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CHAPTER VIII.

EDUCATION AND ILLITERACY.

19. The History of Negro Education.—Anthony Benezet and the Friends of Philadelphia have the honor of first recognizing the fact that the welfare of the State demands the education of Negro children. On the twenty-sixth of January, 1770, at the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends, the general situation of the Negroes, and especially the free Negroes, was discussed. On motion of one, probably Benezet, it was decided that instruction ought to be provided for Negro children.¹ A committee was appointed, and on February 30 this committee proposed “that a committee of seven Friends be nominated by the Monthly Meeting, who shall be authorized to employ a schoolmistress of prudent and exemplary conduct, to teach not more at one time than thirty children in the first rudiments of school learning, and in sewing and knitting. That the admission of scholars into the said school be entrusted to the said committee, giving to the children of free Negroes and Mulattoes the preference, and the opportunity of being taught clear of expense to their parents.” A subscription of £100 (about 266.67) was recommended for this purpose. This report was adopted, and the school opened June 28, 1770, with twenty-two colored children in attendance. In September the pupils had increased to thirty-six, and a teacher in sewing and knitting was employed. Afterward those who could were required to pay a sum, varying from seven shillings sixpence to ten shillings per quarter, for tuition. The following year a school-house was built on Walnut street, below Fourth—a one-story brick building, 32 by 18 feet.

From 1770 to 1775 two hundred and fifty children and grown persons were instructed. Interest, however, began to wane, possibly under the war-cloud, and in 1775 but five Negro children were in attendance and some white children were admitted. Soon, however, the parents were aroused, and we find forty Negroes and six whites attending.

After the war Benezet took charge of the school and held it in his house at Third and Chestnut. At his death, in 1784, he left a part of his estate to “hire and employ a religious-minded person or persons to teach a number of Negro, Mulatto or Indian children, to read, write, arithmetic, plain accounts, needle-work, etc.” Other bequests were received, including one from a Negro, Thomas Shirley, and from this fund the schools, afterward known as the Raspberry street schools, were conducted for many years, and a small school is still maintained. In the early part of the century sixty to eighty scholars attended the school, and a night school was opened. In 1844 a lot on Raspberry street was purchased, and a school-house erected. Here, from 1844 to 1866, eight thousand pupils in all were instructed.

Public schools for Negroes were not established until about 1822, when the Bird school, now known as the James Forten, was opened on Sixth street, above Lombard ; in 1830 an unclassified school in West Philadelphia was begun, and in 1833 the Coates street school, now known as the Vaux school, on Coates street (now called Fairmount Avenue), near Fifth, was established. Other schools were opened at Frankford in 1839, at Paschalville in 1841, on Corn street in 1849, and at Holmesburg in 1854. In 1838 the Negro school statistics were as follows :

NEGRO SCHOOL STATISTICS, 1838

Ten years later school facilities had greatly increased:

NEGRO SCHOOL STATISTICS, 1847

This would seem to indicate a smaller percentage of children in school than in the last decade—a natural outcome of the period of depression through which the Negroes had just passed.

In 1850 the United States census reported 3498 adults who could neither read nor write, among the Negroes of the city. The adult population at that time must have been about 8000. There were 2176 children in school. In 1856 we have another set of detailed statistics:

The schools by this time had increased in number. There were the following public schools :

The public schools seemed to have been largely manned by colored teachers, and were for a long time less efficient than the charity schools. The grammar schools at one time, about 1844, were about to be given up, but were saved, and in 1856 were doing fairly well. The charity schools were as follows :

Of the above schools, the House of Refuge, Orphans'Shelter, House of Industry, and Home for Colored Children were schools connected with benevolent and reformatory institutions. The Raspberry school was that founded by Benezet. The Institute for Colored Youth was founded by Richard Humphreys, a West Indian ex-slaveholder, who lived in Philadelphia. On his death, in 1832, he bequeathed the sum of 10,000 to the Friends, to found an institution, “having for its object the benevolent design of instructing the descendants of the African race in school learning, in the various branches of the mechanic arts and trades, and in agriculture, in order to prepare, fit and qualify them to act as teachers.” The Institute was acccordingly founded in 1837, chartered in 1842, and upon receiving further gifts was temporarily located on Lombard street. In 1866 additional sums were raised, and the Institute located on Bainbridge street, above Ninth, where it is still conducted.

There were in 1856 the following private schools :

There were also two night schools, with an attendance of 150 or more.

The percentage of illiteracy in the city was still large. Bacon's investigation showed that of 9021 adults over twenty years of age, 45½ per cent were wholly illiterate 16½ per cent could read and write and 19 per cent could “read, write and cipher.” Detailed statistics for each ward are given in the next table :

ILLITERACY OF PHILADELPHIA NEGROS, 1854-6.

Separate schools for black and white were maintained from the beginning, barring the slight mixing in the early Quaker schools. Not only were the common schools separate, but there were no public high schools for Negroes, professional schools were closed to them, and within the memory of living men the University of Pennsylvania not only refused to admit Negroes as students, but even as listeners in the lecture halls.² Not until 1881 was a law passed declaring it “unlawful for any school director, superintendent or teacher to make any distinction whatever on account of, or by reason of, the race or color of any pupil or scholar who may be in attendance upon, or seeking admission to, any public or common school maintained wholly or in part under the school laws of this commonwealth.” This enactment was for some time evaded, and even now some discrimination is practiced quietly in the matter of admission and transfers. There are also schools still attended solely by Negro pupils and taught by Negro teachers, although, of course, the children are at liberty to go elsewhere if they choose. They are kept largely through a feeling of loyalty to Negro teachers. In spite of the fact that several Negroes have been graduated with high marks at the Normal School, and in at least one case “passed one of the best examinations for a supervising principal's certificate that has been accomplished in Philadelphia by any teacher,”³ yet no Negro has been appointed to a permanent position outside the few colored schools.

20. The Present Condition.—There were, in 1896, 5930 Negro children in the public schools of the city, against 6150 in 1895 and 6262 in 1897. Confining ourselves simply to the Seventh Ward, we find the total population of legal school age—six to thirteen in Pennsylvania— was 862 in 1896, of whom 740, or 85.8 per cent, were reported as attending school at some time during the year. Of the persons five to twenty years of age about 48 per cent were in school. Statistics by age and sex are in the next table.⁴ (See page 90.)

Some difference is to be noted between the sexes : Of the children six to thirteen years of age, 85 per cent of the boys and nearly 86 per cent of the girls are in school; of the youth fourteen to twenty, 20 per cent of the boys and 21 per cent of the girls are in school. The boys stop school pretty suddenly at sixteen, the girls at seventeen. Nearly 11 per cent of the children in school were in attendance less than the full term ;⁵ of these attending the whole term there is much irregularity through absences and tardiness. On the whole, therefore, the effective school attendance is less than appears at first sight.

SCHOOL POPULATION AND ATTENDANCE (1896-97) BY AGE.

Negroes of the Seventh Ward.