Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 73

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II > Part 73

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"In monarchical governments, the heir to the throne is edu- cated at the public expense. Why should not the same care be taken in republics to communicate at least the elements of knowl- edge to those who are to become the rulers of their destinies. The means of a plain practical education should be ex- tended to every free child in the country, cost what it may. I recommend to the legislature the adoption, as early as possible, of an effective Common School System. Until the estab- lishment of a general system of common school education, it would be but vain ostentation in the State to build up seminaries for in- struction in the higher branches of learning."

J. H. Ingraham wrote in 1835: "The education of young chil- dren on plantations is much neglected. Many boys and girls, whose parents reside five or ten miles from any town or academy, and do not employ tutors, grow up to the age of eight or ten, un- able either to read or write. . Two-thirds of the planters" children of this State are educated out of it. There is annually a. larger sum carried out of the State, for the education of children at the north, and in the expenses of parents in making them yearly visits there, than would be sufficient to endow an institution.

Their own institutions are neglected and soon fall into decay."

The auditor reported in 1836 that the literary and seminary funds . had been invested in over one thousand shares of Planters bank stock, which could be disposed of for more than $100,000. The Literary fund came to an end in the collapse of the bank, and the act of 1839, which appropriated fines and forfeitures in the several counties, to certain academies therein. See Academies and Col- leges.

The census of 1840 showed 8,273 pupils in the 396 primary and common schools, 2,480 in the 71 academies, and 454 in the 8 col- leges. The Pray code (never adopted) provided for an annual school tax. "I consider this tax essential to the establishment of the system," said Governor McNutt in 1840. "Those who enjoy the protection of the laws are bound to contribute their share of the expenses necessary to their enforcement. The State is bound, by the highest obligations of duty and patriotism, to educate all her children. . The legislature that establishes a system of free schools, where every child, rich and poor, can obtain knowl-

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edge at the same fountain, free of charge, will be immortalized in the annals of the State."

Governor Tucker gave a great part of his last message, 1844, to discussion of this subject. He suggested the propriety of alter- ing "the system (if it can be called a system as it now exists in this state) and of remedying the crying evil of neglecting the edu- cation of the youth of the State." He recommended the estab- lishing of a free primary school in each township, for at least six months in the year, to be supported by the school land fund and taxation. He pleaded with great earnestness for the favorable con- sideration of his plan, which was a wise and practical one. Gov. A. G. Brown made the promotion of common schools one of the main efforts of his administration, beginning in 1844, and at his instance Judge James S. B. Thatcher, who had been reared in Boston, devised a scheme of popular education which was pub- lished throughout the State in the fall of 1845. The subject was discussed upon the stump, both parties demanding a school sys- tem, but differing somewhat in the method of support. The legis- lature responded in 1846 with "An act to establish a System of Common Schools," which provided for a board of five school com- missioners in each county, to license teachers and have charge of schools, lease the school lands and have charge of the school fund in each county, which fund should include a special tax not to ex- ceed the State tax, for common school purposes, also all fines, forfeitures, liquor and other licenses. The secretary of state was made ex-officio General School Commissioner of the State. But there was added to the clause permitting a special tax a proviso that the consent of the majority of resident heads of families in each township should be given in writing before the tax could be levied. This destroyed the efficacy of the law as the establishment of a general policy. In his message of 1848, Governor Brown asked the legislature to immediately repeal the law and adopt one more in accordance with his recommendations. He also alluded to the necessity of a State normal school. The legislature found it im- possible to require a local tax in all counties. For Hinds and six other counties a law was enacted providing for a county superin- tendent and a local tax of one-fourth of the general State tax. An act repealing the consent proviso of the law of 1846 was passed with an amendment making it apply only to Clark, Jasper, Lau- derdale, Harrison, Hancock and Copiah. Marshall, Adams, Chick- asaw, Lafayette and Tippah were given a sort of "pauper" school system. As for Lowndes, and fifteen other counties, the law of 1846 was repealed and former laws revived. "The educational movement of that period is a curious study. The carping criticism and the generous indulgence, the pessimistic forecasting and the wide-eyed faith, the short-sighted temporizing and the far-reaching provision, all were most strikingly exhibited; but the universal innocence among both foes and friends of all just conception of the cost of the movement in dollars and cents is wonderful." (Edward Mayes.)

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In 1850 Governor Matthews, in transmitting the report of the secretary of state, ex-officio general school commissioner, said, "It will be perceived that the results of the common school system adopted by the legislature of 1846, if not a total failure, has fallen far short of the expectations of its friends. If we intend to perform our duty to ourselves, to our country, and to posterity, we must abandon a half-way, temporizing policy; and I recom- mend . to supply any deficit that may be required to carry out a general system of common school education, a tax upon the persons and property of all the citizens of the State."

Again at the session of 1850 special acts were passed for a large number of counties, the general effect of which was to destroy the system. It was practically impossible to tell what the school law of the State was, if such a thing could be said to be. In 1850 and 1851 the secretary of state received reports from only three coun- ties. Yet this was an important point in the scheme of the law of 1846. In this way the public school system ran on until the war brought a hiatus in social organization. The legislature of 1859-60 passed no less than twenty-six local acts regarding edu- cation. Yet in some places, perhaps in many, where public senti- ment supported the schools, they were doing good work, and the special legislation showed interest, at least.

In 1860 there were 1,116 public schools in Mississippi, attended by 30,970 pupils, according to the statement of Joseph Bardwell, state superintendent in 1876.

The war of 1861-65 was an interregnum in education as in other civil functions. When peace returned the number of children de- manding education was more than doubled by the emancipation of the negro race. Having launched this race into citizenship, the Northern people and the United States government attempted to provide extraordinary facilities for its education, old and young alike. The movement began with a school at Corinth soon after the Union occupation in 1862. "The American Missionary society, the Freedmen's Aid society, and the Society of Friends had estab- lished schools about Vicksburg before the close of the war. Upon the organization of the Freedmen's bureau, a more systematic and comprehensive plan of negro education was undertaken. Joseph Warren, chaplain of a negro regiment, was appointed superintend- ent of freedmen's schools for the State at large. These schools were under military supervision, and benevolent associations sup- plied them with books, and in many cases furnished clothing to the students." (Garner.) At the close of the war there were such educational institutions, with 60 teachers, and about 4,500 students, about Vicksburg and Natchez and at the Davis Bend colony. By 1869 there were 81 negro schools in the State, with 105 teachers, 40 of whom were colored, and a normal school for their instruc- tion.

The tendency of the reconstruction period was, of course, to bring into existence such a system of public education as had been evolved by experience in the white-settled States of the West.

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There was a meeting of the teachers of the State in Jackson, Janu- ary 17, 1867, that recommended a "uniform system" of education, and normal schools for the preparation of colored teachers for their own race. The constitutional convention of 1868 met this demand by adopting an article of ten sections, a complete State system in outline, which should forever put an end to the system of local neglect. (See Constitution of 1869.)

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, 1870-74; T. W. Cardoza, 1874-76 ; Thomas S. Gathright, April to September, 1876; Joseph Bardwell, 1876-78 ; 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."

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Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 73

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032