ive of the urban communities which
were organized under the act for cities, towns and villages. Five of
these towns reported that they did not have any Negro children of
school age. The thirty towns reported 4,701 Negro children, 2,379 of
whom were enrolled in the public schools. Salisbury was the only town
having more than sixteen Negro children for whom no school was
maintained, while Bolivar and Augusta, which had in the first case
eleven and in the second four Negro children of school age, reported
respectively five and three Negro children in the public schools.

The largest cities in the State were St. Joseph, Kansas City and St.
Louis. These cities provided public schools for the freedmen soon
after the war. St. Joseph opened a school[54] with seventy seats for
Negro children in 1866. In 1871 the city had for Negro children, two
schools,[55] each of which was provided with one teacher. One of these
schools had an enrollment of 96 pupils and the other 94. In 1874 this
city enumerated[56] 651 Negro children of school age, 386 of whom were
enrolled in the two public schools. The number of teachers had
increased from two to four.

The first Negro public school[57] in Kansas City was reported in 1867.
The enumeration[58] for 1873 was 408 Negro children of school age. The
average attendance was 165. The length of the school term was forty
weeks. The amount spent on each pupil was 7.5 cents a day in the Negro
school and 8.6 in the white school. The average salary paid to male
teachers was $68.33 in the Negro school and $112.50 in the white
schools. The average salary paid to female teachers was $45 in the
Negro school and $65 in the white schools. In 1874 the number of Negro
children enumerated was 885.[59] There was one Negro school in the
city for their use which had 356 pupils and five teachers.

In St. Louis, the largest city in the State, there was a steady growth
of the Negro school system. The State Legislature granted this city
the power to establish separate schools[60] for Negro children in
1865. The next year Ira Divoll, the City Superintendent, established
three schools for Negro children.[61] One was in the northern, one in
the central and another in the southern part of the city. In 1868
there were five Negro schools[62] in the city with a total enrollment
of 924 pupils. Three of these schools held night sessions which ran
from the first Monday in October of the year 1867 to the fifth of
February, 1868.