nty-one years. These schools had to maintain an average attendance
of sixteen pupils or be closed. As Negro communities were not very
large and the number of such children small, some of them scattered
throughout the State were denied the opportunity to acquire an
education. This law, therefore, was amended in 1867 so as to authorize
local boards of education to establish a school whenever there were
more than fifteen Negro children between the ages of six and
twenty-one.[3]

The attitude of the State approved separation of the two races in the
schools, but the first two laws bearing on Negro schools did not make
this point clear. Upon revising the constitution in 1872, therefore,
it was specifically provided that whites and blacks should not be
taught in the same school.[4] Thereafter, however, the whites and
blacks sometimes used the same school-houses. As the term consisted of
only four months of twenty-two school days each, the whites would open
school in September and vacate by Christmas, when the Negroes would
take charge.

No further changes were made in the school law until 1899, when it was
amended to the effect that the trustees in certain districts should
establish one or more primary schools for Negro children between the
ages of six and twenty-one years, and that said members of boards of
education should establish such Negro schools whenever there were at
least ten Negro pupils who resided in their district, and for a
smaller number, if it were possible to do so.[5] This gave impetus to
the movement for more intensive education among Negroes throughout
their communities. Often Negro children in groups of only four or five
were thus trained in the backward districts, where they received
sufficient inspiration to come to larger schools for more systematic
training.

THE FIRST EFFORTS IN NORTHERN WEST VIRGINIA

Parkersburg enjoys the distinction of having established in this State
the first school for Negroes supported by private funds. Having a
desire to provide for their children the facilities of education long
since denied to members of their race, a group of progressive Negroes
met in Parkersburg in January, 1862, to translate their idea into
action. Among these persons were Robert Thomas, Lafayette Wilson,
William Sargent, R. W. Simmons, Charles Hicks, William Smith, and
Matthew Thomas. They organized a board, which adopted a constitution
and by-laws by which they were to be governed in carrying