EDUCATION. Education in Alabama is in a very unsatisfactory but hopeful condition. The percentage of her illiteracy is exceeded in but three other States. There are great difficulties in the way of maintaining satisfactory educa tional standards, such difficulties as are incident to the breakdown of an industrial system and the presence of a large ex-slave class. The schools have lacked financial support, partially through the fault of the law, for there has been no provision for local taxation for educational purposes. The new constitution, however, pro vides for county school taxes. Many of the teachers lack proper qualifications (especially the colored teachers), the schools are not graded, and heretofore have been very inadequately su pervisedi The length of the school term is com monly less than ninety days per year; but in the white schools the teachers are often retained for longer terms, at the expense of the parents of the school children. Of late, however, public in terest in the matter has been aroused. Laws now make it possible to secure better qualified teach ers and provide a better financial support. The school appropriation, which for a long time had amounted annually to about $050,000, was in creased in 1900 to $1.000,000; but even this makes the sum for each child of school age only about $1.50. The white children of school age
numbered 350,000 in 1900: the black children, 282,000. In 1S99 the enrollment of white chil dren amounted to 196,000; of blacks, 122,000. Thirteen hundred children were enrolled in pub lic high schools, and a somewhat less number in private secondary schools. The State sup ports, together with the aid of the Peabody Fund, seven normal schools, three of which are for colored students. A district system of agricul tural schools has been established by the State, there being nine such district schools. The State also supports an agricultural and mechanical college (colored) , four normal schools, a Poly technie Institute at Auburn, a girls' industrial school (white) at Montevallo, and a university at Tuscaloosa. Private institutions of learning are as follows: Blount College, Blountsville; St. Bernard College, Cullman; Howard College, East Lake; Southern University, Greensboro; Lafay ette College, Lafayette; Lineville College, Line ville; Selma University, t:•elma; Spring Hill Col lege, Spring Hill. and eight colleges for women. The industrial Institute (colored) at Tuskegee (q.v.) has become famous under the administra tion of Booker T. Washington for the efficient way in which it is helping to solve the race ques tion.