oviding suitable
buildings, hiring teachers, and maintaining the school shall be paid
out of the appropriate funds of the district. If the average daily
attendance for any month falls below eight, the school can be closed
for a period not to exceed six months. If there are adjoining
districts in either or both of which there are less than twenty-five
Negro children of school age, a joint Negro school may be established
in either of the districts. The expense of maintaining the school is
borne by the districts which established it in proportion to the
number of Negro children enumerated in each. The control of the school
is vested in the board of directors of the district in which the
school is located.

When the number of Negro children residing in a district is less than
fifteen as shown by the last enumeration, these children have the
right of attending any school for Negro children in the county for the
same length of time as school is maintained in their own district.
Their tuition is paid by the district in which they reside. When the
directors of a district neglect to establish a Negro school according
to the law, the district is deprived of any part of the State school
funds for that year.

From 1885 to 1890 the Negro schools of Missouri steadily grew. In
1890, 70.8 per cent of the school population[94] was enrolled in the
schools. This marked the high water mark in the per cent of
enrollment. From this date to 1900 the per cent of the school
population enrolled in the public school decreased. In 1899 only 55.05
per cent of the school population was enrolled in the public schools.
The school population, however, increased from 44,214 in 1885 to
54,600 in 1899. In 1900 there were 472 Negro schools with 769 school
rooms with 804 Negro teachers employed. The Negroes[95] of the State
received about $475,000 as their share of the State school fund,
between a third and a half of the money appropriated for the support
of their schools coming from the white tax payers. As the result of
this good school system, Missouri stood last among the sixteen
ex-slave States in illiteracy in 1890.

Since 1900 the rural Negro population has been decreasing and city
population has been steadily increasing. Lured by the prospect of
better wages, shorter hours, and better educational advantages for his
family, the rural Negro has migrated just as his white brother[96] has
to the large cities. The Negro population of the small towns