregate salaries in white schools, $14,190; in black schools, $6,200. A county tax of $21,000 was to be levied in 1871. The pauper tax at the same time was $11,000. Of the local debt to the Chickasaw school fund, $13,000 had been paid during the war in Confederate money ; most of the notes unpaid were worthless. The Chickasaw fund interest received by the county had been used as a police fund during the war.

There was an impression that the Northern immigrants pro- posed to mingle the races, but "when it became evident that there was no intention of establishing mixed schools, much of the oppo- sition wore away."

Superintendent Pease reported that in the first year of recon- struction more than 3,000 free schools were opened, with an attendance of 66,257 pupils. "Of the 3,600 teachers employed, all except 369. were white. Five hundred school sites had been do- nated and 200 buildings erected by private subscription. The total expenditures for the year were $869,766, a greater amount

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than all the other State expenditures. This burden might have been much lighter, had it not been for the mismanagement of the school funds prior to the war. More than $1,000,000 of the Six- teenth section funds, to say nothing of the Seminary and Chick- asaw funds, were lost through poor management before 1860." (Garner.) The educational expenditures were really small, for such a State as Mississippi, but conditions made it burdensome, and there was "some foundation for the general outcry against the alleged plunder of the school funds," said Governor Alcorn.

"When the reconstructionists surrendered the government to the Democracy, in 1876, the public school system which they had fathered had become firmly established, its efficiency increased, and its administration somewhat less expensive than at first. There does not seem to have been any disposition upon the part of the Democrats to abolish it or impair its efficiency. On the other hand, they kept their promise to the negroes, made provisions for continuing the system, and guaranteed an annual five months term instead of four, as formerly. Moreover the cost of main- taining the schools was very largely reduced, and the administra- tion decentralized and democratized, thereby removing what had been a strong obstacle to peace and good order. And thus the system of public education, unpopular at first, on account of the circumstances surrounding its establishment, has grown in favor with the people, until to-day it is the chief pride of the common- wealth, and is destined to be the chief means of solving the great problem which the Civil war left as a legacy to the white race." (Garner's Reconstruction.)

In 1875 a constitutional amendment was adopted requiring the proceeds of the sale of lands forfeited for taxes, and proceeds of fines and liquor licenses, to be collected in United States currency, · and distributed among the schools, pro rata to the educable children. This resulted in some benefit from the so-called school fund. The legislature of 1876 made some sweeping changes and cut the Teachers' fund tax in half. In 1878 a general common school law was passed. Part of the legislation of 1878 was for the especial benefit of certain high schools, which legislation, however, the supreme court later declared unconstitutional.

The common school system remained for a long time hardly more than a system. The pressing problem for twenty years after the close of the war was the question of bread and meat, and next was the problem of the two races. Of late a great prosperity has dawned upon the State, and vastly more than ever before its re- sources are being utilized in such a manner that the profits inure to the benefit of the inhabitants generally. But the problem of two races remained very troublesome because the former indiffer- ence toward adequate public provision for common education was reflected in the public attitude on the subject of negro education ; also very troublesome and burdensome because school-houses, teachers, and every expense of education, must be duplicated : also because "the problem of raising and distributing the school rev-

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enues is rendered complex by reason of the uneven distribution of the races-the negro population being densely aggregated in the rich counties." In 1882 the legislature created a fund for the building of school houses, to be distributed when it reached $15,000. This was increased in 1888 by the appropriation thereto of the receipts from the Two and Three per cent. funds, donated by the United States, which gave about $80,000 for school-house build- ing. This led to the erection of about 500 new school-houses. Some counties wilfully misappropriated the money. Monroe added to her share and built 41 houses.

According to the reports of Superintendent Preston the defect of the original system was that it permitted in practice too many schools, although the law required them to be three miles apart. "The education of the children was overlooked, in the zeal to get a school located for a particular teacher, who resided in the neigh- borhood and needed a support." The legislature was called on to authorize counties by special tax to pay indebtedness thus incurred. Hinds county, with an annual school fund of $31,000, was bur- dened with a debt of $65,000 in two years, in this manner. The pay of teachers was too small to obtain competent ones. Then one of the incidents of the revolution of 1875-76 was the practical abolition of the county superintendency, leaving the schools with- out supervision and inspection. "Here we struck a great blow to the progress of public education. The State was yearly spending three-quarters of a million of dollars, with no agents to see how it was spent, or whether the children were receiving an education." Also, "it became the practice to divide the four months school into two terms of two months each," on the plea that children could not be spared four months continuously. "The claim when made means simply this: that our people must make slaves of their children, that they must rob them of the opportunity to be- come intelligent citizens a claim unworthy of the sacred ties of parentage and of intelligent citizenship in the State." In a decade and a half the State spent nearly $15,000,000 for free schools. "It must be conceded by any fair minded man that it has been largely squandered," said Mr. Preston, "producing inadequate results, doled out month by month to indigent and incompetent school teachers who were placed in charge of the most sacred inter- ests of the commonwealth, in many instances without even the semblance of a test as to their capacity and fitness."

In 1884 Superintendent Smith reported: "It is with regret that I have to state that Mississippi, in my opinion, is behind most of her sister States in the qualification and efficiency of her public- school teachers. And this I attribute to the absence of schools devoted to the teaching and training of teachers. Mississippi is the only State in the Union where normal schools are not estab- lished for qualifying white teachers for our public schools. We have a normal school for the education and training of colored teachers at Holly Springs, and I am of the opinion that it is doing good work. But we have not a school in the State, supported

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wholly or in part by the State, for the advancement of our white teachers." In 1890, when there had not yet been added to the curriculum of the State university instruction in teaching, Super- intendent Preston reported that ten of the best educational towns in the State had employed principals at salaries of from $850 to $1,500 a year. "Not a single Mississippian was selected. These towns wanted professionally trained men-the State could not furnish them."

"For the first fifteen years-from 1870 to 1885-the public schools, like a transplanted tree, manifested a low degree of vitality. The idea of popular education was combated openly and covertly, but it won its way steadily and gained vital force year by year. This increased strength was not manifested to any great degree in the quality of the schools. It showed itself rather in the assaults made on the schools because of their inefficiency, and in the annual changes in the law which prevented organic growth. The schools were kept pretty much without plan. What one legislature en- acted the next modified or repealed. A crisis was reached in 1886, and the legislature of that year made a complete revision of the school law. The prominent new features of the law thus revised were: uniform school examinations; a new system of school dis- tricts; institutes for teachers; visitation of the schools by the county superintendent ; requiring the superintendent to fix salaries according to the size of the school, the grade of license held and the executive and teaching capacity of the teachers; granting to smaller towns the privilege of becoming separate school districts and of levying a tax or issuing bonds to build school houses ; pro- visions for the prompt payment of teachers' salaries." (Report of Supt. Preston, 1895.)

Before this law went into effect almost any one who applied was licensed to teach. At the first State examination 70 per cent. of the applicants fell below grade. But improvement soon followed, in the midst of violent remonstrance. Prior to 1887 the schools were run on the credit system, the taxes being collected at the end of the year, and teachers' salaries were discounted. Since then the schools have been on a cash basis.

By the terms of the constitution of 1890 the sixteenth section lands are forever withheld from sale; the rate of interest on the Chickasaw school fund and other trust funds for education is fixed at six per cent., the maintenance of the A. & M. college and Alcorn college is declared to be a sacred trust ; "separate schools shall be maintained for children of the white and colored races;" to the language of the constitution of 1868 was added, "nor shall any funds be appropriated towards the support of any sectarian school." Since 1892 the "Common School Fund" (q. v.) is an an- nual appropriation of the poll tax of $2 collected in each county, and an additional sum from the general fund in the State treasury, which together shall be sufficient to maintain the common schools for the term of four months in each scholastic year. Any county

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or separate school district is permitted to levy an additional tax to maintain its schools for a longer time.

There is a State Board of Education, composed of the secretary of State, superintendent of public education and the attorney-gen- eral. This board was originally authorized to appoint a superin- tendent of public education in each county, with the approval of the senate, for a term of four years, but in most counties the office is now elective. The State Superintendents of Public Education have been: Henry R. Pease, 1870-64; T. W. Cardoza, 1874-76; Thomas S. Gathright, April to September, 1876; Joseph Bardwell, 1876-18; James A. Smith, 1878-86; James R. Preston, 1886-96; A. A. Kincannon, 1896-98; Henry L. Whitfield, 1898 to the present. In January, 1890, Superintendent Preston reported the numbers of educable children as 191,792 white; 272,682 colored. Number enrolled in public schools, 148,435 and 173,552 of each race. Aver- age daily attendance, 90,716 and 101,710 of each race. The State Teachers' association had been revived, teachers had met in 1,954 institutes in the year, there had been an increase of over 800 in the annual building of school-houses ; 600 frame school-houses had been built in the rural districts. Said the report, "An era of im- provement has manifestly begun ; though we are yet far from real- izing the final aims of a great State system."

In 1892 the school law was amended to require an annual county institute of five days, for each race, in each county. The State board of education organized a system of instruction at these in- stitutes ; which Chancellor Payne reported in 1893 was a typical one. It included a special training school at Oxford for the insti- tute conductors.

Superintendent Preston reported for 1892-93 that the total re- ceipts for education were $1,392,000, of which two-thirds was from State taxation. The receipts from the congressional land funds were about $80,000, from county levies, $66,386. The expendi- tures for the common schools were $1,192,844, equivalent to a levy of $7 on the thousand, much less than in the Northwest, but first in the South, and eighth among the States of the Union. The in- crease in population from 1880 to 1890 was less than 14 per cent., but the increase in school enrollment was 20 per cent., and in ex- penditures 50 per cent. As to average attendance, Mississippi had 1.775 children in average attendance while Indiana had 1,690. But in length of school term Mississippi had 51/4 months while the average in the United States was seven months.

Under the administration of Superintendent Smith five teachers' institutes were held in 1879, at Jackson, Brookhaven, Meridian, Okolona and Winona. aided by a contribution of $1,000 from the Peabody fund, by which Maj. Jed Hotchkiss, of Virginia, and Prof. H. H. Smith, of Texas, were secured as instructors. This was the beginning of the teachers' institutes in Mississippi. They were provided for in later State laws.

In 1891 a memorial signed by Bishop Galloway, Dr. Sproles, Major Millsaps, and other prominent citizens, was forwarded to

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the trustees of the Peabody institute asking that the State be re- instated as a beneficiary of the fund, having been dropped because the State had repudiated the old bank bonds in which the fund had considerable investments. In 1892, the trustees of the fund resolved to readmit Mississippi and Florida. Since then the fund has sustained the summer normal schools. There were nearly a thousand teachers in attendance on these schools in 1893, marking a new era.

In 1893 there were 58 town or city school districts maintaining advanced schools, and besides these 233 proprietary high schools, academies and colleges, with an attendance of nearly 23,000, and the five State institutions, with 1,300 students.

In 1894 Dr. J. L. M. Curry, general agent of the Peabody fund, visited the legislature, and his appeal resulted in the appropriation of $1,500 to support summer normals, whereupon he increased the Peabody donation to $3,000 a year. Colored teachers were amply provided for in 1894.

Superintendent Preston's summary of the first ten years under the law of 1886 showed an increase of nearly 70,000 in enrollment, and of 29 days in the length of session; an increase of over 1,000 in teachers ; 2,400 school houses built, besides 48 in the town dis- tricts ; an increase of 70 per cent. in revenue; establishment of county institutes with 4,000 attendants; summer normals with 2,000 attendants; departments of pedagogy in two State institu- tions ; a great elevation of professional spirit among the teachers.

The separate districts are an important feature. They maintain schools that include primary and high school education. They be- gan under the law of 1870 providing for cities of 5,000 inhabitants, but the privilege was gradually extended. There were eighty of these districts in 1902. The girls' school at Brandon is the Female college, established by Miss F. A. Johnson in 1865; the Columbus school is the Franklin academy; the Natchez school was estab- lished in 1845, mainly through the efforts of Alvarez Fisk; the Summit school is a Peabody school, formerly receiving $1,000 a year from that fund; the Vicksburg school was opened in 1845, with the famous author, Dr. J. G. Holland, as its principal about 1850; nearly all the districts maintain separate schools for colored children, the Natchez building for that purpose costing $30,000, and several of the schools are provided with valuable libraries and apparatus, the Meridian school having a library of 5,000 volumes.

In Superintendent Whitfield's report for 1901-3 he said: "As a rule our terms are too short, the compensation received by our teachers for a year's work is too small for them to make the prep- arations to be skilled in their work, and our schoolhouses in the main are uncomfortable and poorly equipped. As long as we have four and five months school sessions and pay our teachers $25 or $30 a month, or $125 to $130 for a year's work, out of which they must pay their board, etc., we cannot hope to have those teachers with that training necessary to make them quali- fied to give our children the training they so much need.

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There is only one other State besides Mississippi that has failed to make some provision for the training of the great mass of its rural teachers. One of the greatest needs of the State at this time is a number of well-distributed free rural high schools. Under our present laws public high schools can be maintained only in the towns, and I am glad to report that practically all of our town schools have moderately well-equipped high school departments but less than 10 per cent. of the children of the State live within the bounds of these districts. . I am satisfied that every member of the legislature will agree with me when I say that the school-houses of Mississippi in the main are a disgrace to the State. Reference to the statistics contained in this report will show that over 50 per cent. of the children enrolled are in average at- tendance ; the reason why the average attendence is not better is that the houses are uncomfortable, both in winter and summer. Something should be done to make more effec- tive the office of county superintendent. As it is now, the salary is so small that competent men cannot be secured for their full time. . .

. As is known to your honorable body the public school curriculum is one of the very lowest in the United States." Superintendent Whitfield argued forcibly that only through edu- cation of the people could it be expected that the profits arising from the recent great increase in development would remain in, and benefit the State. He noted the success in 1903 of the summer school for teachers at the State university, attended by over 800. This summer school was begun in 1893, and considerably developed in 1900-02 through the generosity of Mrs. Fanny J. Ricks, of Yazoo City, and in 1903 the General Education Board (Peabody fund) donated $2,500 to duplicate what was donated by the University, the State superintendent, and the $2,000 from Mrs. Ricks. The resources of the State appropriation and the Peabody fund permit- ted an extension of most county institutes to two weeks. A com- mittee appointed by the State Teachers' association had made an exhaustive report covering every phase of the subject of public education. The State Superintendent, aided by several prominent educators and citizens had made a campaign for better education, and a livelier sentiment was reported. "Over thirty counties are now levying taxes for longer school terms and better schools." Under the present law this tax has to be levied every year in order to give permanence to the school systems of the various counties," and this local tax, voted by the people, could not exceed the max- imum fixed by the legislature.

In his last report the superintendent says: "During the last few years the State has made substantial progress in an educational way; yet, in length of terms, preparation of teachers, curriculum, houses and equipments, we are far behind the more progressive States and countries. . . In some sections of the State public sentiment has not yet advanced to the point where it recognizes that the school interests are the paramount interests of the State. . The problem of our schools is the supply of teachers."

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He again strongly urged the establishment of a normal college, particularly adapted to the needs of the country districts, and the peculiar conditions of the State, and the promotion of rural high schools, specifically at least an agricultural high school to carry out the work of the experiment stations.

The enrollment of the school year 1904-05 was 169,507 white, 205,601 colored, (outside of the separate districts) with an average attendance of 93,375 white and 110,686 colored. In the separate districts the enrollment was 29,796 white, 18,837 colored, average attendance 20,806 white, 10,353 colored. Total for State, 199,293 white, 224,438 colored, average attendance 114,781 white, 121,039 colored. There are 4,188 white schools taught outside of the separ- ate districts, and 2,892 for negro children. One thousand teachers are employed in the separate districts, and 8,330 outside. The average monthly salary of white teachers in the separate districts is $54; in the other districts, $36; of colored teachers a little over half the same. Average length of school term in separate districts 165 days, in others 129. The expenditure for education, outside of the separate districts, is about $7 for each white child and $2 for each negro child; in the separate districts, $12.75 for each white child and $3.50 for each negro child.

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Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II, Part 74

Author: Dunbar Rowland Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant Number of Pages: 1020

Author: Dunbar Rowland
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant
Number of Pages: 1020