eve that the
masses should be educated. This class was, however, small and is perhaps
more numerous in other sections of the Union than in the South.

Last, but by no means the least, of the obstacles to general public
education was the question of its influence upon the negro. The apparent
effects of negro education were not likely to make the average white man
feel that the experiment had been successful. The phrase that "an educated
negro was a good plough-hand spoiled" seemed to meet with general
acceptance. The smattering of an education which the negroes had
received--it would be difficult to call it more--seemed to have improved
neither their efficiency nor their morals. As a result there were many
white people so shortsighted that they would starve their own children
rather than feed the negro.

To all of these obstacles in human nature were added the defects of the
tax system. Almost invariably the tax was levied by the Legislature upon
the State as a whole or upon the county, and the constitutions or the
laws in some cases forbade the progressive smaller division to levy
special taxes for any purpose. Graded schools began, however, to appear
in the incorporated towns which were not subject to the same tax
limitations as the rural districts, and in time it became easier to levy
supplementary local taxes by legislative act, judicial interpretation,
or constitutional changes.

Gradually public sentiment in favor of schools grew stronger. The
legislatures raised the rate of taxation for school purposes, normal
schools were established, log schoolhouses began to be replaced by frame
or brick structures, uniform textbooks became the rule and not the
exception, teachers' salaries were raised, and the percentage of
attendance climbed upward, though there was still a remnant of the
population which did not attend at all. The school term was not
proportionately extended, since a positive mania for small districts
developed--a school at every man's door. In the olden days large
districts were common, and many of the children walked four or five miles
to school in the morning and back home in the afternoon. No one then
dreamed of transporting the children at public expense. The school
authorities were often unable to resist the pressure to make new districts,
and necessarily a contracted term followed. In 1900 the average school term
in North Carolina was not longer than in 1860, though much more money was
spent, and t