Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1874-01-30
[CoMMUNIcATED.l
COlOred Schools.

as thought, full information in regard to the
running Of the colored schools of the county,
will resume the case of No. l, Sd election dis
trict, and give information in regard to it here
tofore unknown, either to the School Board OF
myself. l will, in this, begin at the beginning
and state nothing but facts as received from
those who ought to know something about this
matter.
1t appears that an applicant: holding regu-
lar certificate, was elected by two trustees to
take charge oft this particular school in question
The other trustee was not consulted, not hav-
ing extended to him the courtesy, even, of an
invitation to be present at the election. The
colored patrons objected to the party thus APP
pointed, and the school was not opened by her
Between the LIST and 10th of October a colored
woman, the teacher of the same school during
the previous year, accompanied by friend,
called upon me and stated many circumstances
connected with the school. thereupon address
ed to the trustees of this school polite note,
to the following purport
"While acknowledge the intelligence and
qualifications of the rejected applicant to be su-
perior to those of the colored woman, yet II
for any good and valid reasons the colored pa
irons do not desire the first applicant, do
not think that the trustees would go far wrong
in consulting the wishes of those patrons IN Sc
lecting teacher for them
had no reason to believe then nor have l
now, that factiouS opposition had been made
to the authority of the trustees. Two of the
trustees, agreeing with me in the views express
ed in the note, appointed the last applicant and
she continued to teach until the expiration OF
the fall term. These are the facts as | have
gathered them from the two trustees themselves.
Mark you, that one trustee in the first election
knew nothing of the action of the other two,
and one of the latter, it is fair to presume, was
ignorant of the action of the two trustees in the
last appointment. In other words, Mr.. Speake
knew nothing of the first appointment and Mr..
Miller was not aware of the last.
Come We now, to the report of this colored
teacher for the fall term, 1873, and the remark
able protest appended thereto in the Times, but
not on the report when received at the office of
the School Board. The protest reads as follows:
1.-THE above person we do not recognize as
the legal teacher of this school; not duly
elected by US.
THOMAS A. MILLER, Trustees School
''F. R. SPEAKE; No. l."
will quote further from Mr. Milar:
'sThe third trustee, Mr.. Huntington was not
called on.
''If there is a report in the hands of Mr.
Lloyd, with the names of the trustees of this
school appended, or any of them, it is forgery.
have just conversed with these gentlemen and
they deny signing any instrument than the
above"
owhat gentlemen does Mr. Millar REFER He
just states that one trustee was not called on
all know that there is no fourth trustee, unless,
indeed, Mr.. Milar is equal to two; or he must
mean that he held conversation with himself.
Some confusion here. As an offset, however,
as to the protest being on the report when sign
ed by Mr.. Speake, will give the following GER
tifcate:
81 hereby state most positively that did
not see any protest of any kind, or any words
conveying such meaning, on the report OF
Georgeanna Simms when | signed her report
for the fall term, 1873.
..FRAxcIs R. SPEAkE.
"January l4th, 1874"
1t will be borne in mind that the above gen.
tleman and Mr.. bennington appointed this wo-
man teacher for this school in October, 1873,
and it is hardly credible that he would enter a
protest, or sign one, after being party to the
appointment. | will here state that while this
report had protest when received at the Of
fee, it presented the appearance of an erasure
of something above the names of the two truS-
tees signing it.
will now attend to ''Tax Payer" Altho'
my communication was not, in his opinion,
deemed worthy of notice, yet it was noticed,
and | hatter myself it is destined to be produc-
tive of rich fruits: it has brought out extraor-
binary powers of calculation from TAX Pay
err" as we shall presently see. In complaining
accents, like whimperng school boy, he says
in brief: eff was in error as to the negroes
quota ''could he Mr. Lloyd not have correct
ed my figures" &c. But, seeing that he must
rely upon his own resources he addresses him
self, with commendable industry and research,
to his arithmetic, and after an immense amount
of ciphering and formidable array of figures,
incomprehensible to any but himself, he fails
still to produce a satisfactory solution, until
Il
the amount of eighteen dollars, and by making
it plus, solves the difficuty-cuts, it were,
the Gordian knot, and would cry Eureka |
Eureka with emotions of joy, such as Archi-
medes himself could never have felt. He has
evidently, from profound investigation and the
most rigid demonstration, worked out, to ms
e1tre satisfaction, use and Specification for
plus hitherto undiscovered, and also new kind
of improper fraction. suppress any NANTES
taton of that feline nature so kindly attribut-
ed, and will not say or do aught to disturb his
ecstatic Joy; on the contrary, | would greatly
prefer to unite with the friends of science in pc
titioning the National Congress, now in session,
to establish a national university and assign the
chair of Mathematics with the duty of occa
Sional hOmilies on ethical science superadded)
to TAX Payer" whose marvellous researches
give promise of revolutionizing the hitherto
we'll settled methods of both ancient and mod
ern mathematician.
will give a quotation from 'sTax Payers
last communicate ton and one from mine, TO which
his is a reply; and if any sane mind fails to per-
ceive gross misstatement on the part of Tax
Payer" then | stand convicted of doing I'M JUS
tice to the School Board in not making known
the deliberate action of which he speaks until
the lapse Of four months. Tax Payer" says
''He is quite complimentary to the County
Board, whose Secretary he is, when he makes
the admission that after its deliberate action
upon the official representations of the trustees
of No. |, and directed to write those gentlemen,
informing them of what action the Board had
taken, that he found nothing to communicate,
or, to use his own language, nothing to say.
Which means that the action of the Board upon
amatter of grave importance to the hole school
system, | might say the main grder upon which
the entire superstructure relies for support, was
of SO little Importance, in the opinion of the
Secretary, that he could afford to compromise
the well known good breeding of those gentle
men, not gentleman and treat with indiffer-
ence the trustees leaving them, from the early
part of September ls73 to the I'd January,
1874, in utter darkness, with various conjec-
lures as to the meaning Of the School Commits
sioners for the county in not answering or no
ticing a respectful call for information On the
part of those whose bust mess it was to lay before
them all matters of doubt or uncertainty, and
abide their action"
This communication is dated 22d October,
1878 "Tax Payer" says the early part of Sep
TENDER The schools did not open until LIST OF
October, and no occasion could possibly have
arisen for such a representation during the early