Page:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/251

Rh There is no doubt but that the thirst of the black man for knowledge—a thirst which has been too persistent and durable to be mere curiosity or whim—gave birth to the public free school system of the South. It was the question upon which the black voters and legislators insisted more than anything else and while it is possible to find some vestiges of free schools in some of the Southern States before the war yet a universal, well established system dates from the day that the black man got political power. Common school instruction in the South, in the modern sense of the term, was begun for Negroes by the Freedmen’s Bureau and missionary societies, and the State public school systems for all children were formed mainly by Negro Reconstruction governments.

The earlier state constitutions of Mississippi “from 1817 to 1864 contained a declaration that ‘Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.’ It was not, however, until 1868 that encouragement was given to any general system of public schools meant to embrace the whole youthful population.” The Constitution of 1868 makes it the duty of the legislature to establish “a uniform system of free public schools by taxation or other-