lic affairs, close touch of popular opinion, and wise foresight of public necessities, especially their desire to learn the mystery of the new gospel of popular education, make them often a bulwark of defense against the obstinacy, narrowness, and irritable inefficiency of teachers and the social friction and ecclesiastical "offishness" that are among the most formidable obstacles to success. And all honor should be paid to the noble brotherhood of public men who, with a courage and tact beyond all praise, have piloted the educational ship through all the perils of its earlier voyaging out into the open sea, where it now rides the waves with flying colors, confident that every wind will waft it to the haven of success.

And in the case of the colored people, beyond question, more is due to the young men who have gone forth from the numerous mission schools as teachers for the upbuilding of that division of popular education than to any other influence.

CVIII.

But, when all this is cheerfully conceded, the greater fact has been impressed upon me through the entire years of my ministry, that the most effective of all the forces that wrought this great advance in Southern popular education has been from the first the persistent influence of the higher Southern womanhood. There has been and still continues to be, especially in the older Southern States, a powerful class of influential men distinctly opposed to any thorough development of the American common school, even for the white, and obstinate in their opposition to it for the colored people. There are statesmen and politicians of whom Gen. Grant, in the White House, said: "There's too much reading and writing now to suit a good many great men up in the Capitol." A respectable division of the clergy of every church is still in the bonds of what they choose to call "Christian," but what really means the intensely sectarian type of denominational, academical, and collegiate schooling that makes an educational institution an annex to a church. A considerable class of socially exclusive heads of families even in their own decay hold stoutly to the faith that the ancient social régime was the grandest on earth and in its revival is the only hope of social upbuilding in the South of the future. A portion of the fac ulties, sometimes even of the State universities and of the sectarian academical colleges and academies for both sexes of the white population, still in their hearts believe that all schooling beyond the three R's and a little industrial training is the prerogative of the few who can make their way to the class of schools they represent and be content with the style of educational manipulation that prevails in their insti tutions. This latter class is perhaps more obstructive than all; for, in addition to its honest opinion that the old time Southern education was better than anything to-day, and its obstinate adherence to the classical type and mechanical methods of the secondary and higher instruction everywhere in vogue half a century ago, they are tempted

by their personal interest to oppose the establishment of the graded school, which robs them of the majority of their elementary department and threatens even the upper story with the rivalry of the free high school. In several States this special influence is largely responsible for the slow progress of universal education, and through the whole South, as in England, it is to-day largely arrayed in opposition to the secondary, higher, and even normal professional education as a part of the public system.

All these hostile forces, working together, greatly impede the satis factory development of the common school. The "religious press," too, often raises the old war-cry of "Godless," "secular," "immoral,” in its treatment of this great public interest. The legislatures are besieged by a lobby that works against generous appropriations even for the elementary, and often succeeds in defeating the just treatment of the State university and similar claimants. It was the persistent opposition of this class that finally turned the tide in the South against the national aid which would have placed the Southern common school, in ten years, high and dry above the wash or even the overflow of hostile public sentiment in every Southern State.

And to this must be added one of the most serious hindrances to the success of the common school, both in country and town: the presence, often as superintendents and teachers in the higher classes of the graded schools, of a class of men, either old and incapable of understanding the nature and demands of the work they are doing, or young graduates of colleges thoroughly out of sympathy with common-school work. Again and again have I seen a public movement, generously inaugurated and for a time heartily supported by the leading people of a community, so mismanaged by the persistent conceit and half-hearted faith of its leading teachers of this sort that it finally fell into disrepute and was brought under the fire of the class that everywhere believes in that system of public economy which knocks out the brains of things to save money. In more than one of the larger Southern cities the common school to-day is in the hands of a little educational ring of masculine teachers and school officials of this sort, with steady loss of confidence in the substantial classes on whose support public education must depend.

So widely extended and effective was the opposition of these classes from the first, that, in connection with the undeniable financial inability of whole States, and the chronic Southern popular hostility to taxation for any purpose, some influence more vital, irresistible, and persistent than the "good fight" of the good men composing the more vis. ible school public must be found to account for the decisive victory already won in this holy children's war.

CIX.

That influence, I repeat, can only be found in the revival of the old and the awakening of a new and powerful impulse for education among

the superior sort of all classes and conditions of Southern women. Elsewhere we have told the story of the Southern woman of the more favored class, in the long years before the war, and have shown the great indebtedness of the Southern people to the efforts of the same class, amid the wreck and discouragement after 1865, in restoring, even in better condition, the old-time arrangements for the education of girls. But it must be remembered that, during the remaining school years of the children who, in 1865, were from 6 to 10 years of age, especially in the eleven ex-Confederate States, the large majority of the former wellto-do people were in no condition to send either girls or boys to the only class of schools they had ever supported. Private tuition was equally impossible, according to the former methods. A great deal of temporary work was done in these years by home instruction. A distinguished Senator of the United States informed me that, in a political campaign through a large portion of his own State, he found himself endowed with a new office, school examiner; in almost every house being requested to "examine" the children in their home lessons. There was also a prodigious eruption of private schools, chiefly established by the better-educated ladies of good families, who, in their own homes or such buildings as were available, gathered little groups of their neighbors' children for such instruction as was possible under the circum

stances.

When we consider the past educational history of this class of Southern women we can easily realize the great desire for the schooling of their children at the close of the war. Through vast regions the schools had been closed, or, when open, disturbed by frequent alarms and excitements during those fearful years. The pent-up educational spirit, now released by the coming of peace, rushed forth and filled every channel open for its reception. Thousands of children received all their school training, previous to 1880, in this class of schools, with such instruction in the home and the church as was available.

The brilliant and successful lady principal of one of the most celebrated schools for Southern girls tells the story of the beginning of her own education in a little private school where everybody "studied aloud." She finally hit upon a way to get her Latin lesson in the midst of the confusion, by pounding her bench with her fist, "beating her music out" amid the jargon of her noisy environment. Nobody can tell what a community of resolute, intelligent, American women can accomplish until the experiment is tried. Some of the most entertaining volumes of the new Southern literature are the picturing of neighborhood life in the more quiet Southern retreats, where families "refugeed" during the great conflict, with the marvellous "ways and means" by which they not only lived but made life very well worth living under the circumstances. The Southern woman who can sketch a vivid and naturalistic portrait of child life during the period now considered, with the schooling of all kinds through which the more ambitious of them pushed their way up to scholarship, would be sure of an audience

of 20,000,000 American boys and girls, with probability of translation into half a dozen European and Oriental languages. The accomplished president of one of the Western State universities, a boy at the close of the war, living on the old Ball estate, where Mary Washington was born, felt the spirit of that vigorous old lady in the air, and chopped trees in the "piney woods" to earn the money that sent him to the university. Of course, the men of the period had their share in this first movement for the children. But during those years of trial the South turned to its foremost women for hope and cheer in all things. And especially in everything relating to the education of the children the voice of the woman was supreme.

CX.

But this temporary makeshift for the education of several millions of white children and youth could not permanently satisfy a people so ambitious as the mothers, "sisters, cousins, and aunts" of eleven American States. So thousands of families that had never before thought of the common school in any other relation than as the "low-down free school" for poor white folk, before the war, found in it the only hope of educating their own children and satisfying the rising demand of the classes below them in the social scale. In all the old-time cities, like Nashville, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Memphis, Charleston, where the graded school was in operation in 1860, it was taken in hand at once, put on its feet, and supervised and taught often in a more effective way than before. In my first visit to New Orleans in 1869, I found the free high school for girls in operation, with earnest and commendable work going on. The best of their former teachers who were living were at work and many women of the leading families and education had joined the teachers' corps. The Peabody educational fund enabled an increasing number of towns for the first time to establish the free common school, by dividing the expense with the people, and in this way the movement towards free instruction for all captured the most commanding educational centers of the South, in the graded school planting the citadel of the people's new hope.

But here came in a mighty reënforcement to the old school public of these States, in the multitudes of families of the "plain white people," in town and country, who, now for the first time, asserted the right to their place at the educational feast, however meager it might be. And this demand came, to a great extent, from the more vigorous and intelligent mothers and ambitious daughters of these classes. While it was possible under the old academical and collegiate systems, that a bright boy could make his way up from the humblest surroundings and, often by the aid of a more prosperous neighbor, reach the university, there was small chance for the girl of the family, perhaps with a better mind, and with longings she was compelled to suppress.

It should always be remembered that, in 1860, the slave-holding families of the entire South, with their professional environment, did

not include one-fourth the white population of fifteen States. There has never been any reliable account of the opportunity for even elementary education enjoyed by several millions of the "third estate;" the off-hand assertion of late Southern writers hat in States like Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia there was no real lack of such facilities, having no reliable foundation, indeed, being disproved by overwhelming proofs, the declarations of the most eminent Southern authorities and the frequent appeals of conventions held in the interest of public education up to the very year of secession. In any general dearth of opportunities the girl is always left out. Anybody who knows this section of the Southern people can understand the prodigious awakening of ambition and hope through all its classes at the close of the war. These men had formed the almost invincible soldiery of the Confederate armies, until the dwindling prospects and terrible privations of the cause, with the emancipation proclamation, had wrought a steady discontent in the ranks during the closing years of the conflict. As a class, the coming of peace found these people, in some respects, in a better condition to face the world than their old neighbors. At once began that upward march of "the plain people of the South," which in a short generation has turned the face of that section to the rising sun, placed it foremost in the great iron industry, created thousands of new landholders, built up flourishing cities by the energy of these new workers, and to-day has placed the "Farmers' Alliance" in virtual possession of political power in every Southern Commonwealth.

The educational record of this portion of the Southern people is largely to be read in the history of the new common school of the vil. lages and open country. Even to-day only a small minority of their young people are found in the academies and colleges, although they are entering in larger numbers everywhere. Some of the most promising girls I have met in my wanderings have been of this class. I remember one little woman, from the hills of Western Virginia, whose prize essay on one of Shakespeare's plays brought also a testimonial from the new Shakespeare Society of London, educated by money borrowed of a younger brother, with obligation to pay by teaching, that he might take his turn at school. The first real movement for the schooling of this class, after the war, was through the public-school system for the country, established by the temporary governments, lasting in some of the States till 1876. Whatever may have been the sins justly chargeable to these ten years of "carpet bag" administration, the masses of the Southern white people should be forever grateful for this honest attempt, for the first time, to educate all the children. Imperfect as were these schools, they were better than three-fourths of the Southern people had enjoyed before. Thousands of children spent their only school years in them, and gained that love of knowledge and ambition for further progress which has wrought so powerfully in the upward striving of the "third estate" even to this day.