n their annual
letters for 1872 twenty-one county superintendents called attention to
the fact that the Negro population was so distributed over the
counties that it was impossible to provide schools for them according
to the law. Three of these superintendents asked that the law might be
so amended as to provide for Negro children in the sparsely settled
districts, and one superintendent advocated[41] that in districts in
which there were too few Negro children to form separate schools, they
should be admitted to the white schools.

That same year the State Superintendent reported[42] that in several
cases in which no schools were provided because of the small number of
pupils, that their parents had asked why their children could not
enter the white schools since there was no direct law prohibiting it.
The next year[43] the Negro children in several districts did enter
the white schools with the tacit consent of the white population. When
the State Superintendent was asked whether or not they could be
ejected[44] he replied that there was no law to that effect. At this
time the enactment of a civil rights bill was being agitated in the
State. This bill[45] provided that the public schools of the State
should be open to all children regardless of color. When the civil
rights bill was defeated in 1874, there was passed another bill which
aimed to relieve the situation in the sparsely settled districts.

In 1869 the legislature had passed a law[46] permitting two or more
districts, each of which had less than fifteen Negro population but
which when taken together had more than that number, to establish a
union school for those children. This law on account of its lack of
force did not accomplish much good. In 1874 the law[47] was amended in
such a way as to make it obligatory for two or more districts, each of
which had too few Negro children, to form a school to unite to form a
union school. It was also ordered that all taxable property in a
township in which a Negro school was situated should be taxed for its
support.

In 1875 each district supported its own school[48] for white children,
while the whole township in which a Negro school was situated was
taxed for its support. No district in the State could be compelled by
the law to maintain a school for its white children, but if there were
more than fifteen Negro children in the district, the law compelled
the local authorities to establish a school for them. If t