Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/401

 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH 387

went the uprooting of well-nigh all system of schools that had existed. The very fact of this revolution in industrial life laid, however, the foundation for the introduction of methods of thought and a system of schooling more in conformity with those that prevailed in the remainder of the United States.

We find that within ten years after the close of the war a provision for universal education was put into the revised con- stitution of every state. But, notwithstanding this provision, it must be borne in mind that the adequate equipping of a school system in the South has been a slow and painful process. The difficulties have arisen in two directions. Public opinion, still reflecting the earlier social life, has in the South been turned to no small extent against the educating of all children at the public expense.

It is by no means uncommon to find men of intelligence and influence who are out and out opposed to free public education for all the people.*

Of more immediate importance has been the financial diffi- culty. For a period of years in fact, until the revival of indus- try that arose in the eighties the South labored under a burden of debt, largely the result of the " carpet-bag rule," and a chaotic industrial and political life. This condition reduced to a mini- mum the expenditure for education.

The period was not, however, entirely effortless. Along with the attempt to reshape industrial and political institutions went some interest and work for the building up of a school system. From 1870 to 1876, the close of the period of reconstruction, there was an increase in the total expenditure for education from $10,385,464 to $12,033,865 in the former slave states, but the relative increase of population was so large that the expenditure per capita of school population actually decreased from $2.97 to $2.84 for white children.

In 1880 a movement was set on foot to obtain federal aid for schools. This move was specially directed in the interests of the South, as several of the southern states argued that the limit of

ROBERT FRAZER, " Virginia's Educational Outlook," Report of Fifth Confer- ence of the South, p. 35.