September  17,  i8t>i,  this  association  established  for  the
contrabands  about  Fortress  Monroe  the  first  day  school, —
the  origin  of  the  useful  Hampton  Institute  and  in  sight,  as
was  pointed  out,  of  where  the  first  slave  ship  landed  in
America.  With  this  association,  as  not  infrequent  in  church
work  generally,  education  and  religious  teaching  went  hand
in  hand.  It  had  teachers,  often  cultivated  northern  women,
at  Norfolk,  Newbern,  Roanoke  Island,  Beaufort,  Hilton
Head  and  other  places,  and  gradually  extended  its  activity
into  all  the  southern  States.  In  1865  a  fund  of  two  hun
dred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  was  raised  by  the  Congrega
tional  ists  for  work  among  the  freedmen  and  the  association
was  declared  the  organ  to  carry  it  on.  Its  means  increased
from  year  to  year,  and  its  influence  became  widespread,  so
that  while  in  1865  its  teachers  wrere  three  hundred  and
twrenty,  by  1870  they  numbered  five  hundred  and  thirty-
three.  It  founded  higher  institutions  of  learning  like  Fiske
University  in  Tennessee,  Talladega  in  Alabama,  Tougaloo
University  in  Mississippi,  Straight  University  in  Louisiana,
Tillotson  College  in  Texas,  and  Piedmont  College  in
Georgia,  besides  graded  common  and  normal  schools
throughout  the  South.  Following  up  the  policy  of  the
Federal  government  in  granting  bodies  of  land  for  agricul
tural  and  mechanical  schools,  Talladega  College  wras  in
1867  the  first  school  to  introduce  industrial  training  into  its
regular  course,  and  Hampton  Institute  followed  the  next
year.  Besides  its  own  schools,  the  American  Missionary  As
sociation  did  much  in  the  way  of  providing  teachers  for  the
schools  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  and  later  for  the  public
schools  of  Reconstruction  days.  The  predominant  feature
of  this  education,  however,  was  classical.  Negroes,  whose
future  would  probably  be  limited  to  manual  labor,  attempted
higher  mathematics,  Latin  and  Greek,  with  the  frequent
result  of  spoiling  them  for  what  they  could  do  without  fitting
them  for  anything  else.
