A SKETCH OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 525 



Very many slaves were apprenticed to the useful trades, and formed a 

 vast proportion of tlie mechanics and artizans before the war. Almost 

 every planter of large means had his own carpenters, masons and black- 

 smiths. Cabinet-makers, butchers, tailors, porters, hotel waiters, semp- 

 stresses and laundresses, and pastry cooks, trained nurses and midwives 

 were taken to a great extent from the colored population. Many of these 

 were suffered to hire their own time, and thus accumulate sums of money. 

 A few persons of color tiicmselves owned slaves. The fireman on the first 

 train that ran from Charleston to Augusta is said to have been a colored 

 man, and his was the longest trip recorded up to that time. From the 

 ranks of the barbers and hotel waiters, who had listened to the conversa- 

 tions of statesmen and public men, were recruited most of the legislators 

 and congressmen of the era of reconstruction. 



EMANCIPATION WAS FOLLOAVED 



by attempts to instruct the freedmen. The efforts of the State were aided 

 by philanthropists from abroad, who founded schools and churches in 

 different portions of the State. The public schools attracted continually 

 increasing numbers, as follows :* In 1870, 1,800; in 1871, 33,384; in 

 1882. 38,635 ; in 1873, 46,938 ; in 1874, 56,249 ; in 1875, 63,415 ; in 1876, 

 70,802 ; in 1877, 55,952 ; in 1878, 62,121 ; in 1879, 64,095 ; in 1880, 72,- 

 ,853; in 1881, 72,119. (It is believed that the report for 1876 is incor- 

 rect, as the salaries of school commissioners depended on the attendance, 

 and there was no fixed rule for estimating the latter.) 



CLAFLIN UNIVERSITY, ORANGEBURG, S. C. 



History. In 1869, the Orangeburg Female College was purchased by 

 friends in the North, prominent among whom was the late Lee Claflin, 

 of Massachusetts, and opened as a school for colored youth. A Univer- 

 sity charter was obtained from the succeeding Legislature, perpetuating 

 the name of the most liberal donor. 



In 1872, the Act of Congress, appropriating certain lands for main- 

 taining Agricultural Colleges and ]\Iechanical Institutes, was accepted by 

 the Legislature, and an Agricultural College was made a co-ordinate 

 branch of Claflin University. 



When the State University was reorganized at Columbia, in 1877, the 

 Agricultural College was made a branch of that University, but still con- 

 tinued at Orangeburg, and remains in successful operation under that 

 union. 



*For the inte'.le>-tual progress of the colored people, see the section on Illiteracy. 



