To many negro parents it seemed a matter of little moment to keep a child away from school one or two days a week to assist at home.

It must also be remembered that the negro tenant farmer is migratory in his habits and that he often moved in the middle of the short term.

Consequently the whole value of the term might easily be lost by the transfer.

It is not surprising that the final product of such unstable educational conditions was not impressive.
The idea of the first educational missionaries to the negroes of the South was to turn them into white men as soon as possible by bringing them into contact with the traditional culture of the whites through the study of Latin, Greek, mathematics, and sometimes Hebrew, especially in the case of students for the ministry.

The attempt was made to take the negro, fresh from slavery and with no cultural background, through the course generally pursued by whites.