education. I refer to the well-known Hampton
Normal and Agricultural Institute, and the Richmond Colored
Institute. Nothing need be said in reference to the Hampton
School, except that its numbers and usefulness are constantly
increasing under the continued superintendence of the indomitable
Gen. Armstrong. Its reports, which are published every year as
State documents in connection with the Report of this department,
are so accessible to all, that I will only repeat here the
testimony often given, that in my opinion this is the most
valuable of all the schools opened on this Continent for Colored
people. Its most direct benefit is in furnishing to our State
schools a much-needed annual contribution of teachers; and
teachers so good and acceptable that the demand for them is
always much greater than the supply.

"The Richmond Institute has more of a theological intent, but it
also sends out many good teachers. As a school it has prospered
steadily under the excellent management of the Rev. C. H. Corey,
D.D.; and it will soon be accommodated in a large new and
handsome building. Both these institutions receive their support
chiefly from the North."[119]

It will be seen that the tables we give refer only to the work done in
educating the Negro in the Southern States. Much has been done in the
Northern States, but in quite a different manner. The work of
education for the Negro at the South had to begin at the bottom. There
were no schools at all for this people; and hence the work began with
the alphabet. And there could be no classification of the scholars.
All the way from six to sixty the pupils ranged in age; and even some
who had given slavery a century of their existence--mothers and
fathers in Israel--crowded the schools established for their race.
Some ministers of the Gospel after a half century of preaching entered
school to learn how to spell out the names of the twelve Apostles. Old
women who had lived out their threescore years and ten prayed that
they might live to spell out the Lord's prayer, while the modest
request of many departing patriarchs was that they might recognize the
Lord's name in print. The sacrifices they made for themselves and
children challenged the admiration of even their former owners.

The unlettered Negroes of the South carried into the school-room an
inborn love of music, an excellent m