NEGRO EDUCATION. Much of the negro advancement in the United States since the Civil War is to be credited to the regular habits of industry. and to the knowledge of the xvhite man's religion, language, and ways of life gained in slavery days. To one connected with negro schools nothing is clearer than the value of the influence of good Southern white families upon their slaves. Some of the plantations were really large trade schools where habits of industry were formed. ('arpenters. coopers. sawyers, blacksmiths, tanners. currier-4, shoemakers, spinners. weavers, knitters. and dis tillers were all to be found among plantation slaves; and the negro mechanic was an important man in the community. Thus the race was being gradually trained in the Way,: of civilization, was contracting the habit of labor. acquiring a su perior language and religion. and developing a character capable of further advancement.
('edit should also be given to the training which the colored man received during the Civil War. In the Ni a'thern armies there were thou sands of colored troops who received discipline of the most valuable sort. In the South, the homes and farms of the white Confederate sol diers were largely in the hands of negro 'men and women. Alost valuable to the slaves was the gain in power and executive ability that came out of that experience. While their masters were fighting to keep them in slavery, they were receiving in the absence of those masters the edu cation which was to lit them to be freemen.
The sudden emancipation of the blacks brought about a condition bordering upon chaos. The Southern white man knew little of the treatment due a negro freeman, and the negro knew as little what his Million to his former master should be. The white man was unable to look upon the black in any other light than as his servant. and the black man looked upon all service as degrading, considering that freedom and education ought to exempt him !coin labor. especially from the labor
of the hands.
Upon the heels of the Northern armies came an army of devoted women. eager to teach the freedmen. It September, 1801, the American Missionary Association opened its first school for contrabands at Ilampton. Va_. the outcome of which is the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (q.v.). In the following January schools were started at, Hilton Head and Beau fort, S. C., and in 1862 and 1863 teachers were sent to Tennessee. The Nev. John Eaton, an army chaplain from olio. afterwards United States Commissioner of Ed neat ion, was placed by General Grant ill c•harge of the instruction of the colored people, of whom it is estimated that more than a million learned to read and write; of the 80,000 colored troops in the Northern army. 20, 1H111 learned to read and write. The churches of the North vied with one another in their en deavors to bring education to the black man. In 1S05 the Freedmen's Bureau (q.v.) was estab lished, and, in addition to other work, it super intended the education given to the freedmen by the Government and the churches of the North. Between 1865 and 1870 more than five million dollars was expended by this organization for educational Intl-poses. In some eases Gov ernment buildings and land were granted.
The proved capacity of the negroes for ednea tion suggested the wisdom and economy of pro viding their schools with teachers of their own race. and (hiring the years from 1868 to 1878 there were founded twenty-five normal and col legiate institutions under the control of differ ent religions denominations, the Congregation alists and Baptists leading in the number and size of their sehools. They extended from Hamp ton in Virginia to Tillotson in Texas. At At lanta, Nashville, Chattanooga. and other institutions built costing from $200.000 to 5500.000. and having a yearly attendance of from 300 to 300 students. They have trained many of the teachers of the negro rave.