The school funds did not always suffer proportionately, however.

In 1870, when the whites secured control in North Carolina, the expenditure for public schools in that State was $152,000.

In 1874, the school revenue was over $412,000, and the number of white pupils was almost the same as in 1860; in addition 55,000 negroes were receiving instruction, but the school term was only ten weeks.

The negro seems to have received in the first years of the new regime a fair share of the school money, but that share was not large.

The reaction from Reconstruction extravagance was long-continued, and perhaps has not disappeared today.
Though the South was unable properly to support one efficient system, it now attempted to maintain two, one for whites and the other for blacks.
Necessarily both systems were inadequate.