Viewing page 176 of 247

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

176

The people of the north, country or city, could get along without a system very much better than these poor people. The colored people are so ignorant and childish that the system is indispensable to them. You may not know it at the distance of New York, but every friend, unprejudiced, who lives among them cannot but feel it most forcibly. Norfolk furnishes a good illustration. In the year 1864-5 these[[or three?]] associations cultivated that field each having from 10 to 12 teachers all working under an exact district system and all the teachers having full employment. In the year '65-6 the same associations had 20 teachers in the aggregate without any district system, and the  schools were not all of them if [[?]] full. There was ample provision for every scholar that wished to attend school. The teachers were experienced, capable, faithful. But parents and children became fickle and capricious; discipline necessarily declined. Children came to each school from all parts of the city, and went to the teacher who would give them most clothes &c

At this time, when there was already a surplus of able teachers, Mr. Willing opened his school with ample presents to the scholars, and it was filled