The Portland daily press., 1892-06-11
COLORED SCHOOLS.
What is Being Done for Education
in the South.
The Colored Brother Has Hung Up the
Fiddle and the Bow, the Banjo and
the Bones, and Applies Himself to the
Cultivation of His IntelIectuals.
Especial Correspondence.]

ligpGCldl 0OTFSSpOuuGuC6.l
ATLANTA, June 9.-Figures are elo-
quent. They make facts plain and en-
phatic. Therefore will introduce the
subject of this letter by quoting from
statistics found in the Office of the state
school commissioner of Georgia, situated
in the capitol building in this city.
The total number of children of school
ages in Georgia is by the last census re
port 560,2S1 Of these 296, 1888 are white,
265,2S1 colored.
Not all of these children attend school,
but it is safe to say that fully 400, 900 do,
and that 10000 of these are colored
children.
The school fund that educates these
children in the public schools amounts
to $63S, ,656.05. 1t is raised by direct
taxation on the properties of the popu-
lation and one-half of the rental of
the Western and Atlantic railroad. That
half is only $4,000.
The total value Of the property of the
people of the state is $445, 100000. The
colored people own only $4,000, 900
worth of this property. Practically this
makes the white population educate the
colored
The colored children receive their full
share of the school fund of the state.
There is no discrimination in this. The
color line is drawn only by keeping the
schools separate. By law of the state,
no teacher in any school can receive pay
from the state fund for his or her serv-
ices if children of both races receive in
struction in his or her school. There
fore it follows that there are white
teachers in the white schools and col
ored teachers in the colored schools.
The institutes or normal classes for
the improvement of the teachers are
also kept separate. The teachers of
both races submit to the same examina-
tions, under the same rules and regula-
tions. They receive the same grade of
licenses, and the pay pro rata is the
same under the same circumstances.
In Atlanta there are thirteen large
public school houses. Four of these are
for the colored children, and they are as
well built and equipped in every respect
as those of the whites. The attendance
is not quite so large nor so regular.
The curriculum of study is the same,
and the colored children compare fairly
with the whites in scholarship consid-
ering their difference of circumstances,
home surroundings and the fact that
most of them are wage workers for a
part of the day OF part of the year at
least.
just here | will remark that the old
time picturesque and pathetic attitude
of TIE darky is thing of the past.
There more banjo playing, no more
fiddle bow, no more bones and tam
BOURNE, no more corn songs or Congo
dances. The young southern darkies of
both sexes bear on their personalities,
outside Of color, hair and facial peculi-
arities, as close a likeness to the white
American school and college boy and
girl as it is possible to acquire The
dress, manners and department. of the
northern and northwestern boys and
girls whose parents have settled down
here since the war, but particularly the
northern white teachers who were the
pioneers in the field of the negro,s edu.
cation, are initiated with fidelity that
is at once edifying, amusing and COM
ical. They are sedate and correct in de-
pertinent.
By far the most interesting of the four
higher institutions of learning estab-
Hshed for the colored people here in At
lanta is the Spelman seminary. It is,
indeed, a pleasing sight to see nearly
thousand young colored women and
girls assembled in a beautiful and well
equipped institution, passing along the
corridors and up and down the stair
cases, seated in their classrooms, recit-
ing with fairly trained voices lessons
that would be creditable to any class of
students; taking their meals in the
great refectories, with table manners as
correct as those of the girls of Vassar or
Wellesley, and performing the work of
the kitchen and laundry and sewing
room in way that gives evidence of
good training and receptive minds.
The cost of board and tuition in this
institution is only seven dollars month.
The entire domestic service, all the work
OF the house, is of course performed by
the students. In addition to the depart
ments for normal, literary and mission
ary training and music, this school gives
special training in sewing, dressmaking,
printing, housekeeping, cooking and
nursing the sick. The ladies of Atlanta
bestow high praise on the trained nurses
sent out from Spelman seminary. They
are well equipped for their work and
are in demand at ten dollars a week for
their services. The Atlanta doctors say
that they are the best nurses in the
world.
Now the ''fads" in Georgia are educa-
ton, culture and society" In all these
the colored population are as deeply in
terested as the whites. Consequently
the language heard in the streets of At
lanta is generally grammatical, the
pronunciation correct, and the man
ners of both races quite as ''swelI' as
those of the Four Hundred of New
York.
From my own personal observation,
as well as from the reports of the county
school commissioners throughout this
state apd ,,o+;oao l,Ix in Tho b1onIz Io1+