The Education of Freedmen, part 1
Page 2
We come now to consider what has been done for the freedmen by the Christian Church in America.
Very early in the war it was decided to receive and protect fugitive slaves, and our armies became cities of refuge for them. "Their advance," says a writer, "was a signal for a rally of slaves from all the country round; they flocked in upon the line of march by bridle-paths and across fields -- old men on crutches, babies on their mothers' backs, women wearing cast-off blue jackets of Yankee cavalry-men, boys in abbreviated trousers of rebel gray -- sometimes lugging a bundle of household goods, sometimes riding an old mule borrowed from 'massa,' but oftener empty-handed, with nothing whatever to show for a lifetime of unrewarded toil. But they were free! And with what swinging of ragged hats, and tumult of rejoicing hearts, and fervent 'God bless you!' they greeted their deliverers!" The year of jubilee, for which they had prayed and waited so many years, was come!
In time, four million of these bondmen were made free by the war power. The same writer from whom we have quoted thus sketches their condition: "They were homeless, penniless, ignorant, improvident; unprepared in every way for the dangers and duties of freedom. Self-reliance they never had had the opportunity to learn, and, suddenly left to shift for themselves, they were at the mercy of knaves ready to cheat them out of their honest earnings. They had been kept all their lives in a school of immorality, so that even church-membership was no evidence that one was not a thief, a liar, or a libertine."
Their former masters were so impoverished by their emancipation and other losses of the war that they had but little ability -- and were so exasperated that they had less disposition -- to help them.
But poor, ignorant, and simple as this emancipated mass were, they differed in one respect from the masses liberated by the French Revolution, and from all other suddenly liberated masses of which we have read in history. Their enthusiasm and impulse was not for plunder or for revenge, or for drink, or any form of animal indulgence, but for education. They rushed not to the grog-shop but to the schoolroom -- they cried for the spelling-book as for bread, and pleaded for teachers as a necessary of life. This enthusiasm to learn on the part of the liberated slaves was met by an equal enthusiasm to teach on the part of Northern Christians. Every religious denomination sent its teachers -- Unitarians and Orthodox were here of one heart and mind, and their teachers followed the course of the armies, and penetrated wherever they could find protection. Long before the war closed, there were teachers and schools in our camps and in all the region where our armies protected the settlements of fugitive slaves.
The nation took these people as her wards, and appointed a Freedman's Bureau to superintend their affairs -- to regulate their wages and work, and to provide for them schoolrooms, schools, and teachers.
We have before us, through the kindness of General Howard, a volume of the reports of this Bureau from January, 1866, to July 1, 1870.
The first report says: "The desire of the freedmen for knowledge has not been overstated. Their freedom has given a wonderful stimulus to all effort, indicating a vitality that augurs well for their future."
The report goes on to say that "all classes, even those advanced in life, are beginning the alphabet -- coming to evening and Sabbath schools, and may be seen along railroads, or off duty, as servants on steamboats, or in hotels, earnestly studying their spelling-books. Regiments of colored soldiers are all improving and learning -- and the officers deserve great respect for their efforts for the education of their men. The 128th U. S. Colored Troops, at Beaufort, were found gathered into school in a neat camp schoolhouse, erected by the regiment, and taught by regularly detailed teachers from the line officers -- the colonel commanding superintending the arrangements with deep interest." The report goes through each Southern State in detail, giving an account in each of the general educational revival. One passage is specially noticeable:
"Through the entire South efforts are being made by the colored people to 'educate themselves.' In the absence of teachers, they are determined to be self-taught, and everywhere some elementary book, or fragments of it, may be seen in the hands of negroes. They communicate to each other that which they learn, and with very little learning many take to teaching. Not only are individuals seen at study under the most untoward circumstances, but in many places I have found native schools, often rude and imperfect, but there they are, a group of all ages trying to learn. Some young man or woman, some old preacher, in cellar, shed, or corner of negro meeting-house, with spelling-book in hand, is their teacher. . . . Again," says the reporter, "I saw schools of higher order at Goldsboro, North Carolina; two young colored men, who but a little time before had begun to learn themselves, had gathered one hundred and fifty pupils, all quite orderly and hard at study." The report also speaks of schools taught by colored men at Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans. One in the latter city, he says, would bear comparison with any Northern school; he says that in this school very creditable specimens of writing were shown, and all the older classes could recite or read fluently both in French and English. This was a free school wholly supported by colored people. He says that he gave special pains to ascertaining facts upon this subject, and reports that schools of this kind exist in all the large places, and were making their appearance through the entire Southern country. The Superintendent of Schools in South Carolina assured him that there was no place of any size where such a school was not attempted by the colored people. He remarks, in conclusion: "This is a wonderful state of things. We have just emerged from a terrific war -- peace is not yet declared, there is scarcely a beginning of reorganized society at the South -- yet here is a people long imbruted by slavery and the most despised of any on earth, whose chains are no sooner broken than they spring to their feet, an exceeding great army, clothing themselves with intelligence. What other people have shown such a passion for education?"
It must be borne in mind that this is a report in 1866 -- in the very incipiency of the enterprise. These semi-annual reports to the Freedman's Bureau contain a most wonderful and interesting history of their progress toward education and competence.
In the last report of the Freedman's Bureau, which closed in 1870, they speak of 247,000 children under systematic instruction, with 9,307 teachers and 4,239 schools. They also record in the Freedman's Savings Bank, the total deposits of freedmen, from 1866 to 1870, as $16,960,336.62.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.