Before the last invasion of our State by Price, a few of us became deeply interested in the education of the colored children of our city. No public school was open to them. Although the negroes of St. Louis owned taxable property, assessed year by year at a valuation of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and had long paid annually no inconsiderable school tax, it had been used for the education of white children alone. This rank injustice, one of the many shameful wrongs of chattel slavery, led the colored people to establish in different parts of the city a few private schools for the education of their own children. By the flocking of contrabands into St. Louis the demand for colored schools had steadily grown more imperative. But these schools, founded and conducted by colored teachers, were of a very low grade. They were worthy of hearty commendation, as earnest efforts on the part of those who, though brought up in ignorance, desired better things for their children than they themselves had known. This ignorance yearning for knowledge, this stretching out of black hands toward the light, was an appeal too eloquent to be resisted. A goodly company of us determined to do what we could to lay the foundation for the future education of our colored population. It was already pretty clear that they were to be enfranchised citizens, and would need greater intelligence to enable them to discharge creditably their obligations to the community and the State.

We saw at a glance what they needed was better schools and more of them. Larger and more cleanly rooms, more and better elementary books, and above all more thoroughly trained teachers were absolutely necessary in order to secure results even moderately satisfactory. To accomplish this, two things were demanded, money and self-sacrificing workers. The first could not be obtained from the public treasury. While the law compelled thrifty blacks to pay a school tax, it forbade the use of a cent of it in educating black children. We and they had to bow before the majesty of the law. The only resort left us was private charity. But this did not fail us. The negro property holders not only cheerfully paid the school tax for the education of white children, but also generously contributed from their limited incomes to sustain the private schools for colored children. And loyal whites, who, from the beginning of the war, had nobly responded to a multitude of appeals for charity, by their bountiful gifts helped on this new educational enterprise, while a company of men and women came forward with alacrity to do the necessary work involved in this philanthropic project. They met with and counselled the colored school board; solicited and collected money; secured the donation of the necessary furnishings for the schoolrooms and the books and simple apparatus required; encouraged pupils to attend the schools and inspirited teachers when in their new and difficult work their hearts began to fail them.

I was chosen to examine the colored applicants for positions as teachers. In the months of September and October, I spent six half days in the work of examination. It was a difficult task. These aspirants for the responsible office of teacher knew accurately very little. The superintendent of our city schools furnished me with the questions to be asked. But these questions were framed for white teachers of larger knowledge and greater discipline and were quite unfit for my purpose; however, being required to use them, I did my best in Saul’s armor.

During the war the price of gold in New York was quoted in every daily paper. It was one dollar and forty cents or one dollar and seventy-five cents or two dollars and twenty-five cents, that is, it took so much in paper currency to buy one dollar in gold. One of the questions designated for these examinations was: “What is the leading industry of New York?” referring of course to the State of New York. It was a rather difficult question for any one to answer. I gave it to a bright-looking colored girl, as a part of her examination. Her answer was, “Buying and selling gold.”

Out of the fourteen that I examined, male and female, I found four that showed that they were tolerably well-prepared for their duties as primary teachers and they acquitted themselves very well in the schoolroom.

Our schools flourished. Most of the pupils learned rapidly. The number of them multiplied. Soon our room was insufficient. From time to time we added other schools, and succeeded with small means in doing a great, beneficent work.

We finally carried our case to the School Board of the city. We went with faint hearts. In a community accustomed to slave laws, which public opinion had heartily sustained, we were to ask the great boon of public schools for those who by legislative enactment had been long kept in ignorance. Moreover, the character of the men before whom we were to plead the cause of the negro made us hesitate. Most of them were what were then called Bourbon Democrats, who, it was declared, never learned anything nor forgot anything, and a majority of the Board were Roman Catholics. What could we expect men of that kind to do for the servile and despised race among us? We were ushered into their presence. With warm hearts we began to state our case. We criminated nobody. We spoke earnestly and tenderly for the wronged and neglected. We were wonderfully cheered when we saw that those whom we addressed were all eye and all ear. They intently looked us in the face, they seemed unwilling to lose a single word that fell from our lips. The injustice that we pointed out was so rank that all their hearts were touched. Without a dissenting voice they declared that the great wrong must be righted; that the children of the men who paid a school tax must share in its benefits.

But, just as we expected, they affirmed that they could do nothing for the colored children under the existing law; but unsolicited they pledged themselves to petition the next legislature for a law that would enable them to provide school buildings, books, apparatus, and teachers for the black children, and to support these schools, just as the schools for white children are maintained, by the public school funds. They were as good as their word. The legislature to which they appealed was mainly made up of men of radical, progressive views, and what was asked was enthusiastically granted. The school buildings for colored children were put up and all that could make these schools most highly efficient was liberally provided. The negro question for Missouri was solved in this high-minded, philanthropic way, and the solution was unstained by partisanship or demagogism; and in it we saw the grand fruition of our toil on behalf of a few private negro schools.