RNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. V--APRIL, 1920--NO. 2

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN MISSOURI[1]

THE PERIOD FROM 1865 TO 1875

On Tuesday, the eleventh day of January, 1865, the Negro of Missouri
awoke a slave; that night he retired a free man.[2] His darkest hour
had passed but before him loomed a great task, that of living up to
the requirements of a man. His emancipators were confronted with the
responsibility of preparing him for his new duties and for the proper
use of suffrage which was to be granted him a few years later.

Prior to 1865 the State had seen fit to prohibit the education[3] of
the slave because, although the educated slave was the more efficient,
yet he was the more dangerous; as his training might aid him to make a
better revolt against his position. But the qualities which were
objectionable in the slave were necessary to the freed man, if he was
to prove other than a menace to the State. His emancipators faced the
education of the Negro fairly, and the same convention which had
passed the Emancipation Act of 1865, drew up a new State constitution
which was ratified the same year. This constitution[4] provided for
the establishment and the maintenance of free public schools for the
instruction of all persons in the State who were between the ages of
five and twenty-one. It further provided that all funds for the
support of the public schools should be appropriated in proportion to
the number of children without regard to color.

The legislature, which met the same year, passed a law[5] which
required that the township boards of education, and those in charge of
the educational affairs in the cities and the incorporated villages of
the State should establish and maintain one or more separate schools
for the colored children of school age within their respective
jurisdictions, provided the number of such children should exceed
twenty. Persons over twenty-one were to be admitted to these schools.
The same officers who were in charge of the educational interests of
the white schools were to control the Negro schools. The length of the
term and the other advantages to be enjoyed by these schools were to
be the same as those enjoyed by the white schools of the same grade.
This law further provided that if the average attendance for any month
should drop below twelve the school might be closed for a period not
to exceed six months. In districts where there were les