From the Richmond Dispatch, 7/16/1867, p. 1, c. 5

COLORED SCHOOLS IN RICHMOND – INTERESTING STATISTICS. – These schools having closed for the season we are enabled to give some particulars of the work which has been done among this portion of the people of Virginia, presenting some facts which will no doubt interest our readers. A few months since we published the whole number of colored scholars under education in the State, giving the number for each county and city, and the whole expense of their tuition. This table showed that there were 207 schools, 266 teachers, and 16,227 scholars in Virginia, and that the whole amount paid for rent of houses, salaries of teachers, and other incidental expenses, was $8,000 per month. Below we give a detailed statement of each separate school in this city, number of teachers, number of scholars, and by whom supported. It will be seen that there are 43 teachers, and about 3,000 scholars in Richmond.

The city is divided into four districts. The first embraces that portion of the city lying west of Third street, including Oregon Hill and Sidney.

There are two schools in this district – one at Dill’s bakery, with seven teachers, which has taught an average of 496 scholars, 262 of whom were male, and 234 female. These scholars have been taught, as were most of the others, reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and the history of the United States. This school was supported by an association in Boston.

The other school of this district was located at Ebenezer church, and employed three teachers, who taught 208 scholars – 88 males and 120 females. Its expenses were paid by the Home Missionary Society of New York.

District No. 2 includes that portion of the city lying east of Third to Tenth street, and also has two schools. The first is on Navy Hill, and has 481 scholars, 269 of whom are males and 212 females. Six teachers are employed, and are supported by a New York “Association for the Benefit of Freedmen.” The school at St. Phillips church, also in this district, has 150 male and female scholars under the supervision of four teachers. The Protestant Episcopal Church of New York sustain this school.

District No. 3 extends eastwardly from Tenth to Twenty-third streets, and running out into the northern suburbs along the line of the Mechanicsville turnpike. The school at the First African church, in this district, numbers 340 scholars, 150 of whom are males and 190 females. There are here two principal teachers, with five assistants. There is also a high school in this district, near the corner of Leigh and Twelfth streets, at which there were 100 scholars of both sexes, taught by two teachers and one assistant. The schools in this district are sustained by the Baptist Home Mission Society of New York.

District No. 4 embraces all that portion of the city and its suburbs lying east of Twenty-third street, and the schools carried on in it are sustained by the Society of Friends in New York.

There are three large schools in this district; one at old Wesley chapel, Union Hill; one at Chimborazo, and the other in Rocketts, with an average of about 150 scholars. Rev. Scott Gwathmey, local preacher at Chimborazo, has a normal high school in that village, at which colored scholars are fitted for teachers. A colored man has also a pay school at Rocketts, and we should judge from the number of his scholars is doing very well. There is one school in Manchester which has forty-five regular scholars and one teacher.

The whole aggregate expenses of these various schools is $2,116 per month.

The statistics given above do not represent the regular but the average attendance of scholars. Many of them are very remiss in their attendance, staying away upon the slightest pretext. It is evident that they do not as yet realize the importance of education.

Colored teachers are starting pay schools of their own in several localities, charging from one to two dollars per month tuition fees. Several of them obtained quite a large number of scholars during the past year. There were about 300 colored children taught in this way during the past scholastic year. The average attendance in all the colored school in this city during the year was a little over 3,000.

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