30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ors, dreading social ostracism and persecution. In the third district the 

 teachers submitted to social and personal discomfort, ostracism, and op- 

 probrium, and were compelled to wait for months for their pay. Yet 

 progress was made. At one of the institutes a division superintendent 

 stated that last year (1870) he could report but seventy-one schools, 97 

 teachers, and 3,600 pupils in fourteen parishes, whereas now he reported 

 one hundred and thirty-three schools, 150 teachers, and 7,500 pupils, 

 and the number constantly increasing. The difficulties as stated by the 

 State Superintendent were '* indifference and incompetency of the teach- 

 ers ; extreme poverty of the 2)eople, and the embarrassed condition of the 

 State's finances ; yet, notwithstanding this, they were laying the foun- 

 dation of a thorough, practical, and liberal system of common schools." 

 In Georgia there was great activity in wise ways to promote the free 

 education of the whites, but the " colored people have hardly been per- 

 mitted to do what they would for themselves freely." They had but 

 ninety-seven public schools and only 5,208 pujails. Florida had little 

 or no progress to note, but there were negro schools in nearly every 

 county. Kentucky apparently refused to recognize " the desirableness 

 or necessity of the education of the colored children." In Tennessee 

 there was much agitation, but it was not attended with success, and 

 the colored people were emphatic in the statement of the difficulties 

 encountered by them in their efforts to educate their children. In 

 Alabama the opposition to the free schools was discouraging, and while 

 the colored people had the advantage of the Swayne School at Mont- 

 gomery and the Emerson Institute at Mobile, they complained in many 

 of the counties of great difficulty, or of the impossibility of "securing 

 any school privileges." In Mississippi the enforcement of the free 

 school law, especially as to negro schools, was opposed, even to " the 

 whipping of teachers and burning of school-houses." Yet there were 

 not less than three thousand schools in operation, and the system was 

 gaining friends. Texas was the darkest field educationally in the 

 United States, though the Governor, supported by a strong array of 

 friends, was supporting and doing all he could for public instruction. 

 Arkansas, though in some respects leading all the other ex-slave States, 

 was yet far from the line of approximate perfection. The public 

 schools were open to negroes, but only one fourth of the number of 

 scholars were enrolled. In Missouri the public schools had passed 

 beyond a period of peril, and only one county was especially opposed 

 to negro education. In Delaware no provision had yet been made 

 for the education of the negro. Of Maryland the same report was 

 made. Virginia and West Virginia had both made progress. North 

 Carolina had lost ground educationally, and the severe proscrip- 

 tion of colored people had greatly discouraged their efforts for them- 

 selves. Of the schools in South Carolina very little favorable could 

 be said. The friends of education struggled against overwhelming 

 odds. In the District of Columbia there were sixty-nine colored 



