ho had served them acceptably as slaves. This period,
therefore, antedates the emancipation of the Negroes. Because of the
scarcity of the slave population of Western Virginia, the 14,000
slaves scattered among the mountainous counties came into helpful
contact with their masters, among whom the institution never lost its
patriarchal aspect. Although it was both unlawful and in some parts of
West Virginia unpopular to instruct Negroes, these masters, a law unto
themselves, undertook to impart to these bondmen some modicum of
knowledge. Upon the actual emancipation in 1865, when all restraint in
this respect was abrogated, benevolent white persons, moved with
compassion because of the benighted condition of Negroes, volunteered
to offer them instruction. The first teachers of the Negroes in West
Virginia, then, were white persons. The Negroes of Jefferson,
Greenbrier, Monroe, Summers, Kanawha, Mason, and Wood counties still
point with pride to these white friends, who by their indefatigable
work as teachers blazed the way in a field which to Negroes had been
forbidden.

During the next period there came into these same parts the Union
soldier, followed and sometimes accompanied by the missionary teachers
sent out by the Freedmen's Relief Commissions of the North and by the
Freedmen's Bureau. The efforts of the Union soldier could not be
crowned with signal success for the reason that they were sporadic and
this volunteer was not in every case well prepared for such service.
The greatest impetus was given the cause when missionary teachers
appeared in the State. Having the spirit of sacrifice which
characterized the apostles of old, they endured the hardships
resulting from social proscription and crude environment. With the
funds which they secured from the agencies which they represented and
which they could raise among the poor freedmen and their few
sympathetic white friends, these teachers of the new day built or
rented shanty-like school-houses in which they proclaimed the power of
education as the great leverage by which the recently emancipated race
could toil up to a position of recognition in this republic. The
educational achievements of this class of teachers were significant,
not so much because of the actual instruction given, but rather on
account of the inspiration which set the whole body of Negroes
throughout the State thinking and working to secure to themselves
every facility for education vouchsafed