e people of
color could have access. If such a school could not be established at
the time, he advised that a sum of $5,000 per year should be given to
the normal department of Lincoln Institute to aid in the training of
Negro teachers.

Acting on this advice, the legislature passed in 1870 a bill[76]
granting the normal department of Lincoln Institute an annual sum of
$5,000 for the training of teachers. In his reports for 1872 and 1873
the State Superintendent commented on the excellent work which this
school was doing. But as this school was hampered by debt and could
not train the number of teachers needed, he advocated that the State
should take a greater interest in the school or better still, the
State should take the school over entirely and make it into a normal
school for Negro teachers. The annual reports of the State
Superintendents from this time up to 1879, when the school was finally
given over to the State, contained accounts of the excellent work
which this school was doing in the training of teachers and he
recommended from year to year that the State should give it more
financial aid.

By the year 1875 the Negro public school system of Missouri was well
established. Elementary schools had been started in all parts of the
State. A high school for Negroes had been established in St. Louis and
the first steps had been taken towards the establishment of a Negro
State normal school. Popular opinion had crystallized in favor of
separate schools for Negro children taught by teachers of color. The
progress of the Negro schools had been somewhat retarded by a
prejudice against public schools in general and to a greater extent by
a prejudice against the education of Negroes. Towards the end of the
period there was evidence to show that this prejudice was dying out.
Much good legislation had been passed with the idea of giving the
Negro children the same educational advantages as were held by the
white children of the State. The Negro school system of this period
was in advance of the corresponding systems in the other States which
had recently held slaves.[77] The report of the Commissioner of
Education for 1872, shows that there were no public schools for the
education of the Negro in Georgia, Alabama, Delaware, Kentucky, and
Maryland. Ninety per cent of the Negro school population of Tennessee
was without the benefit of public schools. Although the Negro public
schools of Louisiana and West Virginia were e