re and there,
running from three to five months in the year and paying the teachers
from $7.50 to $18 per month.

Our trip through this section revealed the following facts: (1) That
while many opportunities were denied our people, they abused many
privileges; (2) that there was a colored population, in this section
visited, of more than 200,000 and a school population of 85,499; (3)
that the people were ignorant and superstitious; (4) that the teachers
and preachers for the most part, were of the same condition; (5) that
there were no public or private libraries and reading-rooms to which
they had access; (6) that, strictly speaking, there were no public
schools and only one private one. Now, what can be expected of any
people in such a condition? Can the blind lead the blind? They could not
in the days of old, and it is not likely that they can now.

CHAPTER 6.

FOUNDING THE SNOW HILL SCHOOL.

After this trip through the "Black Belt" I was more convinced than ever
before of the great need of an Industrial School in the very midst of
these people; a school that would correct the erroneous ideas the people
held of education; a school that would put most stress upon the things
which the people were most likely to have to do with through life; a
school that would endeavor to make education practical rather than
theoretical; a school that would train men and women to be good workers,
good leaders, good husbands, good wives, and finally train them to be
fit citizens of the State and proper subjects for the Kingdom of God.

With this idea the Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute was started
twenty-five years ago in an old dilapidated one-room log cabin with one
teacher and three students, with no State appropriation, and without any
church or society responsible for one dollar of its expenses. Aside from
this unfortunate state of affairs, the condition of the people was
miserable. This was due partly to poor crops and partly to bad
management on their part.

In many instances the tenants were not only unable to pay their debts,
but were also unable to pay their rents. In a few cases the landlords
had to provide at their own expense provisions for their tenants. This
was simply another way of establishing soup-houses on the plantations.
The idea of buying land was foreign to all of them, and there were not
more than twenty acres of land owned by the colored people in this whole
neighborhood. The churches a