New-York tribune., 1867-10-18
THE EDUCATION or THE SOUTH

We have said n good deal from time to time
about the ignorance of the South, and the ne
cessity Of education there. But there is one
word more to be spoken on the direction that
education should take at the South, the
class of people it should mainly bear upon,
and the ends it should aim at comprising.
The fact forced emphatcally on the Northern
mind has been the ignorance of the Negroes, and
their demand for education to protect them
against the craft of the white people, and to
prepare them for their new duties and prvi-
leges in the State. To meet that demand pro-
digious efforts have been made The people have
poured out their money by millions of dollars
through the different associations, religious and
secular, that have pledged aid to- the black
people. Under the charge of the Bureau for
Freedmen and Abandoned Lands alone, there
were, at the beginning of the year. 1,406
schools, 1,737 teachers, and 9j,1G7 black pupils.
The American Missionary Association, but one
of the numerous societies engaged i'll this work,
had last season, 500 teachers in its service, with
So 0f9 black scholars. This is well. But it
should not be forgotten that the "poor whites
of the South, including the great mass of the
Southern people, are as ignorant as the
blacks, Ihave been purposely kept In ignorance,
as the blacks were, for social and political
ends, and are as helpless intellectually as the
blacks are. The South had no common schools,
no free schools for any class, white or black.
The fifteen Slave States educated but one i'll
thirteen of their population the nineteen Free
States educated one in four and four-fifths.
Virginia with a population of 1,j903lS, sup
ported 3,778 public schools Massachusetts,, with
a population of 1921 066, maintained Aba ;
Iowa, a State 20 years old, had, in 1860, 1886
free schools for her 574,0i8 people, North
Carolina, one of the original thirteen States,
had at the same date 1904 schools for her 902,-
G22 people. The young Western State edu-
Gated one out of every four; the old Slave
State one out of every nine and half. Nor
is this the whole difference. While the North
ern schools were used by the people, the
Southern schools were to some extent monopo-
lized by the richer classes. There was dellb-
crate purpose that the common Ipeople should
not be educated This purpose was shown IN
other ways beside that of disc0uraging free
schools Restrictions were placed on the dis
seminatiOn of literature; bookstores were
watched; mails were inspected; publishers
invoices were searched newspapers, tracts,
pamphlets, popular works OF our own and for
eign authors which might help to enlighten the
people on matters Of civilization, were kept out
or banished Many an editor and publisher
and bookseller has been arrested, impris-
oned, and beaten with whips for having
instructive literature in his possession which
white men might incontinently read. These
precautions were taken against popular in
telligence without regard to color or race.
But all this time, and by the same order OF
arrangement the opulent class at the South,
the rich slaveholding class, the aristocracy,
took care of their own education in a manner
to suit themselves. The wealthy people had
schools. Some educated their children abroad,