objections, it is true; but it must be remembered that the majority of our white people are woefully ignorant. . . My assertion applies only to the intelligent, and there I contend that I am right. The earnest desire to educate all the people, is general among them. . . Let us then not begin wrong in this all important matter. . . If we begin by educating the masses, we end by overcoming their prejudices. But if we begin by attempting to overcome the prejudice by force and educating them afterwards, I am convinced that the whole plan will result in a failure. Now, what is likely to be the result of . . opening the public schools to all? Simply that they would be attended only by the colored children. If the attempt is made to enforce a mixture in this way, I have no idea that fifty white children in the State would attend the public schools. The freedmen's [Bureau] schools are now . . . opened to all; and yet I believe not one white pupil in the State attends them. The result would be exactly the same with our public schools. This is the state of affairs that we should certainly desire to avoid. In the first place, the poor white children would be deprived of any chance of education. They would continue ignorant and degraded and prejudiced. The whites who have means could send their children to private schools, but the poor whites would be as heretofore, unable to do so. You would also have the strange condition of affairs of the whites paying probably nine-tenths of the expense of institutions, which they would regard themselves as shut out from using. This would be a continual barrier in the way of peaceful and friendly relations existing between the two races all over the country. . . Again, in attempting to enforce mixed schools, you bring trouble, quarreling and wrangling into every neighborhood; and that too among those who are not directly responsible to the law, and who are more likely to be governed by prejudice and passion than by reason. You come in contact with the women and children, who are more prejudiced and more difficult to control. . . In this way every neighborhood all over the State would be kept in a continual state of turmoil and strife. In this way passion and prejudice of race will be continually nurtured, and peace and quiet will not be allowed to prevail in any portion of the country. This is too serious a question, to the peace and welfare of the country, for me not to speak out plainly the dangers before us. . . The report [is] fraught with danger to the peace and harmony of the State, and to the friendly relations between the two races. They attempt to force upon South Carolina measures even in advance of Massachusetts, though they know that we are in every respect, at least one hundred years behind that much favored State. They do not reflect that civilization is a plant of slow growth; that we can only arrive at it gradually, and after long years of toil. . . [J. J. Wright] His first point is, that this provision [for mixed schools] runs counter to the prejudices of the people. To my mind, it is inconsistent that such an argument should come from a member of the Convention. . . The whole measure of reconstruction is antagonistic to the wishes of the people of the State, and this section is a legitimate portion of that scheme. It secures to every man in this State full political and civil equality. . The gentleman from Newberry said he was afraid we were taking a wrong course to remove these prejudices. The most natural method to effect this object would be to allow children, when five or six years of age, to mingle in schools together, and associate generally. Under such training, prejudice must eventually die out; but if we postpone it until they become men and women, prejudice will be so established that no mortal can obliterate it. This, I think, is a sufficient reply to the argument of the gentleman under this head. Constitutional Provisions for Mixed Schools Poore, Charters and Constitutions, pp. 768, 1661. In South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, the races were by law to attend the same schools. The whites did not go at all. [1868] [Louisiana] Art. 135. The general assembly shall establish at least one free public school in every parish throughout the State, and shall provide for its support by taxation or otherwise. All children of this State between the years of six and twenty-one shall be admitted to the public schools or other institutions of learning sustained or established by the State in common, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition. There shall be no separate schools or institutions of learning established exclusively for any race by the State of Louisiana.. Art. 142. A university shall be established and maintained in the city of New Orleans. It shall be composed of a law, a medical, and a collegiate department, each with appropriate faculties. The general assembly shall provide by law for its organization and maintenance: Provided, That all departments of this institution of learning shall be open in common to all students capable of matriculating. No rules or regulations shall be made by the trustees, faculties, or other officers of said institution of learning, nor shall any laws be made by the general assembly violating the letter or spirit of the articles [on education]. [South Carolina] Article X. Sec. 10. All the public schools, colleges, and universities of this State, supported in whole or in part by the public funds, shall be free and open to all the children and youths of the State, without regard to race or color. The Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Reynolds, Reconstruction in South Carolina, pp. 237, 241. The first extract is from a rule made (1873) by J. K. Jillson of Massachusetts, superintendent of education in South Carolina. The second is from the message (1874) of Gov. F. J. Moses commenting upon Jillson's actions. [1873-1874] [1] THE following points relative to the admission of colored pupils into this institution [Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Asylum] will be strictly and rigidly insisted upon: I. Colored pupils must not only be admitted into the institution on application, but an earnest and faithful effort must be made to induce some pupils to apply for admission. 2. Such pupils when admitted must be domiciled in the same building, must eat at the same table, must be taught in the same classrooms, and by the same teachers, and must receive the same attention, care and consideration as white pupils. [2] It was hoped that even political malice would have felt some touch of pity in contemplating the victims of the most awful bereavement that Providence has visited upon humanity, and that no discrimination would have been made as to those whom God himself had reduced to the same common level of calamity... You will see by the action above referred to of the board of directors of the asylum for the deaf and dumb and the blind, as well as by the action of the board of trustees of the State University, that at least in South Carolina "the chaff is being rapidly winnowed from the wheat" and that we are fast getting rid of influences prejudicial in our State institutions. The Reconstruction of South Carolina University Reynolds, Reconstruction in South Carolina, pp. 234, 235-236; and J. [1] Resolved, That this board accepts the resignation of M. La Borde, M. D., A. N. Talley, M. D., and R. W. Gibbes, M. D., in the University of South Carolina; and in accepting the same this board deem it due to the public to place upon record their conviction that the resignations of these gentlemen were caused by the admission, as a student of the medical department of the University, of the Hon. Henry E. Hayne, a gentleman of irreproachable character, against whom said professors can suggest no objection except, in their opinion, his race; and recognizing this as the cause of these resignations this board cannot regret that a spirit so hostile to the wel fare of our State, as well as to the dictates of justice and the claims of our common humanity, will no longer be represented in the University, which is the common property of all our citizens without distinction of race. [2] The faculty had entered upon the work of building up a university which, as the literary institution of the State, should equal if not surpass the fame and usefulness of the old college; and this work would have been accomplished but for the egregious folly and wickedness of those who held the control of the State. The old trustees who had the confidence of the people of the State, were rudely set aside to make place for adventurers who were unknown or known unfavorably. In the mere wantonness of power, or for the satisfaction which a rude nature takes in the humiliation of his superiors, negroes were placed upon the board of trustees. This act, although less cruel than that which needlessly outraged the sentiments of our people by thrusting negroes among the regents of the lunatic asylum, was more pernicious in its results. It excited suspicion of what ultimately followed — the attempt to mix the races in public education and kept students away. But the professors, with the advice of friends of the University, stood at their posts hoping to save the institution by averting a change which would prove its degradation and ruin. In short, they wished to save the University for the white sons of the State. A mixed school was impracticable. The colored people neither needed or desired it. Claflin University, at Orangeburg, established expressly for the education of their children, offered them the facilities - the means of varied culture — obtainable at the University of the State. But the trustees were bent on a mixed school, and there were needy adventurers at hand to aid them in their attempt. Supposing, correctly, that the old professors would not lend themselves to the perpetration of such an act of wanton injustice, they removed them, and conferred their places upon strangers who, even if unknown, or known only to be despised, as incompetent or immoral, were yet more subservient to their views. The University thus became, both in its officers and its matriculates, a mixed school; and a policy which a republican Congress has since refused to adopt, and thus virtually repudiated, was allowed to effect the ruin of that seat of learning. [3] Before the war. [the University of South Carolina], sheltered some two hundred students. Their young blood was fired by the first tap of the drum, and they all rushed to the |