Publication: THE FREEDMEN'S RECORD (THE FREEDMEN'S JOURNAL)
Date: APRIL 1, 1874
M.G. KimballTitle: REPORT OF THE TEACHERS’ COMMITTEE.THE Teachers’
THE Teachers’ Committee have to report a still greater diminution of their work this year, as they have given up one of the schools supported last year, and also sent one less teacher to the school at Charlottesville. In my report of last year, I spoke of the discouraging circumstances of the school at Alexandria. This school came to us from the New York Society, and was under our care but a few years. It had many good elements, however, and we hoped with Miss Canedy’s skilful management to make it a good normal school. But the poverty of the people, and other reasons, made it very difficult to sustain the school, and, as Miss Canedy’s state of health required her to give up teaching, it was decided not to send any new teacher this year.
It was with great regret that we parted with this long-tried and faithful teacher. Miss Canedy was one of the first teachers to respond to the call of our Society, and she has given to the work ten years of the most devoted service. When Richmond was taken, Miss Stevenson, Secretary of the Teachers’ Committee, was fortunately in Virginia, and she went at once to the newly-captured city with Miss Canedy and Miss Chase, who called the people together and proposed to teach them. Miss Canedy’s heart was with her Richmond pupils, and she gave to them an inspiration of hope, a self-respect, a desire of excellence, which we rejoice to know has already borne fruit in their lives.
Late letters from her show that she still retains her interest in and her influence over these pupils, and that she is reaping her best reward in their success. And even her labors in Alexandria were not wholly in vain. She finds that some of her pupils are profiting by her lessons, and resolutely working for further instruction for themselves and their race.
We had also once determined, since our resources were so small, to give up the school at Charlottesville. As this is a University city, and the people are not so poor as elsewhere, we felt as if they ought to sustain their own school; and we were not quite satisfied with the share of the work which they were willing to do themselves. But we received such earnest appeals from the people and from Judge Rives, the Chairman of the Trustees, to continue our aid to the school, and our devoted teacher, Miss Carkin, was so anxious to carry on her work there, that we consented to send her again. As the school is now organized we feel that it is doing a very great good, at very small expense to the Society. Miss Carkin is the only northern teacher, but she has connected with her three colored teachers, all of them residents of Charlottesville. Mr. Lewis and Mrs. Gibbons have been in the school from the commencement, and Mr. Robert Scott besides being a graduate of Miss Gardner’s school has had the advantage of a winter’s instruction at the north, and a year’s experience as teacher of a district school. These three teachers are paid by the city, but are under Miss Carkins’s superintendence as head of the school, and a very amicable relation exists amongst them. We hope that means will be found to support Miss Carkin as long as she is able to carry on the work in the present satisfactory manner. She is ready to return to Charlottesville for another year, at least, and every year of her work is of value in carrying her pupils up to a greater fitness for their future mission as teachers.
THE SHAW SCHOOL AT CHARLESTON.
Mr. Sumner has been carrying on his work through the year in his usual thorough and conscientious way, and an examination of his reports shows the excellent discipline of the school, and the steady advance of the pupils in their studies. His first class are now probably better fitted for teaching, so far as scholarship goes, than the great majority of those employed in the State. As there is a strong tendency on the part of the colored people, now, to demand the employment of teachers of their own race, this careful preparation becomes of very great importance to the progress of the public school system.
We feel that the Shaw School, having been for so many years under the same able teacher, affords the most thorough evidence of the results that may be achieved with the colored people under skilful training; and it has justified its honored name by proving their intelligence and capacity for intellectual acquirement, as the young martyr-hero helped them to prove their courage and steadiness on the battle field.
Could Mr. Sumner be induced to remain with the school, and could a fund for its continuance for several years be provided, it would undoubtedly do a great work for South Carolina, as a normal school. The letters of Mr. Sumner and of Mr. Tomlinson, which we shall lay before you, will enable you to judge whether we ought to make an effort to sustain the school in this way, or whether we should relinquish it into the hands of the state commissioners, trusting that the seed already sown plished. They are not of a very recent date, and we trust that every year’s report will show an improvement, but they still give a tolerably fair picture of the condition of education at the South. We shall select those states in which we have been specially interested. We think one extract will be sufficient to show that there is a real interest in public education at the South; but, also, that it is yet in such a condition, especially as regards our clients, the colored people, as will make it a question whether we ought to abandon the assistance now given to schools actually preparing teachers, while we can have old experienced hands in charge of them.
We have not exact statistics to show how many of our former pupils are actually engaged in teaching, but it is evident that very many of them are doing so, and with very good success. Miss Carkin, Miss Canedy, and Miss Alfred, all bear encouraging testimony on this point. When we remember in what a constantly increasing ratio the good we have done may thus be multiplied, we can never regret any efforts that we have made to accomplish it. The need of even tolerably trained teachers is so great at the South as to cripple the efforts of the friends of education, though we are glad to learn from the reports of one of the superintendents, that many of the cultivated ladies of the South are now engaging in this work as a means of support.
These statements which, with little variation, would apply to all the Southern States, show a condition of things such as we might reasonably anticipate from the history of the last fifteen years. The old systems of education are broken down: the people have more or less willingly accepted the idea of a general school system, and recognized it by legislation; but the disturbed state of the finances, the novelty of taxation for such a purpose, the old prejudices against the colored people, and the want of proper material in school houses, training schools, and teachers, all combine to make the present results in education very small. While we think the time has passed for the North to take the principal charge or bear the principal burden of education, even for the colored people of the South, we yet do feel that we are doing a great good in continuing such agencies as are welcomed by the friends of education at the South, and by co-operating with them as far as possible. We have a common interest with all fellow citizens of the Union in their elevation and welfare, and we are securing our own future interest as much as theirs by every good educational work done among them.
The statement of Mr. Tomlinson show that the ballot is doing for the negro what we claimed for it, in giving him a fair share of influence in state affairs, so that he can control his own educational interests, and although he may make some blunders in the use of his new tools, it is only by feeling the responsibility that he will learn how to employ them for the best good.
We have never despaired of securing the means for any work which we could show to be of the first importance to a New-England public. We made this claim for the freedmen eleven years ago, and the very large means placed at our command have justified our confidence. We trust that the results have not disappointed those who have so generously supplied us with funds for the experiment. We have never given up our schools from despair of support for them, but because we felt that we should gradually prepare for the time when the South should resume the control of her own educational affairs, as fast as all her population could be put upon a footing of political and educational equality.
Should our special work therefore cease, it will be not because we have failed but because we have succeeded, because the larger work begun by the state makes ours insignificant, as
“Morning drinks the morning star.”
We shall always look back upon our eleven years’ labor with the deepest gratitude for what we have been able to do; and humble as our work may seem, we think it will have an important influence in the future welfare of our country.
E. D. CHENEY,
