As a result there were many white people so shortsighted that they would starve their own children rather than feed the negro.
To all of these obstacles in human nature were added the defects of the tax system.

Almost invariably the tax was levied by the Legislature upon the State as a whole or upon the county, and the constitutions or the laws in some cases forbade the progressive smaller division to levy special taxes for any purpose.

Graded schools began, however, to appear in the incorporated towns which were not subject to the same tax limitations as the rural districts, and in time it became easier to levy supplementary local taxes by legislative act, judicial interpretation, or constitutional changes.
Gradually public sentiment in favor of schools grew stronger.

The legislatures raised the rate of taxation for school purposes, normal schools were established, log schoolhouses began to be replaced by frame or brick structures, uniform textbooks became the rule and not the exception, teachers' salaries were raised, and the percentage of attendance climbed upward, though there was still a remnant of the population which did not attend at all.

The school term was not proportionately extended, since a positive mania for small districts developed--a school at every man's door.