TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 33 



institutions for secondary instruction, with 2,807 pupils ; thirteen 

 universities and colleges, with 1,270 pupils ; seventeen schools of 

 theology, with 462 pupils ; two schools of law, with 14 pupils ; three 

 schools of medicine, with 74 pupils ; and two schools for the deaf and 

 dumb and the blind, with 99 pupils ; making a grand total of 10,879 

 schools, colleges, etc., and 580,017 pupils enrolled. 



The reports for 1878, notwithstanding the yellow -fever epi- 

 demic that prevailed throughout the whole of the lower valley of 

 the Mississippi, were extremely encouraging. All the States did 

 well. 



The years 1879, 1880, and 18S1 were years of general progress. 

 The former year witnessed the fair inauguration of normal instruction 

 in Texas for both white and colored. In Kentucky nine private nor- 

 mal schools and institutes held in fourteen counties, and a summer 

 normal school, were doing good work for teachers. The report for 

 1880 was, taking in the whole field, more encouraging than any of the 

 preceding ones. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mis- 

 sissipi was opened with two hundred students. In 1881, Dela- 

 ware for the first time recognized its obligations to the colored chil- 

 dren and appropriated $2,400 from the State Treasury for these 

 schools. "West Virginia made provision for the free education of 

 eighteen colored pupils at Storer College. In 1882-'83 the white- 

 school population of the sixteen once slave States and the District 

 of Columbia was 4,046,956, and the enrollment in public schools 

 2,249,263. The colored-school population was 1,944,572 ; enrollment, 

 802,982. Compared with the figures of 1877 there was clear evidence 

 of the remarkable work that had been accomplished in the Southern 

 States. The white-school population showed an increase of 13 per 

 cent ; enrollment, 23 per cent ; the colored-school population showed 

 an increase of 28 per cent ; enrollment increase, 40 per cent. The ex- 

 penditures during that time had steadily increased as follows : In 1878 

 they were Sll,760,251 ; in 1879, $12,181,602 ; in 1880, 812,475,044 ; in 

 1881, $13,359,784 ; and in 1882, 614,820,972. And this, notwithstand- 

 ing there had been a decrease in the value of the taxable wealth 

 of ten of the Southern States amounting to 8411,475,000. Notwith- 

 standing which, these States now appropriated 20*1 per cent of their 

 total levy of taxes for school purposes, Kew England at the same time 

 paying 20-2 ; the Middle States, 19*5 ; the Western States, 26-2 ; and 

 the Territories, 22*4 ; the average of the whole country being 22-6 per 

 cent. This increase in funds corresponded with a radical change in 

 public sentiment. Louisiana was the only State in which the prospect 

 was in the main discouraging. Both races shared alike in the school 

 fund in all the States except in Delaware, Maryland, and the District 

 of Columbia, in which special provision was mad^ for the colored race, 

 and in South Carolina, where the basis of apportionment was the same 

 for each race, but the amounts realized depended upon the extent to 



VOL. XXTIII. — 3 



