The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-11

OF these schools more than one million OF
dollars was contributed during period OF
six months, not quite half of this sum being
obtained from the Government, and nearly
one-ffth of it being contributed by the freed
men themselves. The schools are now in
better condition and more largely attended
than at any former period, the increase over
the six months previously reported being d4f
In the number of schools, S55 in the number
OF teachers, and 1G, 407 in the number OF
pupils. In view of the many difficulties that
had to be overcome, the neglect of all forms
Of popular education in the South, and the
strong feeling of hostility to the enlighten-
ment of the negroes by which large portion
of the Southern whites are still animated,
the work has been attended with extraordi-
nary success, and it well deserves to be
ranked among the greatest triumphs of
modern civilization. We regret that, although
cases of criminal hostility to the freedmen's
schools and teachers are growing less fire.
quent, they still occasionally occur. Not
long since a new school-house was burnt at
Slaughters Neck, Sussex county, Delaware,
before the plastering was dry, and there was
little doubt that this destruction was the
work of incendiaries, as declarations had
been made that it was ''no use to build q
niger school-house; it shall not stand it
shall be burned down. At one place in
Louisiana faithful colored teacher was killed
few months since. A teacher in Kentucky
reports that he was visited one night by the
Ku-Klux Klan, who threatened to kill him if
he did not instantly give up his school; and
similar occurrences are reported in various
other quarters. There is, however, in thou
sands of Southern neighborhoods, a marked
improvement in the tone of popular senti-
ment, and in some States active opposition to
the education of the freedmen seems to have
entirely ceased.
The continued interest of the negroes is a
constant incentive to renewed exertions, and
it is frequently displayed in a touching man.
ner One old colored woman in North Caro-
lima, who attends night school, and works
very hard that her children may go to school,
feels consoled for her labors and privations
by the family progress in learning, and says:
II tells you, massa we can't feel hungry
when we reads; dats better than vittals,
massa' Another old freedwoman in Misss-
sippi, widow with seven children, who is
very poor, says:-'I mean to educate my
children, if 1 have to work my hands off
While the hoecake lasts they go to school.
An old negro in Mississippi says:-''If neb-
Der does nothing more while [ live, I shall
give my children chance to go to school, for
[ considers education next best ting to
liberty" and another negro in the same
locality declares:-''Dere isn't money enough
in all old Massysippi to buy what larning my
chile got from you all.
There is good reason to believe that at no
distant period the education of the mass of
the Southern whites, which has hitherto been
fearfully neglected, will be literally provided
for, mainly on account of the example SET
and the exertions made, primarily, for the in
struction of the freedmen. A double good
will thus result from the labors which have
been prosecuted with such praiseworthy zeal,
and the removal of the veil of ignorance
from the Southern mind will prove in the end
the crcwning glory Of the great work of re-
construction.