Report of the Commissioner of Education Made to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year ... with Accompanying Papers

CHAPTER L.

EDUCATION OF THE COLORED RACE.

References to preceding Reports of the United States Bureau of Education in which this subject has been treated: In Annual Reports-1870, pp. 61, 337-339; 1871, pp. 6, 7, 61-70; 1872, pp. xvii, xviii; 1873, p. lxvi; 1875, p. xxiii; 1876, p. xvi; 1877, pp. xxxiii-xxxviii; 1878, pp. xxviii-xxxiv; 1879, pp. xxxix-xlv; 1880, p. lviii; 1881, p. lxxxii; 1882-83, pp. xlviii-lvi, 85; 1883-84, p. liv; 1884-85, p. lxvii; 1885-86, pp. 596, 650-656; 1886-87, pp. 790, 874-881; 1887-88, pp. 20, 21, 167, 169, 988-998; 188889. pp. 768, 1412-1439; 1889-90, pp. 620, 621, 624, 634, 1073-1102, 1388-1392, 1395-1485; 1890-91, pp. 620, 624, 792, 808, 915, 961-980, 1469; 1891-92, pp. 8, 686, 688, 713, 861-867, 1002, 1234-1237; 1892-93, pp. 15, 442, 1551-1572, 1976; 1893-94, pp. 1019-1061; 1894-95, pp. 1331-1424; 1895-96, pp. 2081-2115; 1896–97, pp. 2295-2333; also in Circulars of Information-No. 3, 1883, p. 63; No. 2, 1886, pp. 123-133; No. 3, 1888, p. 122; No. 5, 1888, pp. 53, 54, 59, 60, 80-86; No. 1, 1892, p. 71. Special Report on District of Columbia for 1869, pp. 193, 300, 301-400. Special report, New Orleans Exposition, 1884-85, pp. 468-470, 775–781. In the sixteen former slave States and the District of Columbia, generally spoken of collectively as "the South," the negro children are educated in public schools separate from the schools for white children. The total enrollment in the public schools of the South for the year 1897-98 was 5,620,553, the number of white children being 4,113,811 and the number of colored children 1,506,742. Table 1 of this chapter shows that the estimated number of children in the Southern States and the District of Columbia between 5 and 18 years of age was 8,673,550. Of this number 5,828,980, or 67.35 per cent, were whito children and 2,844,570, or 32.65 per cent, were children of the negro race. The same table shows that 70.58 per cent of the white school population was enrolled in the schools and 52.97 per cent of the colored school population. The average daily attendance in the schools of the South was 3,576,612, the number in the white schools being 2,659,809, or 64.66 per cent of the white enrollment, and the number in the colored schools 916,833, or 60.85 per cent of the colored enrollment.

The total expenditure for the public schools of the South for the year 1897-98 was $31,217,479, as shown in Table 2. Separate accounts of the expenditures for the colored schools are not kept by the State authorities, but it is estimated that the cost of public schools for the colored children was about $6,575,000. Since 1870 the amount of money expended for public schools in the South has reached $546,630,246. It is believed that nearly 20 per cent of this amount, or about $109,000,000, must have been expended for the education of the colored children. The total expenditure for each year and the aggregate for the 28 years, as well as the common-school enrollment of white and colored children for each year since 1876, are shown in Table 2.

SECONDARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION.

There are about 180 schools in the United States for the secondary and higher education of colored youth exclusively. It is very difficult to obtain detailed information concerning a number of these institutions. The presidents and principals of many of these colored schools very promptly send full statistical reports to this office every year; some send meager reports, in reluctant compliance with repeated requests for information, while a few fail to make any response whatever to inquiries from the United States Bureau of Education.

For the year 1897-98 only 161 of these institutions for the secondary and higher education of the negro reported to this office. Of this number 1 was in Illinois, 2 in Indiana, 1 in New Jersey, 2 in Ohio, and 3 in Pennsylvania, the remaining 152 being in the South. These schools are all to be found classified according to their grades in the lists of universities and colleges, normal schools, and public and private secondary schools, in other chapters of this Annual Report; but more complete statistics are given for each of these schools in detail in Tables 12 and 13, at the conclusion of this chapter, and summarized in Tables 3 to 8.

Table 3 shows that in the 161 institutions there were employed 1,808 teachers, 804 men and 1,004 women. The total enrollment in these schools was 42,328 students, 19,001 males and 23,327 females. In the collegiate grades there were 2,492 students, 1,912 males and 580 females. In the secondary grades there were 13,669 students, 5,989 males and 7,680 females. In the elementary grades there were 26,167 pupils, 11,100 males and 15,067 females.

The classification of students according to courses of study is given in Table 4 and part of Table 5. There were 1,711 students in classical courses, 1,200 in scientific courses, 9,724 in English courses, 244 in business courses, and 4,449 in normal

courses.

As shown in Table 5, there were 167 graduates from collegiate courses, 859 from normal courses, and 853 from high-school courses.

Included in the total enrollment mentioned in Table 3, and mostly in the collegiato grades, are 1,285 students in professional courses, 1,105 men and 180 women. As shown in Table 6, there were 560 students and 63 graduates in theology, 116 students and 59 graduates in law, 342 students and 78 graduates in medicine, 43 students and 9 graduates in dentistry, 44 students and 11 graduates in pharmacy, and 180 students and 26 graduates in nurse training.

Of the 42,328 students in the 161 schools for the colored race, 14,400 were receiving industrial training-5,431 males and 8,969 females. It is shown in Table 7 that 1,260 of these were being trained in farm or garden work, 1,804 in carpentry, 107 in bricklaying, 94 in plastering, 130 in painting, 47 in tin or sheet-metal work, 274 in forging, 222 in machine-shop work, 219 in shoemaking, 685 in printing, 6,923 in sewing, 1,922 in cooking, and 2,414 in other industrial branches.

Table 8 shows that these colored schools received in benefactions or bequests in 1897-98 the aggregate of $399,392, an increase of $96,342 over the preceding year. These schools received from public funds $296,022, from tuition fees $197,586, from productive funds $134,010, and from sources not named $476,560. The aggregate income of these schools was $1,104,178. These schools had in their libraries 237,145 volumes, valued at $215,908. The value of grounds, buildings, furniture, and scientific apparatus was $7,987,439.

ILLITERACY OF THE NEGRO.

Tables 9, 10, and 11 are inserted in this chapter for purposes of comparison. Table 9 shows the number and per cent of all persons in the population 10 years of age and over who could not read and write in 1890, 1880, and 1870. Table 10 gives these statistics for the white population and Table 11 for the colored population.