EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO I INTRODUCTION I could make no more fitting introduction to this monograph - dealing with a race which has grown from twenty native Africans imported into the country as chattel slaves in 1619, to fully 10,000,000 of free men, entitled under the federal constitution to all the rights, privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, in 1899- than to reproduce here in part the eloquent remarks of President William McKinley, made at Chicago, October 9, 1899, showing in the fewest possible words the national growth in population, in territory and in material wealth, a growth which has no parallel in the various history of the human race, only comprehending, as it does, a little more than a century of national life. President McKinley said: “On the reverse side of the great seal of the United States, authorized by congress, June 20, 1782, and adopted as the seal of the United States of America after its formation under the Federal constitution, is the pyramid, signifying strength and duration. "The eye over it and the motto allude to the many signal interpositions of Providence in favor of the American cause. The date underneath, 1776, is that of the declaration of independence, and the words under it signify the beginning of a new American era which commences from that date. It is impossible to trace our history since, without feeling that the Providence which was with us in the beginning, has continued to the nation His gracious interposition. When, unhappily, we have been engaged in war He has given us the victory. "Fortunate, indeed, that it can be said we have had no clash of arms which has ended in defeat, and no responsibility resulting from war is tainted with dishonor. In peace we have been signally blessed, and our progress has gone on unchecked and even increasing in the intervening years. In boundless wealth of soil and mine and forest nature has favored us, while all races of men of every nationality and climate have contributed their good blood to make the nation what it is. From 3,929,214 in 1790 our population has grown to upward of 62,000,000 in 1890, and our estimated population to-day made by the governors of the states is 77,803,241. "We have gone from thirteen states to forty-five. We have annexed every variety of territory, from the coral reefs and cocoanut groves of Key West to the icy regions of Northern Alaska — territory skirting the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific and the Arctic and the islands of the Pacific and Carribean sea- and we have extended still further our jurisdiction to the faraway islands in the Pacific. Our territory is more than four times larger than it was when the treaty of peace was signed in 1783. Our industrial growth has been even more phenomenal than that of population or territory. Our wealth, estimated in 1790 at $462,000,000, has advanced to $65,000,000,000. "Education has not been overlooked. The mental and moral equipment of the youth upon whom will in the future rest the responsibilities of government have had the unceasing care of the state and the nation. We expended in 1897-98 in public education, open to all, $202,115,548; for secondary education, $23,474,683; and for higher education for the same period, $30,307,902. The number of pupils enrolled in public schools in 1896-97 was 14,652,492, or more than 20 per cent of our population. Is this not a pillar of strength to the republic? "Our national credit, often tried, has been ever upheld. It has no superior and no stain. The United States has never repudiated a national obligation either to its creditors or to humanity. It will not now begin to do either. It never struck a blow except for civilization, and has never struck its colors. Has the pyramid lost any of its strength? Has the republic lost any of its virility? Has the self governing principle been weakened? Is there any present menace to our stability and duration? "These questions bring but one answer. The republic is sturdier and stronger than ever before. Government by the people has been advanced. Freedom under the flag is more universal than when the Union was formed. Our steps have been forward, not backward. From Plymouth Rock to the Philippines the grand triumphant march of human liberty has never paused. Fraternity and union are deeply imbedded in the hearts of the American people. For half a century before the civil war disunion was the fear of men of all sections. That word has gone out of the American vocabulary. It is spoken now only as an historical memory. North, south, east and west were never so welded together, and while they may differ about internal policies they are all for the Union and the maintenance of the integrity of the flag." II DEVELOPMENT OF POPULAR EDUCATION As the early efforts to educate the Negroes of the sixteen southern states, after the war of the rebellion, in 1865,they were declared no longer to be slaves, but human beings with souls to be saved and intellects to be cultivated, to the end that they might be the better prepared to discharge the serious obligations of manhood and citizenship,— are intimately connected with the development of the common school system of New England, it will be necessary here to describe in as brief a manner as possible the growth of popular education in those states. If this principle of popular education had not been so firmly rooted in the heart and conscience of the people of the New England states by the Pilgrim fathers, the history of education of the Negroes would have been distinctly different and, perhaps, not possible at all. The spirit which actuated these sturdy pioneers from the old world, who have blazed the way for American civil and religious liberty and the development of a system of popular education which has come to permeate the entire republic-forty-five mighty states, each sovereign in all matters of its internal policy was prophesied by Bishop Berkeley, in the lines that follow, which have endeared their author's memory to all lovers of education and liberty in America: The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lands now waits a better time In happy climes, where from the genial sun In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where Nature guides and virtue rules, There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire and of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage, * The wisest heads and noblest hearts. * Westward the course of Empire takes its way; The first four acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day. Our country is now divided into four distinct groups of states - the New England, the middle, the southern and western states- but it can of truth be said that all of them have drawn their theories of education, of theology and statesmanship, from the ten states in the middle and New England group, especially from the latter. The sixteen states in the southern group have not profited so much from this source as the nineteen states in the central and western group, but they have been influenced in a very marked way since the war of the rebellion, and are being more and more influenced now, by the work of New England men and women engaged in the active work of education among the Negroes of the southern states. The development of the common-school principle kept pace with that of the population in New England from the |