Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/41

Rh In evening schools, very soon after our friend Vincent Colyer left the field, and in connection with other chaplains, particularly Messrs. Woodworth of the 27th, Stone of the 45th, and Hall of the 44th, Massachusetts Regiments, and especially with Rev. James Means, chaplain of the Foster Hospital, my lamented predecessor in this office, whose love and zeal were so unquenchable, and whose beautiful life was laid down a willing sacrifice to save a suffering people, I have acted, consulted, and labored in this department during a period of more than three years. When called to a special charge of this business by Gen. Foster, my first inquiries and correspondence had reference to the opening of day schools for the Freedmen, to be taught by cultured females from the North. The first schools so established were opened in New Berne, on the 23d day of July, 1863, in two of the colored churches. One was taught by Miss Betsey L. Canedy, assisted by Miss Alice Ropes, and the other by Miss Mary A. Burnap, and Miss Susan A. Hosmer, all from the State of Massachusetts. It is therefore about seventeen months since the first day school for colored children was opened within the District of North Carolina. On the 1st of January, 1864, the number of different pupils in all the schools was 1,500. From that date until July there was a steady increase in the attendance from month to month, until the aggregate reached nearly 3,000. Sixty-six different teachers, mostly from the North, have been commissioned and have labored in this field. The schools were closed on the 23d of July, and owing to the prevalence of yellow fever but few of the teachers returned from their vacation before the first of December. We now have in the District, nineteen day schools fully attended and most successfully taught. Thirty-six different teachers are employed, and, with a single exception, hold two sessions each day. In some of the schools two, three, and even four teachers are engaged. They bring to their work a great amount of enthusiasm and ability, laboring incessantly in school hours to improve the minds, and out of school hours to clothe the bodies of their pupils. In addition to the day schools we have eight flourishing evening schools. These constitute one of the most interesting features of the work of education, embracing as they do only adults, or