As an inevitable consequence of the absence of a broad general school system, it followed that many of the so-called colleges and universities received students that were fitted only for grade or secondary work.

In only a few of the southern states could a common-school system be considered as existing in 1860. Kentucky and North Carolina had something of a public-school system in operation, but in the other states, aside from the universities, the attempts to build up such a system had failed.

The Civil War destroyed the old institutions of the South and prepared the way for a new industrial and educational period.

II. WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION.

The majority of the lower schools of the South closed at or near the beginning of the war. In a few cases-as, for instance, in Mobile - they were kept open, but in the territory in, or in close proximity to, the actual path of the war there was little strength left to maintain the educational institution. Teaching at home no doubt prevailed to a considerable extent during these years.

The war produced a revolution in the organization of southern industrial life. The most marked change, immediately after the close of the struggle, was necessarily in the agricultural regions, where the abolition of slavery forced the planter to resort to other methods of cultivating the land. For a time he attempted to till his huge estate with the system of hired labor that prevailed in the North. This met with small success, for certain causes worked against it. First, the prejudice to labor already inbred in the white population barred the majority of them from becoming hired laborers. Second, the fact that the southern employer of labor now discovered that he had no responsibility to care for the negro except for the actual time he was working left many of the colored race helpless. Ignorant of industrial conditions, the negro sought the towns, where the labor market was already oversupplied. Taken as a whole, there prevailed a thorough disorganization of industry.

With so complete a destruction of earlier industrial forms

went the uprooting of well-nigh all system of schools that had existed. The very fact of this revolution in industrial life laid, however, the foundation for the introduction of methods of thought and a system of schooling more in conformity with those that prevailed in the remainder of the United States.

We find that within ten years after the close of the war a provision for universal education was put into the revised constitution of every state. But, notwithstanding this provision, it must be borne in mind that the adequate equipping of a school system in the South has been a slow and painful process. The difficulties have arisen in two directions. Public opinion, still reflecting the earlier social life, has in the South been turned to no small extent against the educating of all children at the public

expense.

It is by no means uncommon to find men of intelligence and influence who are out and out opposed to free public education for all the people.*

Of more immediate importance has been the financial difficulty. For a period of years-in fact, until the revival of industry that arose in the eighties-the South labored under a burden of debt, largely the result of the "carpet-bag rule," and a chaotic industrial and political life. This condition reduced to a minimum the expenditure for education.

The period was not, however, entirely effortless. Along with the attempt to reshape industrial and political institutions went some interest and work for the building up of a school system. From 1870 to 1876, the close of the period of reconstruction, there was an increase in the total expenditure for education from $10,385,464 to $12,033,865 in the former slave states, but the relative increase of population was so large that the expenditure per capita of school population actually decreased from $2.97 to $2.84 for white children.

In 1880 a movement was set on foot to obtain federal aid for schools. This move was specially directed in the interests of the South, as several of the southern states argued that the limit of

ROBERT FRAZER, "Virginia's Educational Outlook," Report of Fifth Conference of the South, p. 35.

taxation for school purposes had been reached in their case. The reasons given by the South for this aid were: first, the unusual impoverishment of that section of the country by the war; and, second, that education, one phase of which is the fitting of men and women for citizenship, should not be a state matter alone, but also a national. This subject was agitatel in Congress from 1880 to 1890. It aroused public attention, but resulted in no definite aid.

III. THE PRESENT RURAL SCHOOL PROBLEM.

Since the period of reconstruction and at the present time one of the main questions in southern education is the condition and the improvement of the rural schools. It must be remembered that between eight-ninths and eight-tenths, or over eighty out of every hundred of the people of the South still live in the country. A comparatively small part of the population is found in villages of one thousand inhabitants. According to the statement of Mr. G. S. Dickerman, the population of the South is divided into 14,090,000 in rural districts and 3,029,000 in places of one thousand and over.

But while the majority are in the country districts, there is nevertheless a great sparseness in population, and the cabins are located far apart, with much intervening undeveloped land. As a result of this, the roads are poor, and the school attendance is consequently small and irregular. This difficulty, felt throughout the South, becomes greatest in that region extending down over the Appalachians.

There exist here the same poverty the same isolation, the same ignorance and narrowness of view, found in other sections of the country, only greatly intensified. Traveling for small children is difficult and often

dangerous.'

Moreover, it is impossible to take the children to school until good roads have been built.

Other adverse conditions peculiar to the South confront the rural schools. The South has settled in its own way that in the education of the colored race separate schools be established. • Fourth Report of the Conference of the South, p. 16.

'Educational Conditions in the Southern Appalachians, p. 11.

This necessitates all through the South the maintaining of two school systems side by side, and requires a division of the already inadequate school funds, thus keeping the financial question always the most prominent.

Resting upon the financial difficulty as a cause is the inefficiency of the teaching force, the first source of weakness of the rural school. It is at once evident that a profession which does not pay a living wage cannot attract to it good, or even average, material. The country schools of the South open but three, four, or five months in the year, and, paying from $23 to $31 per month, offer no opportunity to trained teachers. Hence it happens that the school employs "makeshifts"-perhaps "a poor relative of a director or the farmer's boys or girls." Since the ones who are engaged in teaching for four months in the year are usually farmers, houseworkers, or followers of some other industry for the remaining eight months, it is impossible to class them in the "teaching profession."

There are indications that the South is becoming keenly alive to the fact that the incompetence of the rural school-teachers is due to the inadequate salaries they receive and the shortness of the school year. Very little can be expected of teachers receiving on an average but 40 cents a day-a sum less than is paid to unskilled labor in any industry. When these two conditions-low salaries and short terms-are corrected, a third change becomes necessary and for the first time possible-a movement toward barring from the teaching force the untrained teacher, and a consequent elevating of the plane of the profession. At present 75 per cent. of the children are taught by teachers unable to obtain a second-grade certificate. The states provide normal schools, but it is evident that without sufficient compensation the teacher cannot take a course of long and expensive training for her work. The whole situation reduces itself to one of financial support. The school can demand no better service than it will compensate. The ability of the teacher will not rise above the level of the low salary. This condition is not peculiar to the South. It is a general law in every department of education that 8 Southern Education, March 19, 1903.

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there is a direct proportion between efficiency of training and the pecuniary reward.

So urgent has become the need for trained instructors that attempts have been made to give something of immediate improvement to the rural teachers.. During 1903 there was held at Knoxville a summer school for teachers offering courses in kindergarten and primary work, in pedagogy, and in the high school and college subjects. Over two thousand teachers from all parts of the South were enrolled and in actual attendance.

The North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College offers a brief course of professional training to rural teachers who cannot take a full year. This work is under the professor of pedagogy, and affords opportunity for contact with the practice and observation school which contains about four hundred children. The North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts has also organized a summer school for teachers under the direction of the president, Mr. George Winston.

Every educator recognizes the limitations of the work that can be so accomplished. It may, however, afford a valuable incentive and the opportunity for acquiring a new point of view-an entirely new educational attitude on the part of the teacher that is productive of results, even though the actual information gained must necessarily be slight.9

The second need felt in the South is for better buildingsthe necessary physical equipment of the school." The present condition is described by Southern Education, the publication of the Southern Education Board:

10

Twenty out of every one hundred of the 5,653 white school districts in North Carolina have a rude log schoolhouse or no public schoolhouse at all.10 During the past winter twenty white schools in one county were closed because the miserable schoolhouse could not be made com

'Of much interest also in the training of southern teachers is the department of education recently instituted in connection with the University of Tennessee. The object of this school, however, is not the training of rural teachers, but rather the affording of special opportunities of scholarship and training for highschool teachers, college instructors, and superintendents.

10 Southern Education, May 14, 1903.