s than twenty
Negro children, the money raised for their education was to be
reserved by the boards of education in those districts and to be
appropriated as the boards saw fit for the education of the Negro
children upon whom the money had been raised. The same legislature[6]
passed an act authorizing towns, cities, and villages to organize for
school purposes with special privileges. This act, however, provided
that any town, city or village so incorporated should be required to
establish one or more Negro schools according to the law. At this
session of the legislature[7] there was enacted a law to compel the
school authorities in each sub-district to prepare a school census of
their respective jurisdictions which should enumerate separately and
according to sex the white and the Negro children who were permanently
resident within the sub-district. In case the directors failed to
perform this duty the township clerk was to have the census taken and
to recover from the directors by judicial proceedings the cost of the
work.

If we were to judge from the constitutional and the statutory laws of
this period, we might conclude that the education of the Negro was
very popular and that his needs were well taken care of. But before we
can draw any conclusion we must study certain conditions. We must know
something of the character of the men who were to enforce the law, of
the desire of the Negroes for an education, of popular opinion
concerning public education, and of the distribution of the Negro
population.

The State Superintendents of this period were well trained men,[8] and
their reports show that they were faithful in the discharge of their
duty. One of these superintendents, John Monteith,[9] showed great
zeal in the establishment and development of the Negro school system.
He was born in the Western Reserve district of Ohio, a section noted
for its strong anti-slavery sentiment. He belonged to a family of
educators. His father was one of the first presidents of the
University of Michigan. Monteith completed his education at Yale and
served for a number of years as a minister in St. Louis. Upon becoming
State Superintendent, he wrote in favor of Negro education a pamphlet
which he sent to each of the county superintendents. His annual
reports,[10] to which we shall refer later, show the interest and the
effort which this man put forth to develop the Negro schools of the
State.

The Negroes were not indifferen