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II. THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE. The "general histories of the United States do not devote very much space to the development, in recent years, of the schools and colleges of the country: and to high school students the subject may seem a dry one; but no account of the new South would be complete or just, which did not emphasize the importance of the mighty educational changes which have been wrought of late in the southern States. If the industrialism of the new South is remarkable, here in the field of education has idealism found its greatest opportunity for expression.

The usual accounts of education in the old South failed to do justice. It is true that the aristocratic trend of the social structure stood in the way of the education of the masses and that illiteracy was widespread-a condition inherited from colonial times and

rendered difficult of eradication through the physical

and social environment. But it is also true first that the academies for the well-to-do were in many cases of excellent character and of efficient service. President Alderman, indeed, has said,33 "it is doubtful if there were anywhere in the world, outside of Scotland, better schools for the training of the few than existed in the South prior to the Civil War." Secondly, the beginnings of a system of a popular education had been made in nearly every southern State. The familiar statement that the South owes its public schools altogether to the reconstruction represents, if not a myth, at least a serious exaggeration. That the ante-bellum systems in the South were not

32 W. K. Boyd's article, "Educational History in the South Since 1865," in "Studies in Southern History and Politics," gives a well-rounded and scholarly introduction. Bruce devotes several chapters to this topic. S. C. Mitchell's volume in "S. in B. of N." (Vol. 10) has several chapters by different authors. E. G. Murphy's "Problems of the Present South" again is highly valuable. The "General Education Board, an Account of Its Activities" shows what this Board has accomplished in the period 19021914. Materials for further stuly may be sought in the various reports or proceedings of the Conference for Education in the South, the Southern Educational Association, the Southern Sociological Congress, the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the departments of education of the Southern States. The reports and bulletins of the Bureau of Education contain many chapters or papers of value, e.g., the histories of higher education in the various States published some years ago under the leadership of H. B. Adams, papers on public school education by E. T. Mayo, the recent histories of public education in Alabama and Arkansas by Stephen B. Weeks.

33 The Outlook," August 3, 1901, cited in A. P. Whitaker, "The Public School System of Tennessee," "Tennessee Historical Magazine," Vol. 2.

effective is true and the same statement could be made of other sections; but school funds existed in many States, and the public was becoming educated to the need of State and local taxation.

Over and above the loss of adult lives which gave to the South a proportionately greater number of children to provide for, the peculiar difficulty presented by the presence of the former slaves, the financial

losses to the school funds and the State treasuries which the war entailed, and the comparative inability to pay taxes which arose from the poverty of the rural South, the very activity of the reconstruction efforts towards educational progress, however well intended, in many cases served to awaken and keep alive prejudice against such ideas. In 1875 the Civil Rights agitation raised up the spectre of the co-education of the white and black races, and so devoted an apostle as Dr. Barnas Sears, the first secretary or agent of the fund which, in 1867, the beneficence of George Peabody had provided, was deeply discouraged.3 The States hesitated to lay taxes, and only the willingness of some communities to tax themselves held out promise. Some cities already had schools; others were inaugurated with the help of the Peabody fund. But between 1890 and 1900 there began to appear signs of better times. Out of the Populist agitation and the resulting division of political solidarity arose an appreciation of the political value of an educational program, though this was not unaccompanied by evil results. The new southern State constitutions after 1890 removed some of the technical objections to State support which the courts had used in a way not always friendly to the school.35 Here and there arose State superintendents who accomplished much by their own efforts and with the aid of local associations and of broad-minded political leaders. Thus the local feeling was made more receptive for the new movement that was coming, of which the chief prophet was a man whose name will always be revered among the children of the South, J. L. M. Curry,36 of Alabama, who had become the agent of the Peabody and the Slater funds. The suggestion of Dr. Edward Abbot, of Cambridge, Mass., supported by Dr. Curry, by Bishop Dudley, of Kentucky, and by other southern men, resulted in the first Conference for Education in the South37 and began a movement in which men of both North and South have co-operated in a spirit very different from that 34 W. K. Boyd, "Educational History," p. 264. 35 Ibid, p. 251.

30 E. A. Alderman and A. C. Gordon, "J. L. M. Curry, a Biography."

37 Murphy, "Problems of the Present South," pp. 205250.

which bore such evil fruit in the years after 1865. At the third conference, that of 1900, Mr. Robert C. Ogden, of New York, was chosen president, and continued to serve in this capacity until his death. Within a year after this third conference, he was made chairman of the new Southern Education Board. With the work of the conference and the board is identified the name of another southern man now dead, Edgar Gardner Murphy, of Alabama, whose writings have been the source of inspiration to many who follow him. The Southern Education Board has ideas, but no funds of its own. The backing of the General Education Board has been available however, while the Slater Fund and the later Jeanes Fund have been especially designed for the southern Negroes.

It took time for the new forces to gather momentum. A couple of years later President Dabney could put the backwardness of popular education with as bitter plainness as this:38 "In school houses costing on an average of $276 each, under teachers receiving an average salary of $25 a month, we have been giving the children in actual attendance five cents' worth of education a day for 87 days only in the year." Every one of the factors involved, the schoolhouses, the teachers' salaries, the number of children who attend, the per capita expenditure, and the length of the school term, has been the subject of attack: and no phase of the new South represents more of the heroic. The result, in the decade 1900-1910, was the reduction of illiteracy, among the total population of the South, from 23.3 per cent. in the former year to 15.6 per cent. in the latter: and a lessening of the illiteracy of native white parentage in the South from 11.8 to 7.7 per cent. The percentage of Negro illiteracy was still high, 33.3 per cent.; but in 1890 it had been 48 per cent.39

To those who had the matter nearest at heart it was evident that the fundamental difficulty was the poverty of the rural South, and that some way must be found to add to the farmer's means by increasing the efficiency of his work.40 This brings into our account another leader whose name must be affectionately linked with those of Curry and Murphy in the history of the rise of the new South. Unlike Murphy and Curry, Seaman A. Knapp,11 was of northern birth. A distinguished scientist in agriculture, he became in 1884 president of the Iowa State College, but a few years later he was compelled by ill health to give up his work and was told that he had not long to live. He removed to Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he began a second career. For years he experimented with the rice industry in Louisiana and Texas, and in about 1903 he began near Terrell, Texas, to have the neighboring farmers meet with him in field meetings to combat the devastation of the boll-weevil and to prove 39 Ibid, p. 230.

39 The Thirteenth Census, Abstract, p. 243.

40 The General Education Board, 1902-1914, pp. 18 ff. 41 Peabody College Bulletin, September, 1913. Knapp Agricultural Day Program, pp. 12-15.

that cotton could be grown notwithstanding this pest. He had the confidence of Secretary Wilson of the Department of Agriculture, and had twice traveled in the East to make investigations for the government. Assistance was now given to him for his Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work, which was extended to Louisiana and Mississippi. In 1906 the General Education Board arranged with Dr. Knapp and the Department of Agriculture that the board should finance an extension of Dr. Knapp's work to the noninfected States, while control of these demonstrations, as of those in the infected regions should rest with the Department of Agriculture. If Dr. Knapp's methods succeeded in the stricken districts, why should they not be even more successful in the regions that were yet free. Thus largely through the genius of one man a new turn was given to agricultural education, in a manner to reach the common man on the farm as distinct from the necessarily limited though highly valuable results of work in agricultural colleges. Through a division of the fields between the government and the General Education Board, every State in the South was reached and by the close of 1912 about half of all the counties. In 1906, 545 farms were included, in 1912, 106,621. The work is conducted by special agents under the chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry of the Department of Agriculture. The States have co-operated, notwithstanding opposition from ultra-conservatives. raised $300 and upward; in 1910 the Alabama legislature granted $25,000. The results may be seen from the calculation of United States Bureau of Statistics in 1909 that, in comparison with an average yield per acre of 503.6 pounds of cotton per acre, the demonstration farms taken by themselves averaged a crop of 906.1 pounds per acre. In 1912 the general average was 579.6 pounds, and that for the demonstration

Counties

farms 1,054.8 pounds per acre. Part of the purpose of the work is to encourage diversification in farming. With the exception of corn, southern farmers have raised a relatively small amount of the cereals. Partly through the losses caused by cattle pests, the raising

of live-stock has received less attention. The cultivation of grasses has been neglected. The farm demonstration work has made clear the possibility of gain to be derived from a wider diversification of crops both for the raising of live-stock and for the restoration to the soil, through the proper legumes, of the elements exhausted by the repetition of cotton planting.

The method of attack was a series of State campaigns for education which began in North Carolina and Virginia in 1902 and 1903 and continued in Tennessee and Georgia in 1904, in Alabama and Mississippi in 1905, and in Arkansas and Florida in 1908, though the campaigns were not always limited to a single year. Supported by the Southern Education Board and the General Education Board these campaigns received the hearty co-operation in most cases of the local authorities, teachers and newspapers. Enthusiasm like that of a great religious movement de

veloped and the result was that in the decade 19001909 the total school revenues in these States had been more than doubled.

Of special interest to school boys and girls is the story of the corn clubs and canning clubs, which have now come to be such an important adjunct to the agricultural development, not only of the South, but of the country as a whole. Beginning in Holmes County, Mississippi, the idea was appropriated in 1908 by Dr. Knapp. "As far as possible, every boy should plant an acre of corn on his father's farm; in every neighborhood there should be a local boys' corn club, next county and State organizations; finally, a federation of corn clubs, including every southern State. Local, county and State prizes should be awarded; the topmost boys should be sent to Washington, to meet the Secretary of Agriculture and to shake hands with the President. The expanded idea was an effort to appeal to the boy's imagination-assuredly an effective way of dignifying the farming occupation. But the shrewd old teacher knew that merely decorative distinction would in the long run prove ineffective; the boy, therefore, was to sell his crop and to pocket the money.' Thus it often happens that the son beats the father. "In 1910, for example, the boys' clubs of Homes County, Mississippi, averaged 76 bushels of corn to the acre, while their fathers were averaging 16." In 1913 it was estimated that more than 90,000 boys were enrolled.4 Near Aiken, South Carolina, Miss Mary Cromer started a girls' club for the canning of tomatoes. Again Dr. Knapp took up the idea and organized a system. The results have been no less surprising.43

42

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44" Illiteracy in the United States and an Experiment for Its Elimination," U. S. Bureau of Education, U. S. Bul. 19, No. 20. In this bulletin, besides statistical matter and maps, are reproduced some letters written by adult students in the moonlight school. See also "Adult Illiteracy in North Carolina and Plans for Its Elimination," office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1915. "A Night School Experiment in South Carolina," issued by the State Department of Education, Columbia, 1915. "Illiteracy in Virginia." "Some Factors which Cannot be Overlooked," Department of Public Instruction. For these and other helpful references, I am greatly indebted to Prof. W. K. Tate, of the George Peabody College for Teachers, formerly Superintendent of Education in South Carolina.

Another topic that might well be developed under the general head of education is that of caring for the health of men and of animals, and the eradication of the pests that harm the crops. The warfare against yellow fever, typhoid, pellagra and the hook-worm, and against the cattle-tick and the boll-weevil, is in large part a campaign

large element of the foreign born, the total number of white illiterates in the United States was in 1910 nearly a million greater than the total number of Negro illiterates: and Massachusetts had nearly 8,000 more illiterate men of voting age than Arkansas; and Pennsylvania nearly 6,000 more than Tennessee and Kentucky combined. But the illiterate in the South is native born. In September, 1911, in Rowan County, Kentucky, an enthusiastic woman, the county superintendent of schools, began what have been called the "moonlight schools "-schools opened on moonlight nights, so that the country people might more easily come to the schoolhouse. More than 1,200 students, "men and women from 18 to 86 years old," came from the hills and hollows to begin to learn to read and write. Hardly anything could be more touching than some of the letters written by old men and women to their teachers, to tell what this has meant to them. The next year moonlight school institutes were established to organize the work, which has since spread to other States.

The development of secondary education, also, has been rapid. The pioneers were the city high schools, some of which had been established before the war, often as separate institutions not easily to be co-ordinated with the State systems. Recent years have witnessed an amazing growth of rural high schools. Here again local efforts have been assisted by the General Education Board, which has subsidized in the southern States "professors of secondary education" in the State universities whose duties are connected with the State high schools. Like the West, the South is now struggling with the problem of concentration, and the cause of rural high schools and that of good roads are closely linked. The preparation of teachers is undertaken by State normal schools and institutes. In this connection the beneficence of George Peabody has borne good fruit, especially in the establishment upon a new and solid foundation of the George Peabody College for teachers in Nashville.

Among the institutes of higher learning both the small denominational colleges and the State universities found their situation, in 1865, disheartening. Their doors had been closed by the war, their property was out of repair and their funds in many cases lost. In their weakness it was practically necessary for them to carry on preparatory departments, in which often the greater part of the students were enrolled. Their history was long one of poverty and a struggle for existence. Gradually the State institutions were put on a firmer basis and new ones established. The zeal of the churches brought assistance to their institutions, often from the North. Especially significant were the universities which began or were re-established with relatively large endowments like those given by Paul Tulane, of New Orleans, and Commodore Vanderbilt. With better times a great advance has been made in educational standards, led by Vanderbilt University, the University of the South and others, organized through the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and by some of

the educational commissions of the churches, and powerfully stimulated by the economic influences and the keen educational criticism of the Carnegie Foundation.

III. POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOP

MENT.

45

Among the most clear and definite political phenomena in the United States is the "Solid South." In State elections, when the white people have divided over questions of the State debt, or over the Populist movement, or over prohibition, very definite party lines have appeared, and some of the States through combinations of parties have gone Republican. But in national elections, though nearly forty years have passed since the restoration of home rule, no one of the States of the former Confederacy has ever chosen Republican electors. The evils of this one party system are manifest and have been much criticized: but whatever one's opinion may be, the explanation is not difficult. In the first place, it should be recalled that, even in ante-bellum days, the South, while dividing closely between Whigs and Democrats, was solid in opposition to the Abolitionists. On this point Andrew Johnson and "Parson " Brownlow, both from the region of East Tennessee where there were comparatively few slaves, and where in 1861 there was the strongest Union sentiment, were as bitter in their expression as radical southern" leaders. To the southerner the Republican party was the sectional party, whose chief tenet was hostility to the South. The Reconstruction ground this feeling into the southern mind, and, when the Reconstruction failed, the enforcement acts, the civil rights bill, the periodic waving of the "bloody shirt," the Crumpacker bills, the unpleasant characteristics of the Republican organizations in some of the States, the southern delegations to the Republican National Conventions, all these factors have served to keep the feeling alive in the South, while the north, with no Negro problem, with other things more prominent in politics, and with 45 On the political and constitutional side, an excellent introduction is afforded by the following papers in "Studies in Southern History and Politics": J. W. Garner, "Southern Politics Since the Civil War; "W. W. Davis, "The Federal Enforcement Acts; " W. Royce Smith, "Negro Suffrage in the South; " C. Mildred Thompson, Carpetbaggers in the United States Senate." Bruce devotes chapter 31 to this topic, which is also touched upon rather fully in many general works on American history. Noteworthy books and articles are: J. M. Matthews, "Legislative and Judicial History of the Fifteenth Amendment in J. H. U. Studies in Historical and Political Science; " J. C. Rose, "Negro Suffrage," the constitutional point of view, "American Political Science Review," Vol. 1, pp. 17-43; G. W. Stephenson, "Race Distinctions in American Law; Cutler, "Lynch Law; " A. B. Hart, the following articles in the Encyclopedia of American Government, "Negro Problem," "Lynching," "Peonage," and "Realities of Negro Suffrage," "American Political Science Review," 1905, pp. 149-165; T. O. Dealey, "American State Constitutions; W. F. Dodd, "Revision and Amendment, American State Constitutions.”

a highly numerous and powerful Democratic party, has been unable to understand the position of the South.

Whenever occasion has offered, the South has shown itself entirely willing to serve the nation. It has given in the past the service of men like Lamar, Garland, Fitzhugh Lee, Carlisle, Curry, Herbert, and many others; and at the present time, a review of the chairmanships of important committees in Senate and House of Representatives will show that the old capacity for leadership has not been lost. On the other hand, there have been times of late when the Republican party has made a good showing in the South. Maryland and Missouri have actually gone Republican, and many of the leading cities of the South and some districts.

The month of April, 1877, witnessed the withdrawal of federal troops from the capitals of South Carolina and Louisiana, by which restoration of self-government was completed in the southern States and the failure of the Reconstruction was admitted. The President went further toward reconciliation when he appointed an ex-Confederate to be postmaster-general: but the resentment of the Republican party was evidenced when W. P. Kellogg, the last of the carpetbag senators, was admitted to the Senate. Yet the relation of the citizens of the southern States was not yet normal: for many were still politically disqualified, despite the pardons extended by executive action; and not all these disqualifications were removed until the time of the Spanish-American war. Moreover, the enforcement legislation of 1870-1871 still exerted its effects, and many cases, though a diminishing number, were prosecuted down to 1897. The working of these laws had been illustrated in such cases as that of United States vs. Mitchell, in 1871-1872, in which the defendants were tried by a jury composed of eleven Negroes and one white man, which impressed one observer as "more like a silent minstrel than a jury." In 1875, the Supreme Court had declared some clauses of the enforcement law of 1870 unconstitutional, in that they extended federal jurisdiction for protection of the right to vote to the action of individuals and did not limit it to cases where the State denied the right to vote, and upheld the rightfulness of a reasonable prerequisite, such as the payment of a poll tax. In the same year the court, in United States vs. Cruickshank, refused to bring under the act a conspiracy of individuals to deprive Negroes of their vote, as distinguished from such action by a State. Though the general constitutionality of the laws was upheld in ex-parte Siebold and ex-parte Clarke, in 1879, the decision in the case of United States vs. Harris, rendered in 1882, declared unconstitutional that part of the enforcement laws which made penal conspiracies of two or more citizens to deprive a citizen of his rights, referring such matters to the States. Shorn of most of their effectiveness, the enforcement laws were finally repealed in Cleveland's administration in 1894.

46 W. W. Davis, "Federal Enforcement Acts," p. 221.

46