The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920. Various

the rural districts with more or less success. One graduate of Tuskegee seems to have met with unusual success in Hinds County, Mississippi.36 The Negroes in this community outnumber the white population seven to one, but out of 40,000 of the inhabitants 13,000 can neither read nor write. In five years this graduate has built up an industrial school with a farm of 1,500 acres, three large and eleven small buildings, one large plantation house and thirty farm houses. The school property is valued at $75,000, and he has started an endowment fund in order to make the work permanent. In Macon County, Alabama, improvements have been rapid. In five years' time through the influence of a changed school system the value of the land has risen from $2 an acre to $15 and $20. It is reported that crime has been reduced to a negligible quantity. At the last sitting of the grand jury there were only 17 cases of all kinds.37 The "Rising Star" School in West Virginia through a change in teacher and curriculum has affected the community in as equally astonishing manner. Not only are the homes of the farmers improved, but the number of land-owning citizens has also increased. Even the religion preached has been greatly changed with the introduction of industrial training.38 There is one school fund which is for the purpose of improving rural conditions, that is the Jeanes Fund amounting to $1,000,000, the interest on which is to be used for the rural schools in supplying competent teachers as supervisors to introduce industrial training. The influence of this fund together with the influence of Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes seems to be the hope of the future for the rural districts.

      In the matter of secondary education, high schools for the Negroes are practically lacking. In Atlanta with a Negro population of 51,902 Negroes; in Savannah with 33,246; and in Augusta with 18,344, there are no Negro high schools whatsoever.39 The following table shows the distribution of the 156 high schools for Negroes40 (1913):

      The increase in the number of high schools in the Southern States from year to year is shown by the following:41

      Apparently there is no effort in the South to supply high schools for the Negro. The General Assembly of Georgia passed a bill to establish high schools in all of the congressional districts of the State. Eleven were established and supported by a fertilizer tax, most of which was paid by the Negroes who numbered 45.1 per cent of the population of the State, and 80 per cent of whom lived in the rural districts. None of these schools, however, were for members of the Negro race.42

      The founding of the two most important industrial schools has been mentioned before. Hampton Institute which was founded by the American Missionary Society in 1868 now consists of 113 buildings, including the instructors' cottages.43 76 of these buildings were erected by student labor. There are 120 acres to the Home Farm and 600 acres to Shellbanks, six miles from the Institute. The enrollment in 1910 was 875, or 1,399 including the Normal Practice School. Tuskegee Institute which began with one hoe and a blind mule now possesses 2,000 acres of land, 800 of which are cultivated each year by the young men of the school. During 1903, 33 trades were taught to over 1,400 men and women. By means of this work, the students pay more than one half of their expenses. Of the sixty buildings, all but four were almost wholly erected by students, even to the making of the bricks.44 Although the average Negro was greatly antagonistic regarding this training at the beginning of the work at these institutes and many protests were heard from all sides, Mr. Washington stated in The Negro Problem that it has been several years since they have received a protest from parents against teaching industrial training.45 The graduates of Tuskegee have established more than fifteen similar schools in the South.46 Among those established are Voorhees Industrial School, Robert Hungerford School, Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute, Topeka Normal and Industrial Institute, Port Royal Agricultural School, and Mt. Meigs Institute.

      No one of the Negro institutions for higher learning has as yet become a fully equipped university. No one of the institutions maintains a graduate school. Howard University is the only one that has even started graduate work.47 The real influence of the college has been to prepare men to be leaders in education, as may be witnessed by the fact that out of the 5,000 Negro college graduates in the United States 54 per cent are teaching, while 20 per cent are preaching.48 The following table shows the number of college graduates by decades:49

      The distribution of the college Negro is indicated in the following:50

      103 of these graduates were born in the North, 65 or 63 per cent of whom remained in the North and 35 or 34 per cent migrated to the South; 682 of these were born in the South, 102 or 15 per cent of whom went to the North, and 563 or 82.5 per cent remained in the South. This shows that the tendency of the college graduate is to remain in the South where he is most needed.

      Of the graduates of 107 colleges which are not Negro institutions 79.2 per cent or 549 have been men, and 20.8 per cent or 144 have been women. Of 2,964 graduates of 34 Negro colleges, 82.7 per cent have been men and 17.3 have been women.51 This difference may be due to a greater economic standard of the Negro in the North, since the colleges admitting Negroes which are not Negro institutions would be in the North, and to the fact that more Negroes would be located near educational institutions in the North than they would be in the South.

      From another report the average age for the women graduates was 21-1/3 years, and the average for the men was 22-3/16 years. There seems to be a tendency of the age to increase, as shown by the following:52

      Of the 24 graduates reported 16 were under 35, and one was over 50.

      Of 799 graduates 67.3 per cent of the males were married, and 31.1 per cent of the females were married. Among these graduates there are only two cases of divorce, one man and one woman. The ages at which they married were for the men between 25 and 34 and for the women between 20 and 29. The families averaged four children. The death rate among the children has not equalled one child per family.53

      Statistics taken in 1913 of 258 schools show the college students to be only 4.1 per cent of the entire number of Negroes in schools. If the college graduate were in proportion to the population their number would be about five times as great as it is at present.54

      The Negroes have contributed in all lines to a large extent toward their own education. Since 1865 religious and philanthropic associations have contributed $57,000,000 and the Negroes by direct contributions have supplied $24,000,000.55 In 1869 in one year the Negroes raised $200,000 for the construction of school houses. A report from a State Superintendent of Schools of Florida stated that in the Black Belt Counties the Negro schools cost $19,457 and the direct and indirect contributions on the part of the Negroes amounted to $23,984. There were $4,527 remaining which was used for the benefit of the white schools.56 It is thought on the part of some that the Negro, although he may not pay in direct taxes a sum sufficient to provide for his schools, may in reality be paying his full share indirectly. I believe, however, that it is quite safe to say that he probably pays as much for his education as any other poor class of the population, especially so in comparison with some of the immigrant classes. There have

36

Washington, My Larger Education, p. 191.

37

Ibid., p. 152.

38

Ibid., p. 146.

39

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 127.

40

Work, The Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 216.

41

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 129.

42

DuBois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 128.

43

Brawley, The Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 147

44

Washington, The Negro Problem, p. 20.

45

Ibid., p. 22.

46

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 153.

47

Ibid., p. 142.

48

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 145.

49

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 15, p. 45.

50

Ibid., p. 54.

51

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 15, p. 46.

52

Ibid., p. 28.

53

Ibid., p. 57.

54

Work, The Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 229.

55

Work, The Negro Yearbook, p. 235

56

Washington, Working with the Hands, p. 72.