CHAPTER XLVIII.

FREEDMEN'S SCHOOLS AND THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU.

By a census taken in June, 1865, there were shown to be 16,509 freedmen in Memphis. Of this number 220 were indigent persons, maintained, not by the city or the Bureau, but by the freed people themselves. During the past three years, colored benevolent societies in Memphis had contributed five thousand dollars towards the support of their own

poor.

There were three thousand pupils in the freedmen's schools. The teachers for these were furnished, here, as elsewhere, chiefly by benevolent societies in the North. Such of the citizens as did not oppose the education of the blacks, were generally silent about it. Nobody said of it, "That is freedom! That is what the Yankees are doing for them!"

Visiting these schools in nearly all the Southern States, I did not hear of the white people taking any interest in them. With the exception of here and there a man or woman inspired by Northern principles, I never saw or heard of a Southern citizen, male or female, entering one of those humble school-rooms. How often, thinking of this indifference, and watching the earnest, Christian labors of that little band of refined and sensitive men and women and girls, who had left cheerful homes in the North and voluntarily exposed themselves to privation and opprobrium, devoting their noblest energies to the work of educating and elevating the despised race, how often the stereotyped phrase occurred to me, "The Southern people were always their best friends!

The wonder with me was, how these "best friends" could be so utterly careless of the intellectual and moral interests of the freedmen. For my own part, I could never enter one of

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those schools without emotion. They were often held in old buildings and sheds good for little else. There was not a school-room in Tennessee furnished with appropriate seats and desks. I found a similar condition of things in all the States. The pews of colored churches, or plain benches in the vestries, or old chairs with boards laid across them in some loft over a shop, or out-of-doors on the grass in summer, such was the usual scene of the freedmen's schools.

In the branches taught, and in the average progress made, these do not differ much from ordinary white schools at the North. In those studies which appeal to the imagination and memory, the colored pupil excels. In those which exercise the reflective and reasoning faculties, he is less proficient.

But it is in the contrasts of age and of personal appearance which they present, that the colored schools differ from all others. I never visited one of any size in which there were not two or three or half a dozen children so nearly white that no one would have suspected the negro taint. From these, the complexion ranges through all the indescribable mixed hues, to the shining iron black of a few pure-blooded Africans, perhaps not more in number than the seemingly pure-blooded whites. The younger the generation, the lighter the average skin; by which curious fact one perceives how fast the race was bleaching under the "peculiar" system of slavery.1

The contrast of features is no less than that of complexions. Here you see the rosy child, whose countenance shows a perfect Caucasian contour, shaded perhaps by light brown curls, reciting in the same class with thick-lipped girls and woollyheaded boys.

The difference in ages is even more striking. Six years and sixty may be seen, side by side, learning to read from the same chart or book. Perhaps a bright little negro boy or girl

1 At Vicksburg, Miss., in one school of 89 children, only three were of unmixed African blood. In another, there were two black and 68 mixed. In a school for adults, there were 41 black to 50 mixed. In a school of children on a Mississippi plantation, there were 46 black and 23 mixed. In another plantation school, there were 30 black and 7 mixed. These figures illustrate not only the rapid bleaching of the race, but also the difference in color between town and country.

338 FREEDMEN'S SCHOOLS AND FREEDMEN'S BUREAU.

is teaching a white-haired old man, or bent old woman in spectacles, their letters. There are few more affecting sights than these aged people beginning the child's task so late in life, often after their eyesight has failed. Said a very old man to a teacher who asked him his age, "I'm jammed on to a hundred, and dis is my fust chance to git a start."

The scholars are generally well behaved. It is the restlessness and love of fun of the younger ones which prove the greatest trial to the teacher's patience. The proportion vicious mischief-makers is no greater than in white schools. In the evening-schools, attended chiefly by adults, all is interest and attention. The older pupils are singularly zealous and assiduous in their studies. The singing is usually excellent. Never shall I forget the joyous blending of sweet, rich, exultant childish voices, to which I often listened. The voices of singing children are always delightful and touching: how especially so the musical choruses of children, once slaves, singing the glad songs of freedom!

At Memphis, as at Nashville and other points in Tennessee, I saw much of the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau.

General Fiske appeared to me peculiarly fitted for his position; and he was generally supported by firm and efficient officers; although, like all the Assistant - Commissioners I saw, he complained that the law establishing the Bureau did not permit him to choose his own agents. He had to take such army officers as were given him; some of whom were always found to be incompetent, or neglectful of their duties, or so prejudiced for or against the blacks that they were rendered incapable of administering justice. A few were in sympathy with slavery. Others, meaning to do right, were seduced from a straightforward course by the dinners to which they were invited by planters who had favors to ask. With such, the rights of the freedmen were sure to suffer, when into the opposite scale were thrown the aristocratic Rebel's flattering attentions and the smiles of his fair daughters.

It was the practice of the agents of the Bureau to make frequent tours of their counties, and General Fiske himself was