The Education of Freedmen, part 2

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  VI.

  THE EDUCATION OF FREEDMEN.

  PART II.

  IT now remains to give a brief survey of the permanent institutions which have grown up out of this educational enthusiasm which has united all Christian churches since the war.

  The American Missionary Society, formed in 1846, as an anti- slavery missionary body, stood ready equipped to go into the field and aid and supplement the course of Northern benevolence. All denominations availed themselves of its patronage, which was entirely unsectarian. As the work broadened and increased, however, each denomination had its separate society, carried on in its own special way.

  The American Missionary Society has planted one college or university for the colored people in each of the Southern States.

  These are Hampton Institute, Virginia; Berea College, Kentucky; Fiske University, Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia; Talladega College, Talladega, Alabama; Tongaloo University, Tongaloo, Mississippi; Straight University, New Orleans, Louisiana. The society has also seventeen institutions of a lower grade scattered through the different Southern States, and eight common schools. It is calculated that 60,000 freedmen are annually instructed in these institutions.

  In 1865 the Presbyterian Church began its separate and distinctive work for the colored race, organizing a Presbyterian Committee of Missions for Freedmen. From 1865 to 1870 the receipts of this Committee averaged $27,000 per year.

  The Presbyterian Church sought to cultivate intelligence among freedmen by planting and maintaining among them church and school conjointly. This specialty of parochial schools characterized the movement both of the Presbyterians and the Episcopalians. Besides their parochial schools the Presbyterian Church maintains five endowed institutions, namely: Biddle Memorial Institute, Charlotte, North Carolina, with three professors, three assistant professors, 124 pupils -- value of property, $17,000; Scotia Seminary for Colored Girls, Concord, North Carolina, 105 pupils -- value of property, $2,500; Wallingford Academy, Charleston, South Carolina, one professor, 261 pupils -- value of property, $13,450; Mainerd School, Chester, South Carolina, one professor, 231 pupils -- value of property, $3,600; Fairfield Normal School, Winnsborough, South Carolina, one professor, 184 pupils -- value of property, $3,500: total, six professors, three assistant professors, 905 pupils -- value of property, $40,050.

  The Baptist Church has not been behindhand in zeal for this work. It has invested in it $716,273, and has under its charge, besides its churches and parochial schools, the following endowed institutions: Wayland Seminary, Washington, District of Columbia, with one professor, 92 pupils; Richmond Institute, Richmond, Virginia, one professor, 75 pupils; Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina, one professor, 230 pupils; Benedict Institute, Columbia, South Carolina, one professor, 118 pupils; Augusta Institute, Augusta, Georgia, one professor, 52 pupils; Nashville Institute, Nashville, Tennessee, one professor, 136 pupils; Leland University, New Orleans, Louisiana, one professor, 92 pupils; total, 795.

  The Methodist Episcopal Church, fitted by her peculiar organization and system of itinerant preaching for efficient action in this field, also went into it with zeal according to knowledge.

  The following permanently endowed educational institutions attest her success: Central Tennessee College, Nashville, Tennessee; Shaw University, Holly Springs, Mississippi; Claflin University and Baker Institute, Orangeburg, South Carolina; Clarke University and Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia; New Orleans University and Thomson Biblical Institute, New Orleans, Louisiana; Wiley University, Marshall, Texas; Haven Normal School, Waynesborough, Georgia; Rust Biblical and Normal Institute, Huntsville, Alabama; La Têche Seminary, Baldwin, Louisiana; Bennett Seminary, Greensborough, North Carolina; Richmond Normal School, Richmond, Virginia; Cookman Institute, Jacksonville, Florida; Centenary Biblical Institute, Baltimore, Maryland; Orphans' Home, Baldwin, Louisiana.

  The Episcopal Church also has entered this field of Christian labor with zeal and success.

  In the late Missionary Conference of the Episcopal Church in New York, the Right Reverend Bishop Dudley, of Kentucky, addressed the Conference upon this subject, and commenced by saying that the Episcopal Church was more to blame for the ignorance of the Southern negroes than any other body, because the members of that Church had been the largest owners of them in slavery. He added: "We are here to consider what we shall do, by the providence of God, now that the relation of the races has been changed; and remember that I as a Southern man am ready to thank God for this result of the civil war, and I am not here in any other sense than that we are come to consult how best to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ, as this Church has received it, to those four millions of people, who stand to-day in that land from which I come as free men, as citizens, yes, as a mighty power in the body politic, who are going to control, maybe, the legislation of this land. I remember once to have heard that apostolic man who has just taken his seat say to the men of New York what I want to say to the men of America to-day about this race. The Bishop of Minnesota said to the men of New York, 'You have got to take care of the poor people of this land or they will take care of you'; and so I say, 'You have got to take care of these people whom God hath set free from their bondage, and to whom have been given such civil rights that now the vote of one of them is just as mighty a factor in the land where I live as mine, or that of the Governor of the State -- we have got to take care of them, or they are going to take care of us.'"

  The report of the Episcopal Commission of Home Missions to colored people gives a list of thirty-seven missionary stations among these people, each supporting a missionary, a church, a parochial school, and a Sunday-school.

  The system of the Episcopal Church seems in many respects exactly adapted to bring into an orderly and edifying use some of the peculiarities of the colored race. Her ritual, admitting responses, chanting processionals, and some scenic and æsthetic effect, will be attractive; while her liturgy, with its constant reiteration of Scripture reading, its collects, its affecting sacramental forms, will be a constant source of religious instruction. An effort being made in this Church to prepare an educated colored ministry is also specially interesting, as showing the decrease of the unchristian prejudice against color in a denomination which contains a great body of the former slaveholders. Rev. A. T. Twing, in his report to the Domestic Committee, September 1, 1878, gives this instance: "In a diocese at the capital of the State, where the beginning was with a few children taught under great opposition from the whole community by a noble presbyter and his wife, the result is -- he being dead, but yet speaking -- a Sunday-school of three or four hundred, instructed and sustained by the best people of the parish, the former and bitter prejudice having passed away. The present rector, honoring the memory and course of his predecessor, looks forward, not to a mission-chapel in an obscure and out-of-the-way place, but to an enlargement of the church to proportions ample for the accommodation of colored as well as white worshipers, and to the day not far distant when he hopes to have with the hearty approval of his people an antiphonal choir of white choristers on one side and black choristers on the other, and when a colored clergyman will minister with him at God's holy altar." This will certainly be a consummation worthy a Catholic and Apostolic Church.

  To this summary of the various educational institutions of different Christian bodies must be added a notice of Howard University in the national capital.

  This institution, organized primarily under the national patronage by the Freedman's Bureau, offers equal advantages of education to all, without distinction of creed, race, or sex.

  The departments of instruction at Howard University are as follows:


  1. The Academic Department, including five courses of study, viz.: a the Model School Course of three years in the elementary English branches (students completing this course are prepared to begin either of the three following); b, the Normal Course of three years, adapted to those who have the work of teaching in view; c, the Literary Course of four years, designed to furnish a good practical education for those who are unable to take the full college curriculum; d, the Classical Preparatory Course of three years; and e, the Classical College Course of four years.

  2. The Medical Department.

  3. The Law Department.

  4. The Theological Department.

  The institution has a library of seven thousand volumes of general literature, and each professional department has its library. There are a cabinet of minerals containing four thousand specimens and a museum of history.

  In the medical department, such are the advantages that a majority of the students are white. The theological department has about thirty students -- some quite mature in age -- in various preparatory, special, and regular courses, some of whom are already preachers, in a humble way, in their respective denominations. In the other departments worthy young persons are seeking to prepare for all the different vocations in life. They come from the abodes of poverty, and help themselves so far as opportunity offers, by labor, at leisure hours, and during vacations. But such earnings are usually insufficient. The charge for tuition is only twelve dollars a year, and room-rent is the same, while board is furnished at about ten dollars per month. No charge is made for tuition or room-rent to students for the gospel ministry.

  With extensive buildings and grounds, the institution has no available endowments. Formerly it had liberal aid from the Freedman's Bureau, which no longer operates. Its temporary dependence is on rents, tuition, fees, and other scanty resources. With endowments for the professorships it could not only permanently sustain the present limited arrangements for instruction, but could greatly enlarge them to the advantage of the interests concerned. If permanent scholarships of $1,000 or $1,500 each could be secured, the best talent among the needy might be educated for important service. Even with temporary annual scholarships of fifty or a hundred dollars, the number of deserving students could soon be doubled. Often a donation of fifteen or twenty dollars will suffice to supplement the resources of a student so as to enable him to go through the year. A large addition to the female students could be made if friends would enable the institution to render slight aid. Churches, Sunday-schools, and individuals will here find a noble opportunity to do good, by contributions of money, clothing, bedding, stationery.

  The entire floating debt of over $100,000 has been paid off within three years, and the only incumbrance on the buildings is $11,000. There is every reason to hope that this noble institution may receive that aid of which it is worthy. We have not space in this article to particularize the different institutions which in each State are working in this field of education. The writer has been through an extensive examination of the latest catalogues of each one up to the present year. Certain points are observable in which they all agree:

  1. The use either of tobacco or of ardent spirits in any form is prohibited to pupils.

  2. While all of them allow of the co-education of the sexes, such judicious regulations exist, with regard to all the proprieties and decorums of life, that no breath of suspicion or scandal has arisen in this regard. The presence of the two sexes is so guarded as to produce the delicacy, refinement, and purity of a Christian family.

  3. All of them are guided by an earnest religious influence, and make it their object to enlighten the quick religious sensibility of the colored race, and bring it under the control of intelligent faith.

  Berea College, in Kentucky, has accomplished the great point of co-education of the colored and white races.

  On this point Professor Peabody, of Harvard, remarks: "Of all the experiments in co-education that have been instituted, we regard Berea College, in Kentucky, as the most important in its sphere of influence and in its prophecy of enduring benefit to the colored race. It has carried the war into the enemy's camp, and has brought its whole Christian panoply and armament into the immediate encounter with the surviving spirit of slavery. The college has shown its large educational capacity. Its public exercises have been attended in successive years by persons of established reputation as educationists and literary men, and have received their unqualified commendation and praise. There is, for many miles around, no institution of learning that does nearly so much or so well for its pupils. The consequence is, that those at first vehemently opposed to it are fast falling into the ranks of neutrals or friends. Many who deemed it a nuisance have already sent their children to it. Its sterling value as a seminary of education is now recognized on all hands. But it is of much more worth for its silent yet most efficient propagandism of the due relation between the races; for co-education includes within itself, or involves as its necessary consequence, equality in all civic and social rights, immunities, duties, and obligations. Moreover, a State in which white citizens already seek for their children the privilege of co-education with colored youths, can not long retain its hostility to public schools in the late slave States is, as we have said, essential to their political and social well-being; and for the advancement of this end Berea College is now doing more than can be effected by any possible legislation, by any action of political parties, or by the combined influence of press, platform, and pulpit."

  It is a matter of surprise that so noble and intelligent a State as Kentucky should be far behind other Southern States in its provision for the education of its emancipated citizens.

  In South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana the law allows no distinction of race, or color, or previous condition. The Legislature of Georgia in 1870 voted an annual appropriation of $8,000 to Atlanta University; the State of Virginia voted a liberal allowance of public money to the Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute; and South Carolina has made a generous appropriation to Claflin University.

  With this enlightened policy of other Southern States, it surprises us to find that in Kentucky the colored race have no share of the common-school fund, and are oppressed by peculiar laws. A colored schoolhouse is not allowed within a mile of a white school, nor in towns within six hundred feet. It is forbidden by law for a colored child to attend a white school or a white child a colored school.[*] President Fairchild says in defense of the co-educatory system of Berea: "We advocate it -- 1. Because it is impossible to educate both races separately. In the rural districts it is impossible to maintain two sets of schools. In the cities it may be done, but in the country it can not. In hundreds of districts there are very few (from five to twenty-five) colored children. They must be admitted to the schools which white children attend, or be left without schools. In other districts the same is true of white children. 2. The separation fosters a spirit of contempt, and haughtiness, and domineering on the one side, and a sense of debasement and a spirit of sycophancy or surliness on the other, entirely inconsistent with the highest good of either. It is cruel and abusive to teach the colored children from the very beginning that they are only fit for servants of white people, and are not at all to be tolerated in the same schoolroom with white children. Such treatment will never make them self-respecting, patriotic, independent citizens."

  It is impossible even to give a minute notice of all the principal universities or colleges that have been established for the freedmen. But Fiske University, in Nashville, Tennessee, having a history which has given to it a wide celebrity, we select that as a specimen of the rest.

  From this institution went forth the small band of liberated slaves called the Jubilee Singers, who conceived the generous plan of endowing their institution by the exercise of their musical talent.

  Their history is the romance of our period. Starting poor, simple, unknown, with the disadvantage of their color in their way, they first gained the ear and heart of the most refined
circles in this country. Crossing the water, they were admitted to sing before the Queen of England and royal family, and treated with distinguished hospitality and kindness by the then Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone. In Germany they were received with no less consideration by the Emperor and royal family. In Holland the crowned heads and royal personages were no less kind, graciously receiving the singers and openly declaring themselves their patrons. With such patronage their concerts in all these countries were a brilliant series of triumphs, and Jubilee Hall and Livingstone Hall, with their noble proportions, and fine architecture, will for ever be a monument of the success of this simple effort of emancipated slaves.

  The catalogue of Fiske University for 1878 gives twenty-six in the college course, fifty-four in the preparatory department, twenty-five in the theological course, one hundred and fifty-three in the normal school course, and eleven in the higher normal.

  The total attendance was three hundred and thirty-eight, of whom one hundred and eighty-one were boarders. Since 1868 regularly trained teachers have been going out from this institution. In 1877 one hundred and five teachers thus prepared were at work in the field of education. Fiske University has also sent out four missionaries to the Mendi mission on the coast of Africa. A deep feeling for mission-work pervades the institution, and ennobles and enlarges the aims of its students, and doubtless others will follow in the steps of those who have so nobly volunteered.

  It remains now to speak of those institutions which unite the higher culture of the mind with practical scientific knowledge.

  Of these the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, at Hampton, Virginia, is a favorable specimen. This institution was founded ten years ago by the American Missionary Association, and has been aided by the Freedman's bureau and the Peabody Fund, and very largely by individual Christian benevolence. In 1872 the State of Virginia designated Hampton as trustee of that portion of the Agricultural Land Fund which was assigned to the colored people. The amount of $95,000 was invested in State bonds, on which full interest has been paid.