The teachers were, for the most part, supported by the
Northwest Freedmen's Commission, the Friend's Society,
the United Brethren, the American Baptist Home Mission-
ary Society, the National Freedmen's Relief Association, the
American Missionary Association, and the Reformed Pres-
byterian Board.

The bureau officials reported, in 1867, that Vicksburg had
a negro normal school attended by 450 pupils, while the
common schools of the city had an enrollment of 1700. In
1869, they reported that 81 negro schools, attended by 4344
pupils, were in operation in the state with 105 teachers, 40
of whom were colored.

The reconstruction convention, many of whose members
were freedmen or Northern white men, was thoroughly im-
bued with the idea of education for the negro race. The
constitution which they adopted made it the duty of the
legislature to encourage by all suitable means the promotion
of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improve-
ment by establishing a uniform system of public schools for
all children between the ages of five and twenty-one years.
Constitutional provision was made for a permanent school
fund, and the legislature was empowered to levy a poll tax
not exceeding $2 per capita. ¹

Governor Alcorn in his inaugural announced emphatically
that the government during his term would devote a large
part of its energies and resources to the establishment of a
system of common schools for the "poor white and colored
children of the state who had been permitted in the past to
grow up like wild flowers." ² Some weeks later, he sent in
a special message reminding the legislature of the constitu-
tional obligation resting upon them in this matter, and urged
immediate action upon the subject. ³ On the Fourth of July,
the legislature passed an elaborate act "to regulate the sup-

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