hey failed
to do so, the law directed the State Superintendent to establish and
to levy taxes for the support of Negro schools in such communities. In
those districts in which there were too few Negro children to form a
separate school, union schools were to be established. The last
mentioned law, however, was passed too late to have much effect upon
the period under discussion. School officials who refused to perform
the duties of their office could be fined[49] not less than fifty nor
more than five hundred dollars.

In the larger centers of the State where there was a large Negro
population the necessity of establishing schools[50] for the Negroes
seems to have been better realized. Thirty-nine out of seventy-three
towns and villages incorporated under the special Act for Towns and
Villages, reported[51] a sufficient population for a Negro school.
There were 19,879 white and 3,609 Negro pupils enrolled in the public
schools of these thirty-nine towns and villages. The length of the
school term was the same in the white and the Negro schools in a
number of cases; but the average length was lower in the Negro schools
than in the white schools. The average length of the white school was
thirty-four weeks and the average length of the Negro school term was
twenty-eight weeks. The average expense a pupil in these schools was
8.1 cents a day for each white pupil and 7.8 cents a day for each
Negro pupil. The average attendance in the Negro schools was below
that in the white schools. The average attendance of the white schools
was 61.89 per cent and that of the Negro schools was 51.86 per cent of
the enrollment.

The lower attendance of the Negro children may be accounted for as Asa
Martin accounts for a similar condition in Kansas City.[52] In this
city from 1885 to 1913 a larger per cent of the Negro than of the
white children of school age attended the public schools, but the
average attendance of the white children enrolled was above that of
the Negro children. This he accounted for by the poverty of the Negro
population. Since the Negroes were poorer as a whole than the whites,
they were more poorly housed and clothed. Consequently the Negro
children were more susceptible to sickness and to the disagreeable
effects of inclement weather. On this account they were oftener absent
from school than the white children.

The report of the State Superintendent of Schools for the year 1874
contains reports[53] from thirty-f