Seminoles (population 3,000).-The Nation supports two high schools (boarding), with accommodations for 98 pupils, at an expense of $6,300, supplemented by grants from the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, amounting in all to $2,300. Of the 4 district schools and the schools supported and controlled by religious denominations no statistics have been furnished. VI.-EDUCATION OF THE COLORED RACE. The scope of this section being to collect under one head the statistics relating to the education of the colored race dispersed through the Report, the following matter is presented in a summarized form, individual mention of an institution coming properly in the particular chapter in which it has been deemed proper to place it. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. TABLE 90.-School population, enrolment, and average attendance in public schools for the colored race for 1886-87; from replies to inquiries by the United States Bureau of Education. State. TABLE 91.-Comparative school statistics of the colored and white races. Alabama.... 671 670 State. TABLE 92.—Teachers in public schools for the colored race, for 1886-87; from replies to inquiries by the United States Bureau of Education. Of the 18 systems represented in Table 90 only 9 have recently taken a census, 4 are still using the census of 1880, and 4 have not been able to furnish the Office at this date with statistics for 1886-87, while in Kentucky and Alabama the city schools are excluded, and in Delaware the 4 colored schools of Wilmington. Under such conditions, and excluding the statistics of Florida and Indiana, the comparison of the statistics of 1886-87 with those of the preceding year shows a gain of 28,413 in colored enrolment, a gain of 2.7 per cent., and of 124, 128, a gain of 4.5 per cent., in white enrolment. Excluding 5 States and the District of Columbia, all using a census taken previous to 1885, the ratio of the colored enrolment of the other States given in the table to their colored population is 51.6 per cent.; of the white enrolment to white population, 64.06 per cent. The ratio of the colored school population of the 17 States and the District of Columbia to the total school population, white and colored, is 28.96, or, excluding Missouri, West Virginia, and Indiana, in which the colored school population is not 10 per cent. of the total school population, 36.85 per cent. The enrolment in colored schools is 24.25 per cent. of the total enrolment, or 32.55 excluding Missouri, West Virginia, and Indiana as before. It is thought that the analytical character of Tables 91 and 92 renders further remarks unnecessary. In Table 91 the variation among the several States of the ratio which the colored school population bears to the white can not fail to be noted. In North Carolina the colored school population is 38 per cent. of the total school population, in South Carolina it is 64 per cent., in Georgia it is 48 per cent., in Arkansas it is 26 per cent., in Louisiana 52, in Missouri and West Virginia it is below 6 per cent. Considering the strict separation of schools for educating colored children, and that the life of the colored man is agricultural, it would seem that the colored schools of States with a comparatively small percentage of colored youth would be nearly under the same disadvantages that attend the first educational efforts of a sparsely settled State or Territory. Although fostering the industrial education of the colored population as the trustees of the Peabody fund have fostered normal instruction "among the entire popпlation" of the South, the trustees of the John F. Slater fund, through their agent, Dr. Haygood, of Georgia, are indefatigable in collecting information as to the condition and progress of the people whose elevation is the purpose of their trust. In February, 1887, Dr. Haygood sent out 300 circular letters "asking the best judgment of those to whom they were sent, on the matters inquired about." Two of the inquiries made are connected with the subject of education: Do colored parents manifest interest in the education of their children? Are the common schools attended by colored children improving in their character? From the 300 letters of inquiry thus sent to officials, educators, and professional and business men, white and colored, 236 replies had been received by May, 1887. To the inquiry as to the interest of colored people in the education of their children 230 answered "yes," to which should be added the response, "There were only two colored families in my neighborhood, and one moved away to get near a school"; no correspondent denied that an interest was manifested, the 5 not answering in the affirmative speaking of it as spasmodic or limited. To tho second query, a very material one, as to the improvement in the character of the common schools as educational institutions, 199 respond affirmatively, 6 of whom deny like improvement in the private schools, 20 do not know or do not answer, 4 think not. Personal and diligent inquiry throughout the South causes Dr. Haygood to believe that the answers given by the majority of those who replied to his circular letter give the true view on the questions asked.” NOTES FROM THE REPORTS OF STATE SUPERINTENDENTS. Alabama.-The census of 1887 shows that during the biennial period then closed the white school population had increased 8.4 per cent., and the colored 5.7, an increase in all of 7.2. "This large increase in the number of children," says Superintendent Palmer, "reduces the per capita from 73 cents for both white and colored to 72 for white and 66 for colored" for the year 1887-88 notwithstanding the increase of $20,000 made to the school fund. The greater reduction in the per capita for colored children is due to the liberal appropriations made by the last Legislature out of the fund for whites for the university for the colored people, and for normal schools. Delaware. In 1876 the present incumbent, H. C. Conrad, Esq., was appointed Actuary for the Delaware Association for the Education of the Colored People, in whose hands the education of the colored people was placed in 1875. On his advent to office he found 29 schools in existence, having an enrolment of 1,197, “supported by donations from this association and contributions made directly by the colored people." In 1881 the State made the first direct appropriation, which was materially increased in 1883, and still further augmented at the last session of the General Assembly, when the amount was raised from $5,000 to $6,000 annually, the law touching schools for this race simplified, and permission granted to the colored people of Dover and of Cedar Creek Hundred to elect their own trustees, who should levy and collect a school tax and provide for the maintenance of colored schools in the districts at the same time created. The total amount distributed to the schools was $7,057.56, of which $4,713.23 came from the State and $2,344.33 from the school-tax fund. "Each year," says the actuary, "shows an improvement in the corps of teachers, those of the past year being, I think, better equipped in point of education and experience than those of any preceding year." During the year the Delaware Association for the Education of Colored People, which had been engaged for the last 20 years in the education of colored youth, was disbanded, and the African School Society, incorporated in 1824, assumed the work. The two organizations were practically identical. Kentucky. In 1882, the annual capitation tax of $1 on each male colored person above the age of 21, reserved exclusively for and the principal source of support of colored public schools, was repealed as unconstitutional by the General Assembly, reducing the per capita amount available for colored children from 48, for 1850, to 13 cents, for 1883. To obviate the ill effects of this the people voted "an additional 'tax of 2 cents on each $100 of property in this Commonwealth, subject to taxation for State revenue purposes,' for the benefit of the common school fund," and at the same time made the per capita and the school age the same for white and colored children. The result of this action is best shown by comparing the financial operations of 1880, in matters relating to education, with the operations of 1886. In 1880 $598,193, or $1.25 per capita, were appropriated for the white and $31,951, or 48 cents per capita, for the colored. In 1886 the apportionment for the white schools was $865,052, a per capita of $1.65, and for the colored $164,429, a per capita of $1.65. In 1882-83, the first year of the new order of things, $106,117 were disbursed for colored public schools, of which 16 per cent. were received from colored tax-payers; in 1885-86 $167,666 were disbursed for colored schools, of which 8.6 per cent. were from colored tax-payers. "That the people," says Superintendent Pickett, in his report for 1886, which should be considered rather as a retrospect of an important educational period, "should, by their own act, draw the revenue from the white schools at so large a rate each successive year, to supplement the meager sum contributed by the colored people, is the most remarkable fact in the school history of Kentucky. That it should all be accomplished quietly and successfully without interruption of the schools, leading, at the same time, to a higher qualification of teachers, because required, and, consequently, to a higher standard in the schools makes this an era in her history." SCHOOLS FOR NORMAL, SECONDARY, AND COLLEGIATE EDUCATION. In considering the institutions for the education of the colored race, it is noticeable how constantly present are the characteristics of a public elementary school, an academy, a normal school, and in some instances of a theological seminary, all in the same institution. These schools have been placed in the various chapters according as one or another feature predominated, and are there mentioned, if at all. The usual charge for tuition in these institutions is $1 a month; occasionally the fee falls below this figure, and not unfrequently rises above it, though rarely exceeding $2. Many of the institutions give instruction free. Board averages $6 to $5 a month. The lowest limit is $5, while $10 seems to mark the other extreme. In some instances the student can reduce his expenses or defray them by manual labor at the institution or in the vicinity. Normal and secondary instruction.-The object of the normal and secondary instruction of the colored students seems to be the thorough grounding of the pupil in the principles of a common school education, with the additional purpose in the normal department of exercising the pupils in imparting the rudiments of the course they are completing. The course of the normal department or school is mostly of 4 years' duration, occasionally divided into a higher and a lower course; frequently the course is of 3 years, sometimes of 2. The secondary school, under its various names of high school, higher English preparatory, or academic course, runs from 2 to 4 years. The requirements for admission are ability to read and write and work examples in the fundamental rules of arithmetic. Some schools refuse to receive applicants under 14 or 15 years of age, as the case may be. In replying to the second query of Dr. Haygood's circular of inquiry referred to, p. 876, in every case where a comment was added to the affirmation of improvement in the colored public schools the cause was attributed to the better teachers furnished by the colleges and other training schools for colored people. |