the South? . . The great majority are deplorably ignorant - more ignorant, than the slaves themselves. They were described by travelers in the South, before the war, not only as ignorant, but as idle and debased. Those who have seen much of the rebel armies or of the rebel prisoners during the war, can well believe that those accounts are not exaggerations. At Point Lookout, only about one out of twenty of the rebel prisoners could read and write; and these prisoners were equally intelligent with those confined elsewhere. It was this ignorance that enabled the rebel leaders to create a prejudice in the minds of this class of persons against the North, and to induce them to enlist in their armies. . . As long as they are ignorant, they will remain the tools of political demagogues, and therefore be incapable of self-government. . What can education do for the freedmen? .. . . It still depends upon the North-upon us - whether the freedmen are to survive the "struggle for life" which they must now confront, or whether, like the native red men, they are to perish. To set the slaves free will be a doubtful blessing to them, if we do no more. American society has little patience with the weak and the thriftless. [Andrew J. Rickoff, 1865] One class, because of the stability of slavery and the dominance of the slave-owning classes, was secure only in the ignorance of the poor whites, and they were at once too ignorant and too much under the influence and power of the slaveocracy to be induced to step forth in the march of improvement, and a third class were prohibited from learning to read, and the severest penalties of the statute laws were directed against persistence in teaching them, and the yet severer penalties of Lynch law, the gag, the thumbscrew, and the gallows, against even the suspicion of an attempt to do so... He [the negro] must be strengthened against the views of the whites, and against the wiles, the guile and hate of his baffled masters and their minions. [Gen. John Eaton, 1870] It should not be forgotten here that the sentiments which struggled for the overthrow of the Union had been the subjects of misguided instruction, poisoning specially for a generation the channels of thought among the people of a large section of the country. On the other hand, the sentiments which sustained the Union existed, nay, were strong, clear and active, only to the extent that patriotic teachers and educational instrumentalities had made them so. Some one in 1861 fitly observed — "the plantation system and the school district system have come to a crisis.' The Negro's Capacity for Education [1865] Report of New England Freedmen's Aid Society. THEIR belief that reading and writing are to bring with them inestimable advantages, seems, in its universality and intensity, like a mysterious instinct. All who have been among them bear witness to this fact. As respects aptitude to learn, there is similar unanimity of testimony. It cannot be expected that a man or woman whose only school-training heretofore has been that of the plantation-school, or that children whose ancestors have been slaves for generations back, should show the same quickness that the children of New-England parents manifest. The negro adult or child, before he enters the Freedmen's school, has been at a very bad preparatory school. Slave-masters are not good schoolmasters: still, — due allowance made for parentage and training - it is not too much to say, that the aptitude at acquiring the elements of knowledge is, by the testimony of all our teachers, marvelous under the cir cumstances. They do not write as if they found calls for more patience than is demanded in our ordinary Northern schools. And it is a most significant fact, that the most enthusiastic are not the new teachers, but those who have been at their posts from the beginning. It may be of interest to some, to know that they do not find any difference, in respect to intellect, between those of pure blood and those of mixed blood. The importance of the work of educating the freedmen, can hardly be exaggerated. Its results will reach into the future. . . The great mass of white men, who are now disloyal, will remain, for some time to come, disaffected. Black men who are now friendly will remain so. And to them must the country look in a large degree, as a counteracting influence against the evil councils and designs of the white freemen. Northern Songs in Southern Schools House Report no. 16, 39 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 239, 392, 399, 430. State- [Testimony of Miss M. A. Armstrong:] I believe that over a hundred [teachers] were left out, and every one who made any display of patriotism in school, or encouraged the children. to love the Union or to sing national airs. . I was requested that songs obnoxious to the people should not be permitted. I handed the list of songs we were in the habit of singing to the superintendent and asked him to point out any that were obnoxious and I would leave them out. There was nothing but Once on a visit of would like to hear Union songs .. and war songs. I saw him afterward and asked him why I lost my position. He said he could but admire those who refused to teach and refused to take the oath under General Butler.. he told me that I had better not have anything sung obnoxious to the people. . . The Confederate cause was not permitted to be brought up on any occasion; but when I could bring up the Union cause I did so. [Testimony of Miss Maria Taylor:] the superintendent to my school he said he some singing. I asked him what kind. He said nothing political. He knew there was nothing political sung there except on one side. The girls could not sing anything else and therefore did not sing. . [We sang] such as Hail Columbia, Star Spangled Banner, and Yankee Doodle. . . Songs of that nature only. . . Question. Did you sing "John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the ground?" Yes, sir, we sung that... It was pretty hard to get some of the girls to I insisted on their singing anything that was deWe sung all the Union songs and all sing it... termined to sing. the war songs. 2. ATTITUDE OF THE SOUTHERN WHITES TOWARD NEGRO EDUCATION An Appeal from the Freedmen Selma (Alabama) Times, December 30, 1865. The appeal was signed by the leading negroes. [1865] DEAR friends and former masters: We know there is a large number of widows and crippled men, who are well educated, and have no employment by which to make a living. These persons we would be pleased to see taking an interest in teaching our children, and training them up in the way they should go. We are greatly in want of schools, and to persons who will establish them, we will guarantee our undivided support. Our own people are the proper ones to teach us, and we sincerely wish them to do it. . . And why should it be considered a disgrace now to make a living at this business in the South? We make our living out of the people here, and therefore we think it our duty to spend our money with those who have sustained and taken care of us. The United States Government and your State Convention gave us our freedom, and we prefer you to any other to have the money derived from our daily labor for teaching our children. If you all stand back, strangers will come in and take the money from under your hands and carry it away to build up their own country. They are not ashamed to make money from any class of men. In Mobile the colored schools are taught by strangers, and they are making large sums of money. In that city alone, not less than 1200 or 1300 colored children are at school and all of them pay, with the exception of about ten or twelve. We are trying to buy a lot in the suburbs of the city, upon which to build a school-house and church. If the teachers can get any place to make a commencement we will send our children at once. "Shall the Negro be Educated?" Selma (Alabama) Times, December 30, 1865. Editorial in answer to the "Appeal" printed above. [1865] THE negroes are in our midst. We cannot get rid of them. It is absurd and impracticable to propose to send them out of the country. . . However much such a consummation is to be desired, it is not to be thought of for a moment by any sane man. . . The negroes are among us, for good or evil; they must be taught to support themselves and contribute to the commonwealth; they must be made useful members of society; or, failing in this, they will become an insupportable tax upon the property, enterprise, and productive industry of the country, and the whites will be dragged down with them to a lower depth of poverty and woe than we have yet reached. We have been the legal guardians of the negroes, and no legislation, no change of circumstances, can relieve us from the moral responsibility of such a relationship in the future. They were born our slaves - they have grown up in our service; they have been taught to labor for us. They did not seek freedom. They did not rebel against our authority. In the darkest hours of the past four years our properties and the treasures of our hearts were absolutely in their power and under their protection. To their eternal honor be it recorded that despite the proclamations of the United States Government, the appeals of Federal army officers, and the instigation of emissaries from abroad, despite the tempting offer of freedom presented in the most attractive and seductive form, they everywhere were faithful, they nowhere committed a single outrage upon the defenseless ones in their midst. .. As they must remain here, a due regard for the public weal imperatively requires that they shall be educated, taught at least to read and write. . . Steeped in ignorance, they can never be made to understand the responsibilities that rest upon them as freedmen, or induced to perform the duties growing out of them. Other means, such as we have suggested, may prevent them from becoming |