ucable age. For their accommodation there were 59 Negro
public schools with an average attendance of 2,000. This report also
states that the majority of these schools were taught in churches and
cabins with walls admirably adapted for ventilation and for admission
of copious shower baths of rain. The same year Colonel Seely, Agent
for the Freedman's Bureau in Missouri, reported 114 schools for the
freedmen. Most of these were public schools and the attendance was
6,240. The ninth census for 1870, reported that 9,080 Negro children
were attending school in Missouri. Thus we see that the public schools
of this period were greatly aided by mission and private schools.

In 1868 the legislature enacted a law[30] which gave the State
Superintendent the authority to assume the powers of the school board
for establishing and maintaining a school for Negro children when the
township, city, or village, neglected to establish and to maintain
such a school in accordance with the law. The same year the school
law was amended[31] so as to require the township, the city or the
incorporated village to establish one or more schools for Negro
children when there was more than fifteen children in the
jurisdiction. A Negro school could be closed for six months when the
attendance for any month dropped below ten.

There is evidence to show that the State Superintendent used his power
to establish Negro schools when the local authorities neglected this
task. In 1873, he reported:[32] "I have established between 50 and 60
Negro schools in the State without resorting to the expedient of a tax
as indicated and authorized by law." In 1875 he reported: "I have
levied taxes for Negro schools in three instances. The medicine is
good and effective and I trust it will be administered in every
similar case in the State until the Negroes enjoy schools equally good
in every way as the white schools." Thus we see that by the Law of
1868 the State Superintendent had the power to remedy conditions as
far as the Negroes were concerned but there was no evidence to show
that he used this power prior to 1872, although there are reports of
violations of the law. In 1874 there was passed a law[33] which made a
school official subject to a fine of not less than fifty or more than
five hundred dollars, for the persistent neglect or refusal to perform
any duty or duties pertaining to his office. In view of this and the
offensiveness of the results threatened in th